Super Earth Defense Force (Super NES, 1991)

 

1991 gave us two massive cultural touchstones that completely shook the world: Highlander II, and this space shooter from Jaleco that I never heard about until recently. Thought it was related to the Earth Defense Force series from 2005+, but nope, totally unrelated it seems. Trying it out anyway, as Jaleco usually makes good games. Also, "Jaleco" is like the most rad-to-the-max 80's/90's video game company title.

This is without a doubt the most attention this game has gotten in a long, long time.

The Spaceballs One theme plays as the game's title scrolls past very, very slowly.

Eventually the third (Jesus) letter scrolls onto the screen and makes its way across. All of that time to just scroll three letters.

Alright, time to start this thing. Not much for configuration options, pretty much just button config.

At the beginning of a level (and every time you die) you choose from one of eight special weapons. It's a bit like Space Megaforce (and some of the weapons are basically the same which is interesting). No changing them on the fly though, gotta pick one and go with it. As you progress, your ship levels up and all of the weapons get more and more powerful, which is pretty rad. And also like Space Megaforce. Come to think of it, this almost feels like a proto version of that game (which it isn't, the Aleste games are).

VULCAN: Your standard spread shot, much like the default weapon in Space Megaforce. Not too powerful, not weak either, decent. 6 out of 10.

EXPLODE: This is basically Shatter from Space Megaforce. Fires large shots that, once they hit something, break into four smaller shots that go in four directions. There's a learning curve to using this one correctly and it isn't great. Fun to use, at least. 4 out of 10.

LASER: Fires a big ol' straight laser that does a lot of damage and passes through foes. Limited in its scope though, and basically only good because of the damage output. 5 out of 10.

S. LASER: This probably stands for "Search Laser". Fires lasers that are kind of homing shots, but not really. More like "tracking shots" in that your guns track the enemies onscreen and fire in their direction, rather than the shots themselves homing in. This makes it less of a "win button" than Homing. It's also significantly more powerful than Homing, though, so I'd go 7 out of 10 on this one.

ATOMIC: A short-range missile that explodes on contact, causing a nice little blast radius. The strongest weapon, but it's slow and limited. 3 out of 10 in the early game, 10 out of 10 in the lategame once you unlock the homing ability for it and it becomes totally OP.

PHOTON: Lets you charge up a shot and fire it. While charging, you generate a small forcefield in front that'll block projectiles and weak foes. The charged shot is quite potent, but this isn't the game for it. 4 out of 10.

HOMING: Rapid-fire homing shots that are easily the weapon of choice for the first several levels. Unfortunately it's the weakest weapon out of all of them and gets outclassed by the S. Laser in the midgame and then the homing pods in the lategame (more on that later). I'd still use this for the first half of the game, without a doubt. 8 out of 10.

GRENADE: Basically a slightly better and worse version of Atomic. Sends out shots that fly halfway across the screen and detonate into purple explosions that damage anything they catch. Does less damage than Atomic (with a smaller blast radius) but has a better rate of fire. In short, it's better than Atomic in the early game (when you have to aim) and much worse in the lategame (when you don't, as it does less damage). Overall I'd give this a 4 out of 10.

On to the actual game. It's got some pretty nice visuals that fit right in on the 1991 SNES, and likely could have been a hit if it weren't in the shadow of things like Gradius 3 and Super R-Type. Some of the enemies, like this thing, almost look H.R. Giger inspired.

Very quickly I realize that the strategy for victory in this game is much like a Souls game: Dodge the enemy, then SMACK THAT BOOTY.

First boss is this big Gradius refugee.

The second level is where the difficulty starts to actually pick up a bit. Worth noting is that you level up as you accumulate points, which is a really cool idea that sets this apart from most shooters. Level 5 is the highest level, and (all of) your weapons get beefed up as you go. The level 2 Homing is now rings instead of pellets. Still the weakest weapon, just less so.

The boss here is much cooler-looking and a bit tougher than the first. Good time to mention that the game has limited continues, which is such a non-starter at this point in time without save states. You can take 3 hits before losing a life / continuing, and after continuing 3x it's back to the beginning. Luckily the game is pretty easy and even an average shooter player like me could get through most of it without game overing. Note that I said "most of it". More on that later.

I get low and SMACK THAT BOOTY.

Third level is aquatic-themed. It's okay. Kinda reminds me of the aquatic level of Axelay. Except that level is my favorite shooter level of all time, while this one is just kinda there. The whole game is just kinda there, when it comes down to it. I think it'd have fared a lot better if the weapons could be switched on the fly like Space Megaforce rather than chosen at startup.

All the mechs here are ocean-themed, like this crab miniboss. Inspired design here.

And finally, a giant shrimp boss. Good time to mention that you've got two satellites (read: option from Gradius) in this game, and they get better as you level up.

THE SHRIMP RISES. The options can be deployed in various configurations, depending on your level. Which is definitely an element borrowed from R-Type. Can hold them in front, have them rotate, etc. They'll fire your special weapon while you fire standard shots. I usually like to keep the options attached and fire the special weapon myself, but as the game goes on, the options become necessary.

Level 4 is some sort of space-garden. At this point my goal is to push the point meter until I reach Level 5 (max), which unlocks homing satellites. This lets you set your options to home in on enemies and blast them with your special weapon. If you've put two and two together, this means...

....now the Atomic weapon just became REALLY good. All of the slow-yet-powerful weapons did. Laser is a lot better now too. Essentially this turns all of the weapons into homing weapons, which lets me ditch Homing and S. Laser to use stronger stuff. Only issue is that I had to die once to turn on Atomic. Anyway, here's the Level 4 boss, a small ship that's totally obscured by my Atomic spam.

Yep, Atomic just absolutely shreds everything in sight at this point, barely even need to worry about anything. Just keep dodging while everything blows up. Level 5 is more generic space level, though the planet in the background looks cool.

Level 5 boss is this crystalline serpent that starts to go into bullet hell mode. This fight can actually get you, but I have a powerful ally: Early SNES Slowdown. Yep, the game slows WAY down when a lot of projectiles are flying, and my Atomic spam is helping with that. Basically you go into Matrix Time and can evade everything. One of the reasons the game isn't too hard.

...until Level 6, the last level, which turns it up. Even with my homing Atomics, the regular foes here have a lot more health and move more erratically.

The worst part is the final boss, which is actually three fights in a row and you have to repeat all of them if you die. Yep, they stored up all of the actual challenge and dumped it all in the final battle.

The first part isn't too bad, just a standard wall boss that sends out a barrage of shots. It's tough enough to be a respectable final boss fight so I really thought this was it.

Then we get the second form of the boss, this mech that has a zillion HP and goes into full bullet hell mode. The worst part is that there's this black hole that bounces around the room and draws most of your homing attacks, causing a lot of DPS time to be wasted. This fight is super hard and probably where most players met their grave with this game.

Eventually, I eked out a win...only to have the stage start scrolling backwards. That's right, you have to go backwards now. Seriously?

This leads to presumably the alien leader (now out of his metal suit) chasing you down. As bad as the previous boss was, THIS one is significantly worse and absolutely takes the cake. It fires homing spread shots fairly rapidly and while they can be lured/dodged with some practice, I'm not sure how players are supposed to get that practice when this thing is more likely to obliterate them quickly and send them back to the beginning of the level (or game after a couple tries).

I just let the Atomic do its thing and focused entirely on dodging. For what it was worth because I still took hits. This thing should NOT be at the end of a game with limited continues. Then again, this is how things were back then, extreme and hardcore. It kinda ruins the game though. We've got a normal challenge level throughout, then an incredibly hard final battle, which results in players having to repeat the entire rest of the game ad nauseum just to get another crack at this fight. With the fight so far above the rest of the game, there isn't really a learning curve either.

When the fight is almost over, it starts sending out EYEBALL SWARMS to converge on you. If you're unlucky in where they spawn in, these waves can actually be unavoidable. Yep, just an absurd fight.

After winning, the ship is, quite fittingly, shown torn apart and marooned in space. What an appropriate ending.

But wait! Someone picks them up and all is well.

This game has some innovative aspects and all the tools to be a classic, but it's just too rough around the edges to be worth much of anyone's time. About 95% of the difficulty is weighted in the final boss fight, almost like they didn't want their game to be beatable. Take that out of the equation and the rest of the game was fine, with some solid special weapons (too bad only a couple of them are truly great). I'd say if the difficulty curve was smoothed / dispersed throughout the game better and there weren't limited continues, we'd have something here. Ah well.