Turrican Anthology Vol. I Review

The first volume of the Turrican Anthology features early entries in the Turrican series of games. It first started its life on the Amiga with two titles, with later instalments on the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive (Genesis). This Anthology collects the first three titles together, a director’s cut for Super Turrican, then adds a Mega Turrican Score Attack based on a stage from the Mega Drive release. The Turrican games differed from other run-and-gun games being released at the time. Instead of having only linear levels for players to play through, they were more similar to the Metroid series, where you could explore huge environments looking for power-ups, weapons, gemstones, and finally, the exit. You play as a soldier in the United Freedom Forces who travels to distant planets to protect innocent citizens from the evil beings trying to take them over. Using your armoured suit, called the Turrican, you fight the alien machines who are trying to take over that world. 

The Turrican suit has useful abilities you can use while fighting the enemy. You can transform into a blade-like ball that can roll around and drop bombs to hurt the machines. This is also incredibly useful to dodge attacks and enemies coming at you. Like other games where you take on a ball form at high speed, it is tricky to stay on the platforms and not roll right off. The suit can be outfitted with various sci-fi-like weapons such as a laser gun that you can use at any time, spread shots, fireballs, and homing missiles. I especially enjoy the item that makes all of your shots bounce off any walls it hits, the amount of crazy ammunition bouncing all over the place. It’s pretty hard for enemies to come at you if they have to get past all of this! If you start to feel overwhelmed with the number of enemies on the screen you can use a bomb to clear it and get rid of everyone. The nice thing is once you defeat an enemy he won’t appear again as soon as you walk off the screen. This makes it easier to figure out if you are in an area that you have explored before based on if there is anyone around or if there are any gems. You can look at a level map, to get a quick look at how the level is set up because there is no in-game map, so clues like this definitely help.

The Turrican series's graphics still look good; even the older titles on the Amiga and Commodore 64 have aged quite well. Super Turrican looks especially nice, and exactly how I remember it being on the Super Nintendo. The soundtrack for all the games in this collection is quite good. It is super catchy, though it sounds a bit too happy, considering you are taking down hordes of enemies trying to take over the planet. The sound effects for all the different weapons you use are really well done and unique, depending on the type that you have collected. 

There are options in the game to tweak, including HUDs, transparency gradients, the 50hz refresh rates, and even video adjustments to make the presentation exactly how you want. You can even change how the screen is centred and how much you can see in front of your character and behind. I like seeing further in front of me to avoid having to do blind jumps and spot enemies that are going to attack me. I felt that Super Turrican was bad for not showing you enough of what was ahead, so I appreciate being able to change that. In this same setting, you can change some of the layers that are displayed on the screen; not sure why you would want to turn the background off, but you definitely can. There is an option for a map, but in every game, it is greyed out, so you can’t select it. I would have loved having the option for a map while I was playing!

The Turrican Anthology allows you to change your controls, select what difficulty you will play on, and gives you the power to rewind when you get hit by an enemy or die. It’s also useful for when I accidentally roll off a platform and fall far to the level below. Unfortunately, a map isn’t included in any of these games right from the beginning, so it was handy to have the rewind function. The controls for the titles feel quite good, perfect for running and gunning down as many enemies as you can find. The instruction manual for each game is available to view if you want to see more information on each of the moves. When you play the Mega Turrican Score Attack, you will find that you have the ability to use a grappling hook to traverse the level. It was definitely handy for getting across large gaps or up to high platforms. If you manage to complete any of the titles, you will unlock the ability to use the cheats that were available to use in the original games. Though I wish you could use them while you are playing to help you out!

If you have played any of the Turrican titles on the Turrican Anthology Volume 1 collection, you will be pleased to find it here, along with some of the other titles in the series. With the ability to tweak a few things like how much of the screen you can view along with the rewinding feature, I found the games to be a little less difficult. Though you will still have to do a lot of exploration to find the exit in each level. Every once in a while, a little flag pointing towards the exit will appear so you at least know you are headed in the right direction. After having played both the available Turrican Anthology volumes, I personally enjoy the second more, but this is still a collection of some cool Metroid-like run-and-gun action games!