Terraforming

~ TERRAFORMING ~

Right Stuff

Super CD-ROM

1992

Well, even though I'd read all the comments and reviews that called this game mediocre, I was still pretty excited when I finally got to play it. Screenshots of it had always looked really nice, and I'd been wanting to see the game in action for ages. Once I did play and complete it, I was able to say that, yep, the parallax and colors are nice, and yep, it's just an okay shooter.

The problem with Terraforming is that it doesn't really bother to do much besides toss wave after wave of standard enemies at you. The environment is rarely ever a factor (with the rather lame exception being Stage 5's cavern, which is extremely dark, making it hard to see rocks randomly positioned in the foreground).

There aren't any midbosses. And the bosses themselves are not at all memorable, with the possible exception of the fish-like guy in Stage 1: you have to crack his head open and then demolish his "brain matter" to finish him off.

Now, the music, while fairly forgettable and relatively laidback, is quite nice while you're actually playing the game. And the wave-after-wave action truly isn't so bad.

But the trip tends to drag on during its latter half. And while the action starts to feel more and more repetitive, the formerly stunning background visuals become messy or mundane. Stage 6 seems to be the intended money stage as far as effects go, but it really just looks like a big, wobbly, muddy mess.

And the next two stages are uninspired space levels where you have to deal with the usual asteroid field and "giant ship."

The pretty screenshots that we always see are from the first half of the affair.

The game on default never gets particularly difficult, but using the right weapons at the right times can definitely make certain stretches and boss battles a lot easier--perhaps too easy. The tougher difficulty levels are more intense, but I doubt that many people will be entertained enough by the core game itself to play through it multiple times and mess with various modes. And with that in mind, I strongly recommend that you don't overpay for this title. Find it fairly cheap (say, $17-30 for the JPN version, as the US one goes for insanely high amounts these days) and it's a decent purchase. You'll probably want to see those early-level graphics.