#oneaday Day 853: Like a hurricane

I've been playing some Turrican this evening, thanks to the Turrican Flashback compilation from Inin games. To my shame as someone who grew up with European microcomputers, I've never actually played Turrican before, so this was a new experience for me — though I was already familiar with its historical significance and how well-received it was back in the day.

For the unfamiliar, Turrican is typically the go-to example of the "Euro-platformer" in that it has vast, explorable levels — though the exits are usually pretty straightforward to find. It obviously draws a certain amount of influence from Metroid, but there are also elements of shoot 'em ups in there, too, particularly with regard to how the power-ups work.

It is, like many games from the period, an example of a game where developers were still very much figuring things out. In Turrican's case, the people behind it apparently had not realised the importance of invincibility frames and hitstun in action games, meaning you have to play it quite a bit differently from similar Japanese games from the period. Once you get your head around the fact that if you start taking damage from something, you will keep taking damage from it until you get out of its way, it provides an enjoyable experience — but you have to make that adjustment first!

I've been particularly enjoying the level designs, which have a nicely labyrinthine feel without feeling overly complex and impossible to navigate, and, of course, Chris Huelsbeck's excellent tracker soundtrack. Rather pleasingly, the Turrican Flashback compilation includes the Amiga versions of both Turrican and Turrican II (as well as the Mega Drive's Mega Turrican and the Super NES' Super Turrican) — it's quite rare to see home computer games in compilations like this, so I hope we see a bit more of this in the future!

I got a fair distance through the game earlier, but didn't make it to the end. I'm looking forward to trying again, though — I think I would have enjoyed this game back in the day and it still holds up rather well today aside from the aforementioned issues!