So Hudson Entertainment wanted to know if I was interested in writing a article for any top Turbo Grafx 16 games for their site since they know I am a fan, so I decided sure why not. Since no one was writing an article for the excellent shooter Gate of Thunder, I figured I better do the job. After submitting my article to them, they contacted me a few weeks later saying the article was up... however they didn't specify that they butchered it with a level 12+ Crocodile Dundee knife. Click here to view the slaughter if you dare, otherwise read what I originally wrote; 100% uncensored and untouched. EDIT: Hudson Entertainment has now changed the link for my original review to here.

Gate of Thunder (uncut)

Every classic gamer knows that shooters were big throughout the 80's and possibly even bigger in the early 90's. Before 1992, there were a considerate amount of decent shooters available for home consoles, such as Blazing Lazers, Thunder Force III, and R-Type. When 1992 came and Gate of Thunder first made it's release as one of the Turbo Duo pack-in titles, all other shooters were grains of sand. Gate of Thunder took the same basic gameplay elements of other shooters, namely Thunder Force III, but kicked everything up a whole new level to only leave shooter fans and critics in utter amazement.

In Gate of Thunder, you take control of the ship "Hunting Dog" as the pilot Hawk. The Obellon army, lead by General Don Jingi and his right hand man Eagle, are out to steal a powerful, deadly source of energy called the Starlight from the peaceful planet of Aries. With such a powerful energy source in the wrong hands, life could end as we know it. Hawk is the final hope to take down the Obellon army with the aid of the attractive pilot Esty of the "Wild Cat" ship.

So basically the typical shooter story line, but of course that's not why Gate of Thunder is so loved. Gate of Thunder contains seven levels of fast-paced, non-stop action that could never bore a gamer. The fast action of Gate of Thunder is only part of the reason why the game is so great and interests gamers, but the actual level structure itself is amazing. Unlike other shooters at the end which reused the same static background throughout the level, Gate of Thunder has levels that evolve and take you further into the area of the level.

One of the most memorable example of this for me was in level three where you start off in a compact cave mine with dropping rocks, further leading you into the mining factory containing trapped doors, following into an incredibly looking fire blazing section of the factory and then eventually having the level end to the outside shores of the factory in space to make way for the massive, screen-sized boss. Truly mind blowing.

Gates of Thunder uses a fairly standard weapon system in shooters, but still a great candidate to fit the gameplay. Your ship can acquire three different weapons each with two levels of power ups: a straight shooting laser beam, a narrow three-way wave beam, and a powerful, wide three-way earthquake missile. Three basic weapons, but perfectly balanced and all you need. Weapons can be changed anytime by pressing the I button. The designers of Gate of Thunder weren't lazy and actually set up the levels extremely well so that you'll have to switch weapons often; this is shown as early as the first level!

The ship can also equip two satellites that stay above and below the ship and also fire the weapon being used. Just like most shooters, these satellites can take hits from incoming projectiles to help save your ship, but unlike most shooters, you can have these satellites turn back and shoot behind by tapping the shooting button twice -- a very unique and useful feature. A slow, heat-sinking missile add-on and a three-hit force shield can also be acquired, the latter item being especially useful.

Each level contains it's own vast array of enemies, which I don't recall being reused in other levels. Classic games can be notorious for reusing enemies throughout levels, but Gates once again steps ahead of the others. It's a blast being able to encounter so many different enemies, equally as much as blasting them away. Even more fun than the standard enemies are the bosses, which are huge and contain fun patterns to learn while also requiring skill from the player to defeat them. The last boss especially is a fun and difficult treat.

Many fans agree that Gates of Thunder had the nicest graphics out of any console shooter of it's time. The Turbo Duo's hardware was not afraid to show off some of the graphical abilities it was capable of when Gates of Thunder came out. So many colors are used and so well polished on the screen, making everything look smooth and vibrant. The enemy sprites, though typically not large, are detailed nicely and have arcade quality frames of animation to them. The backgrounds are my personal favorite than any other shooter and are highly, highly enriched with detail. The backgrounds scroll beautifully, are shaded with perfection, and contain multi-layers of parallax scrolling, which was uncommon for Turbo games before it.

By the time Gate of Thunder was out, big bosses in shooters were becoming somewhat of a fad and Gate of Thunder is no exception to this at all. Gate of Thunder possibly had the biggest bosses is any console shooter of it's time. The bosses usually horked up most of the screen, while still giving you plenty of room to move around. Don't expect these bosses to just be big bosses that sit still. The bosses contain lots of animation like the standard enemies and some, despite their huge size, aren't afraid to move around on screen.

Another subject of Gates of Thunder that many fans agree on is that it has the coolest soundtrack out of any shooter. That may sound farfetched, but it's hard to disagree. CD audio was a big thing about early CD games and man did Gates of Thunder rock it's CD to shreds. The soundtrack generally has a hard rock style to it, but mixes in a bit of electronic to it as well, resulting in a really original style sound. I've never quite heard another soundtrack like Gates, it's just so unique and sounds outstanding. It's been known that lots of Turbo fans have put in the Gate of Thunder CD in their car stereo while driving; I am one of the many.

A less talked about area of Gate of Thunder are the sound effects, which I thought were magnificent. Each sound makes great use of the soundchip and fits what it's used for perfectly; lasers, explosions, blasters and all! Unlike Blazing Lazers which had a rather scruffy voice for whenever you picked up items and what not, Gate of Thunder has a very clean sounding voice that you can actually understand.

It's hard to find anything wrong with Gate of Thunder and people such as myself consider it a perfect game. We all know that pack-in games for consoles usually turn out to be crap, such as Keith Courage or Altered Beast, but what an amazing decision from TTi to include Gate of Thunder as only one of the multiple pack-in titles included with the Turbo Duo system. To make it a even better pack-in title, the Gate of Thunder CD also includes Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, and even the hidden Bomberman game -- all great games that really do make Gate of Thunder a SUPER CDROM2!

- Keranu, October 14th, 2006 4:17am USA Central Time (article itself was originally written on August 23rd, 2006 7:01pm USA Central Time.)