Tiger Road (TG16) review

[A Black Falcon]

Tiger Road is a 1987 Capcom arcade game ported by Victor to the TG16 in 1990. I got the game less than a week ago, and beat it yesterday. That didn’t take too long… The game is one of the only platformers on HuCard on the Turbografx with backup memory save support, if you have a TurboBooster Plus or TurboGrafx CD drive (or any variety of Duo), which is awesome.

In the game, you play as a monk warrior fighting your way across what I assume is China, trying to defeat the evil king who has kidnapped the children. You fight all kinds of Chinese monters like Chinese zombies and dragons, and Japanese ones as well like Ninjas. There are three different weapons, all with two upgrade levels, and a fourth you can unlock later in the game. It’s frustrating and hard, but I like it. The game gets a lot of mediocre to poor reviews, but really, I think that it’s a pretty good game. I must admit, though, I made use of the backup save feature for saving and infinite continues. I don’t know that I’d ever beat this game “legit”, with no saving and with the 5 continue limit you have if you’re not using a system with saving, but, well, the option for saving and infinite continues is there, with that addon hardware, and I have a Turbo CD, so I’m definitely going to make use of it! It continues you from the stage section you’re at, so you never have to replay a stage part that you’ve beaten unless you want to challenge yourself with the non-saving version of the game and really want to memorize everything, though with how the enemies spawn infinitely, this isn’t a 100% memorizer like R-Type or Jim Power, you will have to use luck and skill as well as memorization to finish this game.

I mean, Tiger Road is HARD. It’s as hard as you’d expect for a Capcom arcade game from that era, considering that they also made games like Ghosts & Goblins. Some things feel Ninja Gaiden-esque, except this game is older. It’s got knockback, which always seems to hit you into a pit, infinitely spawning enemies driving you crazy, enemies attacking from all directions, frustrating bosses which can absorb a large number of hits, and more… it’s a tough game. Fun, but tough.

The game has good graphics for a midlife TG16 HuCard game, with the bright, vivid colors you expect from games on the system. I like the music as well; it is repetitive, and the sound effects are mediocre at best, but the music works well and isn’t too bad. It’s fittingly Chinese in style and fits the game’s atmosphere well. There are also bonus minigames between levels, which are simple but a nice diversion (the ‘defeat the monks’ one particularly, the other minigame is kind of easy to beat with the turbo switch on, and in this game turbo will probably be on on the attack button the whole time you’re playing). Even though he is on a quest, our hero is still in training to the Ancient Master.

The weapons are a mace, a spear, and an axe. The axe is the default weapon, but you collect the others via red powerup boxes. Other powerup boxes are yellow, but those won’t contain weapons. (On that note, don’t pick up the yellow “health” powerups! They actually cause you to lose health. Only grab the blue or red ones.) Another powerup upgrades the power of your weapon, and if you succeed at enough end-of-level minigames, the Anicent Master will give you a new, more powerful weapon, the tiger shot. You’ll lose this once your health gets too low (until you die and come back, or get a health powerup), but still, it’s a great weapon, and a strong incentive to beat the minigames.

There are only five levels, but each is broken up into many parts, and each level is longer than the last. The last level is pretty long and has multiple bosses, including some returning from the earlier levels. Visuals and enemies do repeat, but there’s enough variety of environments and enemies to keep the game interesting, I think, and it all looks pretty nice. Bosses are a bit annoying though, as I said; each has as many hit points as you do, except you take a lot of damage when hit, while they usually take just one HP per hit, so you will need to hit them many times before they’ll die, while avoiding taking much damage. The boss fights can get a little long, and the first few are easy too — not a good combination. Still, the later bosses provide a definite challenge.

Overall, it’s a good game. It is fun and challenging and kept me coming back until I finished it, despite great frustration in a few of the later areas. It’s a simple game, like most TG16 HuCard platformers, and it deserves its reputation for high difficulty, but it is good overall, particularly for anyone with a system that can save. The save feature is really awesome to have, in my opinion. I really do prefer to be able to save in games, and far too many 16-bit platformers not on the SNES didn’t have saving… Oh, and it doesn’t just save your progress (it autosaves at the Game Over screen, so wait for that if you want to save), but it saves your top four high scores, too! Pretty cool, high score save is VERY rare on the TG16.

I give it a 80% or so, maybe a little more or less. It’s good, but not great; the game is a little short, and replay value is somewhat limited, unless you want to try to play it with only five continues and no save. Also while the graphics are good they probably could have been even better, and the sound effects definitely are a little weak. Also, of course, while it is fun, the game also gets very frustrating at times. However, I do like the game, and it was worth getting.

Video of the game, for anyone who doesn't know it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZhkUceV75k

[kgenthe]

Great review, I enjoyed reading it!

[Melf]

I really liked this game a lot. It was one of those titles that really screamed "TurboGrafx!" to me. I loved the save feature too, as it was ahead of its time for consoles.

[tomaitheous]

Did you review the actual TG16 version or the PCE version? I've read that they dumb-downed the TG16 localization to make it easier, from the Japanese hucard version. I haven't really played it, save for a few minutes. I was a big fan of the arcade game as a kid and surprised that I never really gave this version a run through. Little off topic, but I had always wished that a Black Tiger would have gotten a release on a home system too (another favorite of mine around the same time). The closest thing was the parody game/version on PCE (Son Son 2) - which I didn't know about BITD.

[A Black Falcon]

I've done reviews/review threads on and off over the years, I have a few posted on GameFAQs, but for the last few years I've mostly just been posting them in NeoGAF threads, and one other forum too... it gets a little boring posting the same thread over and over though which is why I guess I never posted any of them here. Now that I posted this one though, maybe I should post more of the old ones too (this was new), or at least links to them. I don't know. It's always nice getting responses and stuff, and different forums have different people at them.

The only Genesis ones I've done are Crack Down and mention of the Genesis Turrican games in a Turrican series thread I did, though. And this is my first TG16 review, though I've had the system for a while. I keep telling myself I should write reviews more often, but then often months (or sometimes more) go by between attempts... oh well.

I do prefer to only review something that I've beaten, which restricts things for sure; I haven't finished the vast majority of the games I own of course (considering that I own 1500 games now...). But still I'm sure there are plenty of games I've finished I could write something about, so yeah.

Did you review the actual TG16 version or the PCE version? I've read that they dumb-downed the TG16 localization to make it easier, from the Japanese hucard version. I haven't really played it, save for a few minutes. I was a big fan of the arcade game as a kid and surprised that I never really gave this version a run through. Little off topic, but I had always wished that a Black Tiger would have gotten a release on a home system too (another favorite of mine around the same time). The closest thing was the parody game/version on PCE (Son Son 2) - which I didn't know about BITD.

TG16, on the actual system, with a TG16 CD base unit attached for AV out and the saving I mentioned.

I didn't know they made it easier. I just tried the Japanese rom though (to early in level 2), and yeah, it might be a little harder. It's not a massive difference, but there might be a few more enemies in the levels, and I think the first boss has a few more attacks than in the US version; he shot at me once and jumped a time or two, things I don't remember seeing in the US. The US version is still tough, though, so if there really is a difference I don't think it's THAT huge. I don't mind that it was changed, the US version is plenty challenging really.

I really liked this game a lot. It was one of those titles that really screamed "TurboGrafx!" to me. I loved the save feature too, as it was ahead of its time for consoles.

Yeah, in 1990 virtually no platformers had saving... and really apart from Nintendo, many still didn't until into the 5th generation, though passwords did gradually become more common. In this case though it is funny that you have infinite continues and saving with a system with backup save, but limited continues and no saving (not even passwords) for anyone else... pretty cruel.

But yeah, it's a fun game.

[Joe Redifer]

What I do at the-magicbox.com is have a dedicated User Review forum. Any forum member is free to create their own thread and review whatever they want in that thread (games, movies, whatever).

Tiger Road is a pretty cool Turbo game. I don't own it yet and it is one I need to pick up. But it's not a game you often think about. When I do think about it, it's like "Oh yeah, I need to add that to my library!" And then I forget again.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

I just got this game (jap version) in the mail today. Got it for pretty cheap on Ebay. Tough as balls but pretty fun in a challenging way. The gill-man looking first boss was a lot easier than I thought he would be considering how hard the levels were. The spear chuckers that look like Frankenstein gave me some trouble at first. I kept trying to duck and got hit a lot. I made it to level 2 and I'm going to take a break and I will probably play it again later today. Anyway good game, cool music & graphics etc.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Hey what am I supposed to do in the bonus round? There is an old man and a candle and a timer counts down from 30, but I can't jump or move, only swing my sword but it doesn't hit anything. I can't read the instructions they are in Japanese.