| When Compile of Japan folded in 2001, few people on this earth wept more than I. Although Compile was primarily known for their Puyo Puyo puzzle games, they've also created some of the damn finest shooters in existence. Their legacy lives back to the MSX home computers days of the mid-80s, their most fruitious period, up until Zanac X Zanac for the Playstation, their swan song. With the exception of Spriggan Mark 2, all of Compile's shooters have been overhead. And they move FAST. The terrain is always very open, so you instead concentrate on dealing with dodging enemy bullets rather than navigating obstacles. Because of this, sometimes the levels can feel a bit long and repetitive - especially on the older games, when they don't change the graphics very much - but the action is compelling enough to keep it from getting old.
 The fun, however, comes with experimenting with all of the different weapons you have and seeing just how powerful they can get. Practically every single kind of shooter archetype - lasers, homing missiles, options, wave cannons - can be found in some form or another, as well as a defensive weapon or two. There's rarely a time when you can ever have the wrong or even BAD weapon. There's always a variety to suit your style of play. Most of these games encourage you to switch weapons often just to mix things up every once in awhile. Since the levels are usually just long empty stretches of space, usually with little background variation, they act mostly as a playground for you to mess around with the goodies the game entreats you with. Collecting power-ups is actually one of the best strategies in a Compile game - every time you pick up something, you're granted a split second in invulnerability, which is sometimes necessary to wade through all of the projectiles that are tossed at you. Another distinctive aspect of Compile games are the multi-turreted bosses. Though you'll find a fair share of gigantic robots, many battles are based around huge, screen filling bases armed to the teeth with rapidly firing eyes that blink open and closed. So you'll be attempting to disable each boss piece by piece while still dodging all of the bullets that are thrown at you. There's a certain joy in dismantling these things until it's almost defenseless.
 MUSHA
What follows are a listing of a majority of Compile shooters - some minor things (like their really old games or their obscure ports) have been left out, and there's a few tangents into their RPG series Golvellius, but each and every one of these games rocks, and they're well worth giving a go.
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 Zanac EX
Zanac
The Guardian Legend
Blazing Lazers
Spriggan
Robo Aleste
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American NES Cover |
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Zanac is, quite simply, one of the best shooters you'll find on the NES.
You see, Zanac eschews the usual wave-after-wave of enemy patterns. Instead,
Zanac has an artificial intelligence that throws different kinds of bad guys
at you, depending on what weapon you're wielding. The result is one
of the most innovative brand of shooters out there, as it's always forcing you to adapt
to different situations. Unfortunately, only Zanac, the original Aleste games (and Power Strike) and
Zanac X Zanac use this system. Zanac has an extremely visually repetitive look, given
that this is one of the earlier NES titles, but the AI keeps every game at least somewhat fresh, so it's
still an amazing
challenge. It's also quite long - there are more than twelve stages. One of the most amusing bits about the NES Zanac was the terribly translated manual, including a convoluted introduction story. First it was probably a tiny dot. A few thousand years later, it grew gigantic enough to cover the whole universe. The system created by an organic intelligence body a long time agp was still active even after the organic intelligence body perished. The system had a purpose: giving wisdom to those who opened the icon properly, and giving punishment of ruin to those who opened it improperly. One day, someone opened the icon improperly. The system started operation and startted attacking them. Then, they opened it properly. The icon ordered the system to suspend the attack. The system however ignored this order and became a slaughter device. The human beings who opened the icon fell into crisis. The attack from the system overwhelmed the offensive power of the human beings. When they were about to perish, there was one hope - the system is basically a strategic machine and is equipped for fighting against a multitude. If a single object confronts the system by itself, the system might not be able to cope with it effectively. Like many Compile shooters, Zanac originated on the MSX home computer. It had the same basic gameplay as the NES game, but given that it's an earlier title, the scrolling graphics are unfortunately very choppy. The right side of the screen is also taken up by a status bar.
 To take advantage of the superior power of the MSX2, Compile released Zanac EX, a remake of the original. For all intents and purposes, it's almost exactly the same as the NES game, although the graphics are a bit different.
Music
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 Zanac NES
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MSX Cover |
MSX Aleste |
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Aleste is more or less the sequel to Zanac, as it features the same AI generated enemy waves and
weapon system. It did, however, start a whole new plot - evil plant creatures were taking over the
planet, so you fight against monstrous vines and other types of twisted vegetation. The scrolling is
also much improved over the choppiness of the original Zanac MSX.
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 Aleste MSX |
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MSX Cover |
Aleste 2 MSX
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Aleste 2 MSX
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Aleste 2 for the MSX gives the original a nice graphical upgrade, while also letting you pick from an
arsenal of weapons at the beginning of the game. In addition to a bunch of neat speech samples, this
also marks the introduction of the reoccurring series heroine Ellinor.
Music
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 Aleste 2 MSX
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Aleste Gaiden |
Aleste Gaiden
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Aleste Gaiden
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Aleste Gaiden is where the series first ditches the spaceships in favor of Japanese flavored robotic
suits. Taking place in a post-apocalyptic world (Statue of Liberty heads mark the landscape of the
first level), Aleste Gaiden is completely different from the others because you can't fly - instead,
you're on the ground and have to jump over pits and assorted obstacles. Unfortunately, the weapon
system has been significantly downgraded - you only have three different weapons that are powered
up individually. Dying also sends you back to a checkpoint. An interesting change to pace, but not
for the better.
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 Aleste Gaiden |
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European Cover |
American Cover |
Power Strike
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For the most part, this is a port of the original MSX Aleste, although it's sadly missing all of the
story scenes.
The gameplay and most of the graphics are the same, although some of the levels are different. This
time, however,
the game practically goes overboard on tossing enemies at you, making it even more difficult than
before - probably one
of the hardest of all the shooters listed here. How hard? I tried playing the first thirty seconds of
stage 1 without firing in order
to record the music. Doing this successfully took about twenty tries. The Sega Master System
version was originally released only through mail-order in America - this version has a black and
white cover. However, it was released in elsewhere with a full cover color.
Music
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 Power Strike
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Japanese MSX Cover |
Another one of Compile's earlier shoot-em-ups, Guardic is an interesting little game where you fight
a single screen of enemies, then move onto the next. At the beginning of the game, you're allocated a
certain number of points, which you can use to add various powers to your ship. However, you need
to re-equip your ship after every screen, so you have to be really conservative so you don't use up all
of your energy. It's a neat concept, at the very least, although the rest of the game really isn't any
more complicated than Galaga or any really old shooter. As a result, it hasn't exactly aged as well as
Compile's other games, and it's really very hard. However, years later they created a pseudo-sequel - Guardic Gaiden, the game that became known as The Guardian Legend when it was released outside of Japan.
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 Guardic
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Guardian Legend/Guardic Gaiden - Nintendo Entertainment System (1988)
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European Cover |
Japanese Cover
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Guardian Legend
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In one of the most brilliant cross-pollination of genres ever, Compile fused their gift at making
awesome overhead shooters and
mixed it together with a Zelda-like action/adventure. You explore the surface of the abandoned
planet Naju finding
power-ups, and the dungeons are actually the shooting segments, where you face off against all
kinds of demonic
aquatic life. There's tons of weapons to find that can be used
in both modes, though much of time you spend finding chips (to use your special weapons) and
increasing your score (to
lengthen your life gauge.) You also have to balance the use of your special weapons, as the more
you use them, the
weaker your main gun becomes. It can get rather difficult, since getting into a boss battle without the
proper equipment
usually results in a pitiful and quick death, but once you master it, you'll find one of the most
innovative games on the
system. Just make sure to write down those sickening long passwords correctly. If you're not into the
whole adventure thing, you can ever play the game through straight as a shooter -
just input TGL as your password to play the game as a straight shooter.
 The American box art was quite tragic - just a pair of ominous, vaguely reptilian eyes peering over a landscape. Not terrible, but nothing to do with the game. The slightly Metropolis-esque European cover was at least closer to what the game was supposed to be.
Music
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 Guardian Legend
Guardian Legend
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BABE ALERT: Alyssa the Guardian I think I speak for every member of the male gender when I say every guy wants a chick that can transform into a badass spaceship. And screw that prude Samus - Alyssa from The Guardian Legend struts around in a bikini throughout the entire game.
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Randar/Lander:
Known by various different translation, Randar is this smiling blue thing with huge eyes. He's pretty
much Compile's mascot, and appears in nearly every title. He heals you in Golvellius, sells you
things in The Guardian Legend, and acts as nifty power-ups in many of the shooter titles. He even
starred in a few small little RPGs.
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 Randar's Great Adventure for the MSX
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American Cover |
Japanese Cover |
Gun*Nac
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One of the later NES games, Compile shown it had practically mastered the system's CPU, as it
offered a blazingly fast
game that also looked great. Showing that Compile's not afraid to get a little bit silly with its games,
Gun*Nac has you fighting evil robot rabbits and attacking carrots. You only have one main weapon,
but there's
a variety of multi-directional guns and flameshots, as well as an assortment of bombs to choose
from. There's also a shop inbetween levels that lets you arm yourself the way you want, based on
how much money you collected throughout the level.
Music
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 Gun*Nac
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 Gun*Nac
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Much like the American myth that the moon is made of cheese, the Japanese have a folk tale that on the moon is a rabbit pounding rice with a mallet. This association of rabbits with outer space is why you fight evil bunnies, as illustrated on the left. Even wackier is the bizarre shopkeeper, who seems to be running a combination fast food/heavy armaments joint.
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 Gun*Nac
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Power Strike 2 (Europe) - Sega Master System (1993)
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European SMS Cover |
Power Strike 2 SMS
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Power Strike 2 SMS
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Power Strike 2 takes place an alternate past, mixing 1930s aircraft with the usual futuristic stuff.
You play a bounty
hunter who tracks down pirates. Other than the change in graphical style, it's solid shooter fare, and not quite as stupidly difficult as the original SMS Power Strike. Most of the multi-turreted bosses of the Aleste games have also been replaced with the traditional "huge battleship" type of enemy. An
interesting
addition is an "afterburst" weapon - if you fire continuously for a few seconds then let go of the
trigger, you'll let
off a small barrage of a very powerful wave weapon.
This appears to only have been released in Europe and Australia - no trace of a Japanese version
exists.
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 Power Strike 2 SMS
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Japanese Game Gear Cover |
GG Aleste |
GG Aleste
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Still another solid Aleste game, completely new, this time in portable form. Gameplay-wise, there's nothing that really stands out as unique compared to the other titles. This one also features
Ellinor once again. This one was unfortunately only released in Japan.
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 GG Aleste
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Game Gear Cover
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Power Strike 2 Game Gear
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Power Strike 2 Game Gear
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This is actually an entirely different game from Power Strike 2 on the SMS, using the similar outer-space theme as most of the other Aleste games. The basic gameplay is
the same, although
the graphics have been enhanced significantly, especially the awesome bomb explosion effect. There's some awesome looking mech enemies too, that beat out any of the other 8-bit games. Both
GG Aleste games are some of the best
shooters on a portable system EVER. This got an English release in Europe, although it
never made it to America, sadly enough.
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 Power Strike 2 Game Gear
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