I'll admit it, when you don't know nothin' 'bout nothin' when it comes to the TurboGrafx-CD, it's hard to select a list of games you really need to check out. I'm thankful for the few suggestions offered so far; though it's easy enough to pick what look like winners from the 45 CD games released in the US (Protip: probably best to avoid the ports and licensed games), the 417 PCE-CDROM² games are a bit more of a jungle. My point being, is that I'll be checking out a lot of games I'm only tangentially aware of, if at all.
Lords of Thunder ("Winds of Thunder" in Japan) is not one of those games. I mentioned the CD format's capacity for improved music via redbook audio, and Lords of Thunder has one of the greatest VGM soundtracks I've ever heard. I hear it's sort of legendary how metal this game is. I'll be sure to link to a few tracks at the end, like before.
As for the game itself, it's one of those horizontal shoot 'em ups that came at a time when developers were introducing to the genre what I call "cinematic uncertainty", a phrase I used to describe Donkey Kong Country Returns' difficulty. What this means is that weird, unexpected and enormous shit will just appear for dramatic reasons and completely wreck you if you aren't able to anticipate it. While stages become a lot more exciting, they also depend far more heavily on memorization before you're able to conquer them reliably. If a random gigantic dragon appears out of nowhere, you need to know that the guy is coming and prepare accordingly, perhaps by hovering around the small part of the screen that its colossal body doesn't take up and jamming on that fire button, dropping a few bombs too for good measure. The visuals and music together make Lords of Thunder something of an intense experience, but it's clear I'll need to replay stages several times before I fully get into the swing of things. There's more, of course, but I'll save that for the screenshots themselves.
Instead, let me just ask you this: Are you ready to rock?
Lords of Guitar Solos
Lords of Thunder is amazing, but at the same time requires a level of dedication I'm not quite prepared to lend to a single item in a daily series. I did get to the boss of that first stage though, so I bet I could beat him with enough perseverance and caution. Caution isn't really the sort of adjective that suits Lords of Thunder, though, as you'll come to understand once you listen to its music below.
While I do have a few more shoot 'em ups on the docket (there's so dang many, you can't swing an Option around without hitting one), they're all a little less serious than Lords of Thunder. And considerably less metal.
Oh shit! I want to play this game right this second! I was vaguely aware of this game. I'd seen someone playing the Mega CD version of it though. That is some of the finest music I have ever heard in a game... And a cover by Ghost in the Shell's Masamune Shirow! Did he do the in game art also? God damn, this might be one of the coolest games ever.
I see it was made by Red. They've made a bunch of really good action games, especially on the PS2 ( Gungrave, Bujingai) It's a shame they seem to be pumping out fossil fighters games for kids on the DS/3DS these days... METALLLL!
Man, I really need to find me a TurboGrafx, let alone the CD. I have heard how great this game is multiple times, but I am really not very good at these shooters.
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