The Krion Conquest
System: NES
Release Date: January 1991
Developer: Vic Tokai
Publisher: Vic Tokai
Genre: Action
Lead a rebellion against a robot battalion in the Krion Conquest! Alien robots from space have demanded an unconditional surrender from the leaders of Earth. Not so fast, aliens, we’re going to fight back they say. Unfortunately, the abilities of the outsiders far surpassed our own. Until the freeing of witch Francesca from a curled staff. She and she alone has the ability to defeat the invaders and free the planet.
Vic Tokai looked at Mega Man and said hold my beer, we can do that too. The graphics and general gameplay are very familiar to a Mega Man player. But this is Vic Tokai we’re talking about here, so things are going to be a bit… different. Instead of a choose your own path adventure through different levels, you face off a gauntlet of twelve short, but brutal rounds of action. The main character, Francesca, is a magic being with a few different spells she can bend to her will. Her normal attack is like the Mega Buster in that it can shoot little balls of energy out to attack enemies. Francesca’s staff shot can be powered up if you hold the B Button, but doesn’t work how you might expect while changing screens, nor will it always start charging when you hold the button.
The Fire attack transforms her into a fire bird, attacking enemies on screen at the cost of 1/3 of the total life bar. The Freeze attack does just that to enemies when powered up. You can cast a static Shield which will reflect projectile attacks. The Ball attack shoots up diagonally and bounces of surfaces a few times. This spell is necessary to take out some enemies and bosses. The Broom is Francesca’s version of Rush Jet. When you jump on it, shooting will move it in the direction you are aiming. Shooting again will change the direction. This broom is how you get through most portions of the adventure. It will basically disappear if you jump while riding it, leading to countless deaths until you get the mechanic down perfectly.
Levels are laid out in ways to make you use most of these spells to succeed. Enemy spawns can be quite unpredictable, especially the fast moving enemies that have a low profile and take multiple shots to kill. Make those one shot kills and the game becomes much more manageable. Sometimes you just want to avoid bad guys to get through a room, but don’t get too cocky or you’ll regret it. (53:42; vid 2) Each level has a gimmick to it. The ice level has floors that move you different than you expect the physics to work. The water level has a life gauge and an oxygen gauge, plus instant killing spikes and fast moving fish that take multiple hits to kill. Definitely designed to make you angry. The sky level has you using the broom to move everywhere. The levels are not long, but they are packed with difficulty and action.
The end of the third round of each level ends with a boss. These guys have a pattern that once you learn them become incredibly easy to defeat. But until you do, you’ll be taking multiple attempts. There are only a couple extra lives placed in the levels, so if you die on the boss, it’s game over and you must start all over from level 1-1. I set a save state at the beginning of each boss and had to make up to a dozen attempts or so to beat them. There is no continue function in the US version of the game. Presumably this would have been to thwart the rental market and force people to buy it to beat it, but I don’t think that’s a particularly good plan. A win rolls the credits with the sprites frozen on screen. The end.
Graphics: 3.5
Everything looks clean, detailed, and colorful enough to appeal to me.
Sound: 3.0
The programmers over at Vic typically do a good job with music and sound and I enjoyed what they did here, too.
Gameplay: 2.5
I had some issues with jumping not always behaving as I expected, and I never really needed the Fire attack, which is good because health replenishing items were few and far between.
Difficulty: 1.5
There are no continues. You’d better hope you have everything memorized and perform flawlessly, because if not, you start from the beginning.
Fun Factor: 2.0
This game was polarizing to me. I enjoyed some of the design, but hated other parts.
Overall Rating: 2.5
The Krion Conquest earns a B-. If you can handle Nintendo hard or can set save states to counteract the lack of continues, you can get some enjoyment out of this one. Otherwise, good luck getting past level one.