City Hunter

City Hunter is writer Tsukasa Hojo's animated brain child. And in it's 14 year history, City Hunter has gained quite a respected cult following. The game, however, brought to us by SunSoft, is a good news, bad news sort of thing.

The good news is that most of the famous characters, including Ryo Saeba, Kaori Makimura, Saeko Nogami, Reika Nogami, and Rosemary Moses are intact somewhere in the game. And the run is DEAD ON ... even at three frames! In fact, his run may be the single reason this game scores so well, you really must see it.

That's where the enjoyment ends, though. The game's four levels have you seeking out a key, a book, and then the boss. The game play is similar to Rolling Thunder ... except that City Hunter has that great running animation. The bosses are pretty easy, and finding the items is not too difficult (even in Japanese), but there is so much wasted time running back around through areas you have already been. In fact, the game's pacing is slowed considerably when you take in to account the horrible level design.

And what's worse, all the levels look pretty much the same. And since you are doing the same goal in every level, there is almost no reason to continue playing the game. The bosses are a bore, and the game really looks dated. And even though the control is simple, it quickly becomes frustrating. You see, the collision detection is a bit off, and every time you get hit (or are about to get hit) your character is turned around. This often makes hitting characters difficult, and forces you to get hit much more than you would. SunSoft has been nice enough to include rooms with half naked women and nurses, both of which will happily heel your wounds. But then again, you probably won't die, either. It's an incredibly easy game, and should only take you a matter of hours to beat.

In the end I wonder if there was a great story here that I missed, but if you have seen the animated City Hunter don't bore yourself with this worthless action game. Mediocre at best.