Who says original concepts can't be matched with exciting and
tried-and-true gameplay? How about a fire-fighting simulator (well,
not quite a simulator but a "videogame representation") set in the future
and packed with lethal " backdrafts and survivors waiting to be
rescued? Take the concept, bless it with the talented Yuji Naka and
his Sonic Team co-workers, push the Saturn hardware to the limit, and use
a modified engine from your previous big hit ("NiGHTS... Into Dreams") to
save on costs. The result is "Burning Rangers", one of the last few
original Sega titles for the Sega Saturn that got the attention of an
internal 'A' team of developers before attention got shifted entirely on
Dreamcast projects. Does it live up the hype, or end up going up in
smoke (like the dreams of a successful American legacy for the Saturn)?
As either Shou Amabane (21 year-old guy that likes to point to gamers a
lot, as seen by its on-screen still :-) or young Tillis (19 year-old),
you'll have to dodge robots that have gone haywire, collapsing structures
that might trap survivors, fire backdrafts that will come with a
split-second warning, and gigantic robotic mutations that are waiting to
have their patterns watched and observed by the player so they can get
slaughtered easily (??!!). Those two characters are the only one's
you can initially control out of the five in the game; Chris Partn (24) is
the lady that helps you navigate the burning structures as the Team
Navigator, and Lead Phoenix (22)/Big Landman (35) are the other BR team
members. These last three are only there to add atmosphere to the
game (like some of the cast members of Capcom's "Resident Evil" series),
but they might be controllable via codes if you achieve certain
objectives... I'm not saying, because I do not know! (he, he, he).
"Burning Rangers" only has four levels (plus the training area in the
beginning and that final boss stage), but the objective of the game is to
have the player learn the best way to go through those levels, save the
survivors and defeat the bosses promptly to get as high a grade (from 'F'
to the coveted 'A') as possible ("NiGHTS" anyone?). This is a Yuji
Naka game through and through, but you'd never guess that from some of the
surprising things that keep "BR" a few floors shot of the penthouse suite.
GRAPHICS / VISUALS: B-
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The one description that kept popping in my head as I made my way
through "Burning Rangers" was 'anime Tomb Raider'... this game features
the same behind-the-character view of "TR", "Tenchu" and "Virtual On", but
with an artistic design straight out of Robotech or Evangelion that gives
this genre the look and feel of an anime cartoon. Speaking of which,
the opening/ending and in-between FMV cinemas are all anime cartoons that
look good (no jagged and dithered FMV here), sound OK and advance the
story to a slightly satisfactory ending (without giving it away, it could
have had a hell of a more explosive finale, if you pardon the weak
pun). Unfortunately, the in-game graphics only receive a small
percentage of the artistic brilliance depicted on the cinemas...
..because the engine of "BR" taxes the Saturn to such a degree that it
is, simultaneously, a technical achievement and an elephant trying to
sneak unseen through a soccer field during a World Cup match. The
good first: transparencies have been nicely faked on software (look at
those ultra-red flames!), the frame-rate is a consistent 30 per-second
most of the time, the game conveys a sense of entrapment and urgency due
to the blocked corridors and exploding structures (atmosphere baby, the
same thing that helped gamers inmerse in "Tomb Raider"), and the anime
style of the characters and settings are fairly accurate when compared to
the cinemas. The bad: massive slowdown when things heat up with
explosions/enemies, glitchy polygons and texture-warpings galore (like
"Sonic R" or "NiGHTS", only worse), and a resolution that seems lower than
low (even on an S-Video TV), especially when contrasted with the sleek but
cluttered option/menu screens which were done in high-res. It is a
tribute to the designers that, despite it's shortcomings, "BR" plays as
good as it looks (warts and all).
MUSIC / SOUND EFFECTS: B-
---------------------
The one constant in previous Sonic Team games was excellent and
eclectic musical tunes on the background ("NiGHTS" is the second-best
videogame soundtrack I've ever heard, and the original "Sonic the
Hedgehog" did wonders with the Genesis' s****y sound chip), but for "BR"
those composers either went to sleep, took drugs and/or gave the J-pop
musical genre a shot and failed... miserably! This is a crappy
selection of musical tunes, all either tied to the option/menu screens
and/or the FMV sequences because during the game you can only hear the
environment surrounding you, and Chris Partn's voice as your Team
Navigator. Music, lyrics, and anything music-related in "BR" gets a
big thumbs-down from yours truly (and I like some J-pop tunes, mostly from
the "Sailor Moon" anime... 'Moon Revenge' at the end of "Sailor Moon R"
kicks so much ass!).
But what saves the audio from getting a 'D' is the nice and very
convincing sound effects used to convey the presence of a threatening
enemy all around your character, an enemy that cannot be easily
anticipated and must be destroyed before it devours its victims (all nice
phrases that in the end could only mean "FIRE!!!"). The sound of
your fire-extinguishing weapon is sweet, the squeaks of the dolphin in the
Aquarium believable, and the "swoosh" sound that precedes an explosion is
straight out of Ron Howard's "Backdraft". Even the English voices
used by your characters and the other Burning Rangers come across
crystal-clear and with convincing acting, a rarity in today's
mean-and-lean SOA localization budget (which sub-titled "Last Bronx" and
"Panzer Dragoon Saga" to keep costs down); the Team Navigator feature is
more than a token addition to the game, but can make the difference
between getting an 'A' and running around like a headless chicken, since
there are tight spots in which you'll need the Team Navigator (by pressing
the 'C' button) to instruct you on what to do, or where to go next.
Only the repeated use of the phrase "Don't worry, I'm a Burning Ranger!"
by Shou Amabane, and the voices of the victims being rescued (they are so
annoying and unconvincing) bring down the otherwise commendable English
translation of "BR". Still, the music in those FMV and menu screens
brings down the overall audio to a 'B-' (trust me, it is that bad).
GAMEPLAY / FUN FACTOR: B-
---------------------
Everything about "Burning Rangers" screams simplicity for the sake of a
gamer mastering this challenge... simple concept (extinguish fires, rescue
hostages, get out in one piece), simple interface (adjust audio, get
E-mail from rescued victims, etc.), straightforward design (although it's
a go-anywhere 3D engine you can only keep moving in the direction the
game's creators want to), a sense of accomplishment and ever-present
danger (your main reward, besides a grade, is the satisfaction of saving
human lives from certain death by fire), and an explosive mix of
rainbow-like colors that throws all the deep hues into your TV
screen. Like in "Sonic"/"Mario"/"Gex", collecting stuff is an
important aspect of the game, and in "BR" you extinguish fires expecting
to collect diamonds (unless the fire is so intense that it turns blue, in
which case you'll have to charge your extinguishing-gun with a mega-blast
that will destroy the fire but give you no diamonds!) that can be used to
power the teleportation of survivors, or to open previously unaccesible
levels (if a switch pull isn't needed). If an enemy touches you, or
you get caught in an explosion, your diamonds will spread and you will
have only a few seconds to recover them, or it's curtains right then and
there ("Sonic" anyone?).
What keeps "BR" away from legendary status are a few minor issues that,
unfortunately, accumulate over extended play. For starters, the
analog controller (which is still better than the digital pad, although
both are playable) isn't properly calibrated for the game, whith no
perceivable benefit from pushing all the way or merely tapping the
pad. Shou and Tillis either dash wildly fast (in any direction), or
move at a snail pace. And at certain spots of the game (the
outer-space station and the aquarium come to mind), the control really
gets beyond stuck-in-mud frustrating and gets downright terrible... you
can pseudo-manage to control what your character does, but at no point
does it feel like you're controlling Shou and Tillis fully when they are
not on firm Earth. The characters can jump, dash, do mid-air flips,
side-step in mid-air and other little tricks to move quickly and avoid the
backdrafts... but other games have done it before ("Tomb Raider" anyone?),
except never in this sort of futuristic disaster scenario. Once the
game is completed, an option will allow for the same levels to be replayed
with the location of switches and survivors changed to enhance replay
value somewhat. Finally, in an attempt to enhance the human element
of the game's characters (a big deal to Japanese otakus and anime fans)
all the characters have background stories detailing how important it is
for them to save lives and fight flames because they were the reason many
of them have lost loved one's... this might make the connection between
character and player more important to some, but it honestly didn't do it
for me since the playing of the game takes precedence over any character
development in an action game (RPG's are a different story). Plenty
to do in "BR", but are all the elements good enough to come back again and
again? And why does Sega of America insist on putting their American
localization staff on the manuals, but don't credit the Japanese teams
that developed them (only in the ending sequence will you see the real
talent behind "BR")?
OVERALL: B-
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This game, despite the strong talent behind it and the big budget that
went into creating/promoting it, didn't perform too well in Japan after
its initial release, and this is Saturn's friendliest territory. The
American copy of "BR" isn't selling out with the same degree of frenetic
pace as Sega's other recent release "P.D.Saga", which means that "BR"
could end up being both the game that pushed the Saturn to its technical
limit and one of the machine's biggest flops. Whoever said life
wasn't fair obviously played videogames, and owned Sega's last four
systems (Sega CD, 32X, Nomad, and the Saturn).
That would be a shame because, unlike other games that pushed their
hardware specs to the max and failed to make gameplay that overlooked the
graphics (Capcom's SNES port of "Street Fighter Alpha 2", Studio 3DO's
"Starfighter" for the 3DO Multiplayer system, Eidos' recent PSX version of
"Deathtrap Dungeon", etc.), "Burning Rangers" is a hell of a playable and
somewhat enjoyable game that manages to push the Saturn hard and still
come through at the end. Nowhere near the killer app early hype lead
us to believe it would end up being, "BR" ends Sonic Team's involvement
with the Saturn. If that is a good or a bad thing will depend on the
way Dreamcast's "Sonic" game comes through at the end... that will tell me
if the obvious shortcuts taken to ship Saturn games to retail lately
("House of the Dead", "Sega Touring Car Championship" and "Burning
Rangers" look anything but a third/fourth generation of 32-bit software
when compared to the PSX games) were worth the visual tradeoffs.
Gameplay rules, but better-looking games are always welcome!
