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The Saturn was never really known for its 3-D games. While it did have several good ones (like NiGHTS, for instance), the games that most gamers seem to remember for it are the 2-D games - most notably Radiant Silvergun (which, even though it had 3-D elements, was primarily a 2-D game), a fantastic conversion of SNK's Metal Slug, and near arcade-perfect ports of several of Capcom's fighting games (X-Men Vs. Street Fighter and Vampire Savior among them). Granted, several of these used the 4-meg RAM cart, but that's beside the point.

One 3-D game that was quite memorable was denied a U.S. release for some reason. It was by Hudson Soft, and surprisingly it wasn't another Bomberman or Adventure Island game. It was a mech combat game by the name of Bulk Slash. Now usually I don't review 3-D games here at the OPCFG, but in this case I felt I had to make an exception. The game feels like a classic 2-D mech game (remember Target Earth and Cybernator?). Hudson was able to nail that feel quite well, and for that I commend them. In fact, it's one of the earliest 3-D games that I can think of that feels like a 2-D game.

Bulk Slash opens with a gorgeous anime cinema that explains the backstory of the game. However, there's no onscreen text or voiceovers, so it's kind of hard to tell exactly what the game's all about. My guess is that it ties in with the story in the instruction manual, which is all in Japanese (of course). It's still nice to watch, and it does give you a nice demonstration of your mech's capabilities. After watching this, it's on to the game.

When you first start, your commander gives you an option of which area you'd like to begin in. You can only initially choose between the first three stages, but more open up as you progress through the game. A 3-D map of each stage is presented to you before the mission starts (you do have the ability to rotate the map and zoom in and out to get a better look at the terrain). You have to complete different tasks in each stage - among them destroying key enemy emplacements in Stage 1 and 2, escorting a ship in Stage 3, and later on planting bombs on an enemy warship out in space, among other tasks. You do have a time limit to stick to, so don't dawdle when going through the stages.

Your mech comes equipped with all of the basics - machine guns, grenades, a laser sword for close range combat, a protective shield, and the ability to transform into a jet, which has twin machine guns and can launch six homing missiles at a time. Nice. You have a full 360 degree range of movement - you can go anywhere within reason on foot (use the L and R buttons to rotate your mech and press C to jump), and you can fly anywhere in jet mode (additionally, you can adjust your speed while your in jet mode, from 25% to 99%). Powerups are plentiful, ranging from simple extra point icons to shield energy and weaponry - flamethrowers, homing lasers and more powerful machine guns among them.

The stages are quite large. There's a lot of terrain to be covered, and you'd get rather lost if it wasn't for the M.I.S.S. system. Each stage contains a different woman that will act as your navigator. If you start on Stage 1, the one for that stage will be the first thing you encounter (all of them are represented by what looks like a small pink helmet with the word M.I.S.S. floating over it). Sometimes the women on the different stages are out in the open, other times they're well hidden. My theory is that if you find them all, you unlock something at the end of the game, but I have yet to do that. Every time you encounter a new woman, you have the option to take her or stick with your current navigator. They're quite handy, too... they let you know when you've sustained a critical hit, when you're running low on shield energy, what the item was that you just picked up and where your targets are. They all speak Japanese, of course, but a lot of what they say is spoken in broken English. The other times they speak it's fairly easy to discern what they're saying by the tone of their voice or their by watching their on-screen expression.

After completing your mission objectives, it's time for a boss encounter. The arrival of the boss is usually heralded by what looks like a live news telecast. Most bosses are huge, and take up most of the screen - but of course, they all have a weak point. When you destroy a boss, you go back to the live telecast to watch its destruction.

The graphics, while pixelated sometimes, are very nice. Your mech looks somewhat rendered, and the animation when it transforms is very smooth. There doesn't seem to be a lot of slowdown - in fact, thing can get quite hectic, especially when you're flying along at full speed in jet mode and you run into a squadron of enemy fighters. Most of the slowdown occurs when there are a lot of giant explosions going on at once. There is a bit of "pop-in", where enemies suddenly appear right on top of you, as well as "draw-in" (when you're approaching buildings from a distance, they have a tendency to "draw" themselves in rather than appear like they've always been there), but I attribute those two problems more to the hardware limitations of the Saturn than any other reason. Luckily neither of them really detract from gameplay, to speak of. The control is pretty tight - rarely will you lose control of the mech or have something happen to you that you can blame on faulty controls. The sound effects are pretty well done, and the music is classic PC Engine era Hudson Soft. If you've played any of Hudson's PCE games from that era, then you know what I'm talking about. Next to the gameplay, I think the music helps make the game feel more like a classic 2-D game.

Bulk Slash is definitely worth owning if you can find a copy (according to Japan Gaming, it's fairly on the rare side these days). I happened to stumble across my copy in a used game store back in '99, and I'm glad I grabbed it when I did. It's a nice change of pace from some of the more "serious" mech titles out there (like the Armored Core and Mechwarrior games), and was definitely worth the twenty dollars I paid for it.

- Rob

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