Keio Flying Squadron 2
Entry posted by fun2novel
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The first Keio Flying Squadron was a SegaCD exclusive side scrolling shooter with funny wacky premise about Keio and her family worshiping a big golden key and her journey to bring it back after it was stolen. The game opens up with a grainy almost colorless animated anime opening, beginning with a history lesson and suddenly moves to the main part of the story, the history lesson had nothing to do with the main story. The English dub wasn’t good but strangely they did not dub any of the voice clips playing during the gameplay so you still hear the Japanese voices. Overall it was a short but a very fun game with a very good cartoony style to it.
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Keio Flying Squadron 2 was a different game entirely which came as a shock to those few who played the original. Instead of a side scrolling shooter it was turned into a side scrolling 2D action platform game. It is practically unheard of for the sequel to have such a radical change from the original in so many ways. But it is a change for the better, it allowed the game to keep the same presentation style while making something new and different. Something tells me the developers wanted to start fresh as if the first game doesn’t exist even though there’s a 2 in the title.
First thing first, the game opens with another fully animated anime opening. This time due to Saturn’s higher color palette things look much more bright and colorful however it is also very grainy much like it’s predecessor, the Saturn unfortunately didn’t have a dedicated video decoder and the developers were left on their own to come up with something. The dub voices still aren’t very good but once again, just like its predecessor, it does its job. The story is that once again Keio’s family has another holly object stolen, this time it is some kind of magical orb, and Keio must retrieve it from the bad guys. And thus another wacky adventure ensues.
As the game begins we are treated to some beautiful lush and colorful graphics and smoothly animated sprites with some really cool rotation and scaling effects that shows the 2D capabilities of the Saturn. There are even transparency effects which isn’t easy to achieve on the Saturn. There isn’t much here that would be considered as pushing 2D graphics to their limits as the Saturn is barely breaking a sweat rendering those images on the screen but visual aesthetics and design are much more important than a technical showcase.
One strange or perhaps unique aspect to this game are the controls. In general they are the same as any other platform game but the developers played with the formula a bit. When Keio first starts moving she moves very slowly but after a few steps she gains momentum and starts running faster and jumping farther. But unlike other games, when she stops at a complete standstill still retains some of her momentum so if you stop for a second, or even just climb a ladder, and then start moving again she doesn’t start at a slow speed but instead dashes at a fast speed. This can be a little disorienting because of inaccurate controls and can lead to many frustrating situations and even deaths because you’re not always sure at what speed you’re going to move at. This is one formula that didn’t need fixing.
Thankfully, in the options screen you can change how you want Keio to gain momentum. The default is just holding and moving in either direction but you can change the controls to double tap in the left or to the right directions or hold the L+R buttons while moving. However, once again this is not so useful because Keio’s slow speed is really slow, almost as if she’s pushing something heavy forcing the player to hold another button down almost all the time which kind of defeats the purpose of changing controls. Once again, the controls will take some time to adjust.
Keio can also pick up and throw objects at enemies. There are many objects in the background she can pick up including statues and sign posts. But there are also all kinds of weapons available for her to pick up. There is a hammer to hit enemies with, an umbrella that can be used both as a weapon and as a parachute to glide over obstacles, a bow and arrow to shoot enemies from afar. Keio can only carry one weapon at a time and if she’s hit she loses it but can grab it again before it disappears. The weapons act as a second hit point, kind of like rings in Sonic, and you’ll need to find weapons as soon as you can because one hit kills you instantly, so save yourself the frustrations as quickly as you can. Keio can of course jump on her enemies as well like every other platform game out there.
Depending on how you play and how you kill enemies you gain or lose points. These points unlock some bonuses like images in the extra menu. It’s nothing to fret about but a fun little incentive for those who want to unlock everything the game has.
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Besides the platform levels the game also has some shooting levels similar to the original game. They have a very samey feel to them and those who played the first game will feel right at home. There are power ups to collect and a lot of enemies to shoot. The game’s presentation is unlike that of Konami’s Parodius games with similar wacky humorous images in the background and funny enemies to shoot.
But the real show stealer is the presentation. The localizers didn’t bother to change much except for the menu, the user interface, and the voices which this time even the in game voice clips were dubbed into English, go figure. Call it lazy or not but this helped the game keep it’s distinct wacky Japanese flavor intact, they didn’t change any of the Japanese foods and even left all the Kanji graphics in. Maybe they trusted the idiot gaijins to know that some games come from Japan, who knows. There are lots of very humorous moments going on with some funny bosses thrown in into the mix. One of the bosses is a sumo wrestler who is then replaced by some mascot that spins around on a big pencil and then feels sick and starts barfing giving you an opportunity to hit him. Yeah, you read that right… It really happens. The game feels a bit like something from Konami’s Goemon because of it’s style but unfortunately it’s not as polished as what Konami’s games used to be.
I recommend the game for those who want something fun to burn their weekend with. The game can be a little frustrating at times but it’s definitely a fun experience and has quite a few surprises up its sleeve.
Edit: I said that the localizers left everything intact but this is a mistake on my part. After playing the Japanese version I notice that they did some Japanese into English but none of that removes the developer's real intention as even the things that have been turned into English continue to retain the original Japaneseness of the game. Even better, none of the sexual and religious stuff were censored. Some of the dubbed lines have been changed here and there.
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