Game Review: Firestriker (SNES)

Firestriker surprised me. On the surface, the idea of using Breakout-style gameplay in an action-adventure setting didn’t seem like it would work for me. I’m not a huge fan of Zelda games, a comparison I’ve seen a couple times, and Breakout is at best okay. But I was wrong! The addition of different kinds of enemies and objectives really adds some depth and complexity to the basic Breakout formula. And it isn’t an action-adventure or Legend of Zelda-style game at all; those elements are basically aesthetic.

The single-player mode is definitely a spin on Breakout; I believe I’ve seen that it was marketed as a pinball game and that’s off the mark. Most levels follow the basic structure of trying to break bricks on the opposite side while making sure the “Trialight” doesn’t go through your own side. Firestriker adds a few elements on top of this that make it a lot more interesting, though. Your ‘paddle’ is a person and he has a lifebar now, because the different boards have different enemies and obstacles to avoid (while still juggling the basic challenge from Breakout). There are also a few levels that add different objectives to fulfill, like finding the key to go through the door or destroying all enemies of a specific type. Some maps require you to use specific characters that you unlock throughout the game.

The two player co-op is just the single player game except what would be the ‘blocker’ you control with the L and R buttons is replaced by a second player. I like this because it actually makes the game more challenging and makes it feel like a true cooperative experience. You need to communicate and coordinate your actions in a way that transforms the gaming experience entirely even though the basic mechanics are exactly the same.

There’s also a ‘Multi Mode’ game option for up to four players. There are several maps that come in two different ‘flavors.’ The first is like hockey or soccer where two teams try to score with the “Trialight” (the ball you use to score in the game). The second is comparable to Sugoi Hebereke or Super Smash Bros where players try to knock each other off of platforms in various different stages with different brick-breaking elements which are sort of neat and unique. Tiff and I played a little of each and it was pretty fun for a few minutes even just 1v1.

What Did They Think at the Time?

Well, this little blurb from EGM is very close to a concise summary of what I just wrote:

Interestingly, EGM2 also reviewed this and gave it an even higher score:

Game Players had mostly good things to say and called it ‘unexpectedly fun,’ which I certainly agree with, but only gave it 69%:

What Do We Think Now?

Overall, I have to say that the contemporaneous reviews I could find for Firestriker more or less nailed it in terms of what they said. But their scores don’t exactly align with what mine would be even though we don’t have any huge substantive disagreements for the most part.

That’s interesting to think about and explore. Something that probably hurt it at the time, but doesn’t really factor into my assessment at all, is the length. The graphics definitely aren’t technically impressive for the standards of 1994, especially when you consider the next generation of gaming systems had arrived (though the 3DO and the Jaguar are hardly the best examples of the fifth generation) but who cares? They’re serviceable, which I mean as a compliment.

Game Players in particular also just has some dumb categories.

My hunch is that what really drives this difference, though, is the way they are getting to their number score. Now, mathematically, they obviously aren’t taking their score in each category and then using the average to come to their overall score — both EGM2 and Game Players rate it higher overall than those ‘fundamental’s would imply. But I’m not interested in looking at the constituent parts of the game like that at all, really. The sound and graphics must have dragged it down in aggregate.

Anyway! Enough discursions. The ‘campaign’ mode in both single-player and co-op is just solid fun, and might not rate as a hidden gem alone. Tiff and I didn’t quite beat the game on our very first try, but we got very close. It will only take a few hours for most people to see the end screen. We were glued to the task the whole time we were playing, though. Even when one of us died we were actively engaged in trying to help and cheer on the other player.

But where the game goes from good to great is in the multiplayer party mode. There are about 10 different maps in this mode, though some of them repeat with minor variations (mostly block placement). Most maps have a soccer/hockey/traditional Breakout objective of putting a ball into a goal, but a few are more of a free for all battle mode where the objective is to knock everyone else off the platform and be the last man standing. We only played with three players, but I’m sure it would be even better with four.

In my view, this game deserves to be mentioned alongside the great party games on the Super Nintendo like Super Bomberman, NBA Jam, and Micro Machines. To be fair, this checks a lot of boxes for me. I’m much more likely to play two player or multiplayer games than single player games. Firestriker gives us a fun version of both. But it doesn’t fit neatly into a niche; the co-op mode is, for my money, a lot more fun than I’ve ever had playing through the Super Bomberman games cooperatively. The very justifiable reaction to that is, “who cares about co-op in games like Bomberman?” I hope to review all 5 of the Super Bomberman games on Super Nintendo (well, Super Famicom) eventually, so I won’t belabor it here, but that series benefits from repeated iterations. In a head-to-head comparison between their 4-player modes, Firestrikers is probably just a notch below.

Still, even if it doesn’t strike a fire under you the way it has for me, this game has a lot to offer and it’s definitely worth checking out if you can ever play in-person with one or more friends.