![]() ![]() I hate to disparage Recca, because it really is an exquisite technical showcase for the hidden potential of the NES. I suppose that's the case for most shooters, but the best ones are a little more discreet about it. Power-up capsules lack visual distinctiveness, and the sheer speed and jumpiness of the controls reduce Recca to a game of pattern memorization. Gameplay also tends to be relatively simple compared to similar shooters, probably because the constraints of the hardware imposed harsh limits on what Yagawa could get away with. Controls never feel quite as pixel-precise as you need in a shooter like this, and fine movements (say, to avoid streams of bullets) can be difficult to execute. And while the overall feel of the game is silky and fluid, the NES just wasn't made to handle such speedy gameplay. You see a lot less flicker than you'd expect, but it still shows up pretty often. For all the action happening at any given moment and the huge number of sprites flying around the screen, Recca constantly butts up against the hard limits of the NES hardware. Still, all that dazzle takes its toll on Recca at a fundamental level. Recca looks nice in stills, but you really need to see it in motion to properly appreciate it. For example, it almost certainly takes the form of a vertical shooter because the NES's sprite-drawing capabilities were limited by the horizontal by rarely placing many sprites side-by-side but instead emphasizing columns, Recca programmer Shinobu Yagawa minimized flicker and kept the game looking far more solid than you'd think possible with so much happening on-screen. It's a tour de force of 8-bit programming and clever design tricks. The same hardware that slowed to a crawl for modest shooters like Life Force, that struggled to handle straightforward action games (like, say, Taxan's Low-G Man) - here, it churns out dozens of ships blazing across the screen, spewing curtains of bullets at high speeds. Make no mistake, though, Recca really does make an NES fan reel with disbelief. It lacks the polish and substance of Hudson's best - or Naxat's best on more capable hardware, for that matter. The sheer ambition of its design will make you marvel at all the things you never knew the NES hardware could accomplish, but it won't change your mind about how shooters play. On the technical side, it's nothing short of amazing. Honestly, you can tell that Recca was meant to impress more than entertain. Both companies played a game of brinkmanship with each new release throughout the early '90s. Naxat's sister publisher, Taxan, had published Star Soldier for NES in the U.S., but for the most part the company made its name by going head-to-head against Hudson with its own array of shooters, most of which appeared on Hudson's home turf, so to speak: The PC Engine. There seemed to be an undercurrent of rivalry between Naxat and Hudson back in the day. ![]() Review copy was purchased by the reviewer. So many sprites, and all of them hate you. The Star Soldier series rose to popularity on the NES but quickly shifted over to PC Engine with Recca, Naxat seemed to be making an effort to humble Hudson by saying, "Hey, we can do that, too, and on much weaker hardware." ![]() In terms of manic intensity, it stands toe-to-toe with Hudson's best - Super Star Solider and the like. Recca does a remarkable job of facing off directly against more advanced systems' top shooters. In fact, it even includes a hidden jab at Sega as an Easter egg. As a precursor to modern-day "bullet hell" games, Recca definitely felt like an answer to the intense top-down shooters that were cropping up around that time in Japan on PC Engine (TurboGrafx) and Mega Drive (Genesis). Released in extremely limited quantities two decades ago for the Japanese Famicom (their version of the NES), Recca pushed Nintendo's 8-bit hardware to its ragged limit. ![]() And now we can add another to the list: Recca, aka Summer Carnival '92. EarthBound, Rondo of Blood, Shantae, U*foria, and more: We've seen quite a few Virtual Console releases over the years that bring premium collectibles home for cheap. Nintendo's Virtual Console and Sony's PlayStation Classics are at their best when they give gamers inexpensive access to rare, pricey, or otherwise inaccessible software. Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team. This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. ![]()
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