Bio-Hazard Battle
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| Bio-Hazard Battle | |
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| Developer(s) | Sega |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Release date(s) | 1992 |
| Genre(s) | Scrolling shooter |
| Mode(s) | One or two player |
| Rating(s) | VRC: GA, ESRB: E |
| Platform(s) | Mega Drive/Genesis, Virtual Console |
Bio-hazard Battle, titled Crying in Japan, is a 1992 2D side-scrolling shoot 'em up released for the Mega Drive/Genesis. On February 26th, 2007, it was also made available on the Wii's Virtual Console. It shares similar gameplay to the cult-classic Zero Wing, also on the Mega Drive.
[edit] Gameplay
The game features a 2D side-scrolling shoot 'em up style of gameplay and the character chosen by the player can be moved in 8 directions by the D-Pad. The player can move, shoot, dodge, and block by using the secondary weapon battery as a shield. There are various weapons that can be swapped by collecting various colored bubbles. These "swapable" weapons are fired from the main weapon battery, which can be rotated around the character by the player. There are four colors of bubbles: Green, red, blue, and yellow. Of these, red, blue and yellow represent two different weapon systems depending on the craft chosen (there are seven main weapon systems in the game). Green remains the same on all crafts. Every main weapon system fired from the battery has three levels of power. Level one is weak, and has a small area of effect, with the exception of one of the blue weapons (which always has the same area of effect). Power level two and three are more powerful, respectively. Aside from four different main battery weapons, each character has a slightly different forward weapon system, that fires in a straight line in front of them. Each of the characters also has the ability to charge up a very powerful blast, but in doing so leaves themself vulnerable while charging (as no other weapons are being fired). Each of the four characters has slightly different maneuvering abilities and arsenal.
The game also features strong usage of deep, bass-heavy music tracks, creative and colorful artwork and foreground and background elements. Despite the many obstacles in the scenery and landscape, the player cannot be harmed or die by bumping into anything other than an enemy or enemy fire. The player travels through eight levels, each one increasing in difficulty, with the last three only being available on the harder difficulties. The game ends showing all four characters flying back into the mothership. A short paragraph explains that the planet Avaron has, for the moment, been saved. "A moment of peace, but who is to say a similar crises will not occur in the future?"
Like so many 16-bit classics, it went widely unrecognized and fell to the wayside becoming increasingly rare shortly after its 1992 release and, similar to other 16-bit era games, features credits only when the final boss has been defeated.
[edit] Trivia
- Despite the jet fighter clearly displayed on both the box and the cartridge, no such vehicle makes any appearance in the game. All creatures, player controlled and otherwise, are completely organic and appear to be mutated versions of cross-bred Earth creatures. The snake, however, does appear as the boss of Level 3.
It has recently gone onto Europe's Wii Virtual console
