Military Madness/Nectaris (PCE, 1989)
Graphics-7.5 Sound-7 Control-7 Challenge-7 Story-4
Level Design-7 Frustration-8 Fun-7 Originality-6.5
Overall Score-7
+
Some advanced mechanics for the time (zone of control - makes enemies unable to move more than 1 tile while under it and makes nearby allies do more damage (called support), surround - damage boost by surrounding an enemy completely, terrain effects (hills, mountains, harsh terrain, roads and valleys, bridges) - shown in the GUI, can repair units in factories (each one can hold 12 units - a unit is 1-8 soldiers or vehicles), capture neutral and enemy buildings - Famicom Wars?, transportable units+mines and turrets; support and surround effects are shown in the GUI before a battle animation)
Pretty nice battle animations
Detailed video/demo tutorial
Decent intro (artwork stills and text)
Flying units
Shows basic debriefing stats with graphs after each scenario, the music changes if you're near winning or near losing (later used in Fire Emblem), password save (short), win either by destroying all enemies or capturing their prison camp/HQ, basic leveling system (units can gain up to 8 exp points/stars making them fight better though they won't gain any new attacks or abilities and units won't carry over to the next mission/scenario - the latter lessens the sense of progression and continuity), decent variety of units (23) and game length (32 missions), 2-player vs. (use map names as passwords to whichever one you want to play on)
+/-
Hex-based maps
Linear structure (can't choose between more than one mission/scenario on the map screen in-between missions)
Story is a "what if the nazis/axis powers weren't defeated (then everyone went to the moon, they got the advantage and threatened to destroy earth with missiles)" scenario
Several of the first scenarios are just one screen in size
Can't manually recruit new units or buy/build upgrades for the ones you have - can only increase your forces during a scenario by capturing factories
A unit can't move fully nore fire in the same turn that it exits a factory (only move one tile away) and you can't place a unit on the same tile as an owned factory without entering it
Unlimited unit ammo,
-
Can't save during a mission
Some control/interface issues (can't cycle through unused units, somewhat slow cursor movement at first and then quite fast, can't turn off nor speed up or skip battle animations, the command menu doesn't wrap around, doesn't show a unit's range in attack mode - highlights any valid target instead but doesn't pre-select either of them)
No deployment phase
The enemy AI sometimes "thinks" for 5+ seconds before acting (sometimes several times during its turn, sometimes almost 10 seconds!)
There's a bit too much randomness to battles - even with better terrain defense and/or support you can completely miss or be destroyed at 6/8 troops vs an equal unit and sometimes a weaker enemy can win big in a battle
Some trial & error (can't pick up a mine or turret with a transport after you've moved it outside of a factory, units inside a factory won't defend it against enemies and if an enemy captures that factory then it also converts the units inside, can only exit a factory in certain directions - seemingly for no reason at times), repetitive (the enemy generally uses the same units you do, every mission uses the same tileset, no alternate objectives, some maps are too similar), no story or characters during the campaign, unsmooth scrolling on the map view, the enemy AI sometimes makes rather stupid moves (in scenario 13 if you place a mine in the right spot it will focus most of its army on it even though there are other ways to reach your base/troops, sometimes doesn't use its turrets properly, pretty easy to sneak past the enemy and capture their prison camp in some scenarios, in 14 it didn't grab my HQ when it easily could, sometimes goes for a neutral factory faster than other times in the same scenario (15 for example), ), the music sounds better in some other versions and could've been done better overall considering the PC Engine sound chip (this is the first version though)
Level Design-7 Frustration-8 Fun-7 Originality-6.5
Overall Score-7
+
Some advanced mechanics for the time (zone of control - makes enemies unable to move more than 1 tile while under it and makes nearby allies do more damage (called support), surround - damage boost by surrounding an enemy completely, terrain effects (hills, mountains, harsh terrain, roads and valleys, bridges) - shown in the GUI, can repair units in factories (each one can hold 12 units - a unit is 1-8 soldiers or vehicles), capture neutral and enemy buildings - Famicom Wars?, transportable units+mines and turrets; support and surround effects are shown in the GUI before a battle animation)
Pretty nice battle animations
Detailed video/demo tutorial
Decent intro (artwork stills and text)
Flying units
Shows basic debriefing stats with graphs after each scenario, the music changes if you're near winning or near losing (later used in Fire Emblem), password save (short), win either by destroying all enemies or capturing their prison camp/HQ, basic leveling system (units can gain up to 8 exp points/stars making them fight better though they won't gain any new attacks or abilities and units won't carry over to the next mission/scenario - the latter lessens the sense of progression and continuity), decent variety of units (23) and game length (32 missions), 2-player vs. (use map names as passwords to whichever one you want to play on)
+/-
Hex-based maps
Linear structure (can't choose between more than one mission/scenario on the map screen in-between missions)
Story is a "what if the nazis/axis powers weren't defeated (then everyone went to the moon, they got the advantage and threatened to destroy earth with missiles)" scenario
Several of the first scenarios are just one screen in size
Can't manually recruit new units or buy/build upgrades for the ones you have - can only increase your forces during a scenario by capturing factories
A unit can't move fully nore fire in the same turn that it exits a factory (only move one tile away) and you can't place a unit on the same tile as an owned factory without entering it
Unlimited unit ammo,
-
Can't save during a mission
Some control/interface issues (can't cycle through unused units, somewhat slow cursor movement at first and then quite fast, can't turn off nor speed up or skip battle animations, the command menu doesn't wrap around, doesn't show a unit's range in attack mode - highlights any valid target instead but doesn't pre-select either of them)
No deployment phase
The enemy AI sometimes "thinks" for 5+ seconds before acting (sometimes several times during its turn, sometimes almost 10 seconds!)
There's a bit too much randomness to battles - even with better terrain defense and/or support you can completely miss or be destroyed at 6/8 troops vs an equal unit and sometimes a weaker enemy can win big in a battle
Some trial & error (can't pick up a mine or turret with a transport after you've moved it outside of a factory, units inside a factory won't defend it against enemies and if an enemy captures that factory then it also converts the units inside, can only exit a factory in certain directions - seemingly for no reason at times), repetitive (the enemy generally uses the same units you do, every mission uses the same tileset, no alternate objectives, some maps are too similar), no story or characters during the campaign, unsmooth scrolling on the map view, the enemy AI sometimes makes rather stupid moves (in scenario 13 if you place a mine in the right spot it will focus most of its army on it even though there are other ways to reach your base/troops, sometimes doesn't use its turrets properly, pretty easy to sneak past the enemy and capture their prison camp in some scenarios, in 14 it didn't grab my HQ when it easily could, sometimes goes for a neutral factory faster than other times in the same scenario (15 for example), ), the music sounds better in some other versions and could've been done better overall considering the PC Engine sound chip (this is the first version though)