If you’re not a retro gamer or old like some of us, you may not have heard of Turrican. Originally released by Manfred Trenz through a company called Rainbow Arts in 1990 for the Commodore 64, Turrican is a unique take on the late 80s/early 90s run n’ gun. Rather than linear levels, Turrican allows you to explore, with multiple pathways, hidden areas, and a variety of weapons at your disposal. Gameplay is timed so if you take too long wandering about, you’re done for. That being said, Turrican offered a very Metroid-like experience but added the difficulty of timed play, unique jumping mechanics, and a bevy of interesting bosses! Now Turrican is back from Factor 5 in conjunction with Ratalaika Games and published by ININ Games in Turrican Flashback, a collection of the four Turrican games in one fantastic package!
Turrican slipped under the radar for a lot of gamers in the early 90s, though it was hailed as a commercial success. A company called Factor 5 made up of ex Rainbow Arts employees handled the original conversion from C64 to the Commodore Amiga, creating the seminal version of the game which Turrican Flashback contains. Notably, the soundtrack by Chris Huelsbeck is absolutely spectacular and won wide recognition, and the improvements to the visuals of the game are enduring. Trenz ended up making a Factor 5 published sequel, Turrican II: The Final Fight as well, which perhaps surpassed the original. It’s hard to though, say as both are spectacular.
After the successes of the C64 and Amiga Turrican games, demand for the series spawned Mega Turrican and Super Turrican for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo respectively. While they use conventions from the original series, both games are noticeably more linear in nature with a focus on upgraded graphics at the expense of expansive levels and unique bosses. Let’s take a look at the contents of Turrican Flashback!
Turrican is the original game in the series and arguably the best as well. A unique run n’ gun platformer, you control Turrican as he jumps about the levels and you are able to move forwards, backwards, and up and down through levels, taking your time to explore every nook and cranny. Your gun can fire nonstop and hitting the shoulder button on the Switch allows you to stand stationary and fire a laser in any directing, rotating it 360 degrees for shots you can’t make with normal guns. There are lasers, spread shots, reflecting bullets, energy shields, the whole nine yards. In addition, the enemies are varied and weird, all sorts of techno-organic monsters assaulting you from every direction. It’s an action smorgasbord that’s instantly compelling even over 30 years after its original release!
Gameplay is trickier than you might expect and you’ll often fall off of platforms or mistime jumps due to the floaty jump physics of the game. Bosses are similarly challenging, with deceptively simple patterns which require split second timing to avoid damage. Fortunately, Turrican Flashback has added in one of the best rewind features ever in a game, allowing you to rewind essentially as much as you want. This allows you to retry jumps without wasting precious minutes getting back to where you fell from or jump back a few seconds if a boss hit you because you mistimed your dodge. This significantly decreases the difficulty level of the game, but makes it more approachable and fun, so it’s definitely an overall win!
Turrican II: The Final Fight is considered by many to be the best game in the series, but it’s definitely a toss-up between the first and second games. Everything from the original games is back, and more besides! Huelsbeck created the scores for all the Turrican games so the music is just as excellent as the original game and some early voice synth has been added as well. The pixel art is upgraded a bit and new enemies and environments surface as you play. The same exploratory gameplay is present as well as some great bosses!
As an added bonus, once you get far enough there are some horizontal shmup levels as well, with visuals noticeably reminiscent of Konami’s Gradius series, nods to Irem’s R-Type, and bosses that look like something out of a vintage Toaplan game. What’s remarkable about the shmup sections of the game is the blistering speed, uncommon in that era but now common to Cave games and other modern shmups. Overall, Turrican II is an absolute masterpiece, putting later run n’ guns to shame on multiple levels. You’ll be using the hell out of that Rewind feature though, as there’s a noticeable difficulty spike from the first game in some areas!
Mega Turrican is where the series diverges. The 360 degree laser has been replaced with a swing mechanic using a grappling hook similar to Bionic Commando and levels are noticeably more linear for the most part. Sure, there are some branching pathways, but they’re mostly dead ends and you’re generally simply moving forward. To compensate for this, Mega Turrican has noticeably upgraded visuals, cool background scrolling, and a wide variety of enemies, even some blatantly ripped from franchises like Alien. The music is still spectacular, but the gameplay is less gratifying and you no longer really feel like you’re exploring. The visuals are sometimes so busy that it’s hard to tell where you’re supposed to be going and you simply have to trust to luck that some sprites are part of the background rather than the enemies you’re fighting or solid walls. It’s a frantic game and the swinging mechanic is neat, but it’s a pale imitation of the original two games overall.
The final inclusion in the Turrican Flashback collection is Super Turrican. This is by far the weakest of the series, replacing the grappling hook with the original 360 degree laser again and continuing the trend of more linear, less exploratory levels. Super Turrican feels more like a standard SNES run n’ gun than any of the other titles, with extremely linear levels, weak bosses, and quite a few levels with no bosses at all, instead simply relying on making the platforming extremely convoluted. While there are some excellent sprite graphics at play and solid enemy designs, Super Turrican manages to be the least fun of the bunch, with levels simply abruptly ending, no real enjoyment, and even some recycling of the same levels from Mega Turrican. It’s honestly a hack-job of a game compared to the rest of the series, and while it has a few nods to the original content, it’s nowhere near as good of a game in any aspect. If you’re desperate for more Turrican action after blowing through the rest of the collection, sure, why not, but you’ll be using the Rewind feature heavily and Mega Turrican looks spectacular compared to it. Super Turrican is also the only game in the series where the Rewind function stutters heavily as well, making it irritating to rewind on top of the tedium of the level designs.
On the whole, the Turrican Flashback collection is an amazing set of games (excluding Super Turrican of course). The addition of modernized controls and the Rewind feature makes all the games abundantly playable for almost any skill level and allows for players to hone their skills at the genre as they play. But there’s a bit more under the hood here too! Factor 5 and Ratalaika have tossed in some excellent visual options along with the clean emulation of these classic titles. Not only does every game run smooth as silk with no hitches, but purists can use filters to make the game look like it’s on a vintage CRT with scan lines and screen curvature! You can maximize the screen or retain the original aspect ratio, shift the scaling from a soft look to a razor sharp pixel perfect emulation, change background wallpapers, and even shift the color palettes! It’s an easy to use Option menu that allows for a variety of player preferences and makes an excellent addition to a game that’s already got hours of fun packed into it! Add to that a Save State save system that allows you to save all four games anywhere during play for quick resume and you’ve absolutely got a winner!
While there’s no history and retrospective of the game included with this collection, most people don’t tend to read that content heavily anyway and all of the information about the Turrican series is readily available on the internet anyway. There’s no jukebox, but let’s be honest, who uses them? If you want to listen to the outstanding Turrican music, you’re going to want to download it to your phone or other device anyway, and it’s available to buy on Bandcamp (all four anthologies, orchestral music and more), stream free on Amazon Music with your Prime subscription, or even buy on physical discs if you really want it.
For a compilation title, the Turrican Flashback collection is an absolutely exceptional value at $30. If you’re any kind of action game fan, there’s a lot to love here, from the constant blistering pace of gameplay to the deep exploration elements of the first two games. Even if you only really spend time with one or two titles, you’re going to get hours and hours of gameplay out of the collection. Additionally, it plays quite smoothly on the Switch and having these games to play on the go for the Switch is amazing since they play just as well portably as they do on a full-size TV! If you’re on the fence about Turrican Flashback, don’t be. It’s worth every dime and fun as all hell! Go check it out for yourself!
This review is based on a digital copy of Turrican Flashback provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes. Turrican Flashback is also available for the Playstation 4! All screenshots are of actual gameplay.
In addition, for access to an extensive variety of active retro gaming groups on Facebook, visit Retro Gamers Hub.