Mechs are big business in Japanese culture, and have featured in multiple video games over the years, as well as anime and manga, the giant anthropomorphic robots are perfect fit for vicariously living out the fantasy of futuristic bipedal warfare. The original Assault Suit Leynos was a superb mech shooter/platformer hybrid that arrived in 1990 on the Sega Mega Drive and was clunkily renamed Target Earth in the West, along with a heavy amount of censorship. The second game in the series, Assault Suits Valken, was the most successful and well known of the franchise – arriving in PAL land as Cybernator courtesy of a publishing deal with Konami. One of the most beloved titles for the Super Nintendo, it still looks and plays amazingly today.
A Saturn sequel dropped in 1997 and is the source material for Assault Suit Leynos 2 Saturn Tribute. Notoriously hard to emulate, there are a lot of classics for the 32-bit SEGA console that still haven’t legally seen the light of day in modern times, but this City Connection remaster brings an obscure yet very enjoyable 90s mech curio to the fore for modern audiences, and what a job they have done, even if this is a seriously difficult and hardcore experience that will leave those not au fait with the teak-tough kind of stuff we played back then crying into their joypad.
Assault Suits Leynos 2 is a scrolling platformer with a cracking 2D aesthetic typical of the era. You take on wave after wave of opponents using a selection of eight different mecha and a staggering 50 different weapon types. Each stage is chock full of enemies and present a real challenge to conserve not only your ammunition but your destructible shield which can only be replenished after completing a mission. Your mechs can jump, dash and fly around impressively and fire in multiple directions, even employing a handy targeting system. Your performance in each stage will dictate what kind of weapons and vehicular improvements you can make to your bipedal war machines, and you can only unlock the full range of robotic killing machines by pulling off the higher rankings.
Again: this is a seriously tough game with a plethora of enemies seeking to wipe you out, some stunningly huge boss characters, and a feeling that your mech, even when accompanied by a squadron of AI comrades, is extremely vulnerable and that your mission is almost suicidal in terms of challenge and scope. It is a very different game to the slower paced, more exploratory Cybernator, which is more about platforming and measured use of the physical attributes of your titular assault suit. This feels more like an arcade game, and if it was a coin op, it would absolutely chew through your pocket change relentlessly.
Fans of the slew of brilliant 2D games that released for the Saturn will appreciate the cracking look and feel of this one. The sprites are detailed and well animated, and the game pulls off some great tricks such as scaling which takes me right back to the arcade era. Being a mech shooter there are also some satisfying explosions and some of the weapons are impressively destructive and meaty in the way they handle.
Overall presentation is also great with the weapons and assault suits beautifully rendered on the various menu screens and tons of Starfox-style dialogue boxes that pop up during gameplay as the pilots natter to each other and their HQ, driving the futuristic robot war storyline forward, not that you will be able to pay much attention to it whilst avoiding getting your ass handed to you as the screen fills with hostiles. The only criticism about the way this one looks is the (faithfully reproduced) extremely choppy and poorly executed FMV intro sequences that make the ones in Shinobi X look like high-end cinematic art. Nonetheless they do elicit a little pang of nostalgia for how things were back in the day.
Your mileage with Assault Suit Leynos 2 Saturn Tribute will depend on your love for not only the genre but the era, too. If you have never experienced a proper unforgiving arcade game like this and go in thinking you will have an easy time of it then you will be frustrated as you die repeatedly. You need to learn the patterns, get the upgrades, and be on your toes constantly. A gung ho approach is not recommended. Assault Suit Leynos 2 Saturn Tribute is a hardcore slice of action that is extremely hard to beat, and if you want something a bit less unforgiving then I would recommend revisiting Assault Suits Valken/Cybernator.
