Mega lo Mania / Tyrants: Fight Through Time (Amiga)

Developer:

Sensible Software

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

Amiga, Atari ST, Mega Drive, SNES, DOS, X68000, PC-98, FM Towns

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Today on Super Adventures, I'm finally taking a look at classic Amiga strategy game MEGA lo MANIA (or Mega-Lo-Mania). It's also occasionally known as Tyrants: Fight Through Time in the US. It's never just called Megalomania, though maybe it'll help someone find this page on Google if I mention the word anyway.

This one's by eccentric British developer Sensible Software, creator of games like Wizkid, Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer and Sensible Train-Spotting, so I'm expecting to see tiny men running around the screen at some point. I should probably know already if they're in it as I've played the game before, but that was ages ago, I didn't play it for long and my strongest memory of it is being amazed that I actually worked out how to do something. It's one of those games where the first challenge is the interface.

Here's some random trivia for you: when Virgin Games published the game they decided to release a tie-in single called "Mega-Lo-Mania (Goin' All the Way)" to promote it. I don't think the song has any relation to the game or anything that happens in it, but it does have the same cover at least!

Okay I'm going to play this for an hour or so to see what it's like. Which means I'll either make it through a bunch of levels or just get really frustrated on the first one, depending on whether I'm able to figure any of it out. I actually started making some progress in Populous when I wrote about that, so there's always hope.

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Interesting, the game actually has a bit of an intro. I think this is the only Sensible Software game I've played that doesn't just drop you right into the action. It's showing a slideshow of images with some (silent) narration undernearth which says:

"Somewhere at the top of our universe there is a vast glass orb. Where brand new planets and heavenly bodies are conceived and nurtured. Until they are ready to be thrust out into the voids of space."

So it turns out that planets are made in a big glass orb at the top of the universe. I never knew that! I didn't even know that the universe had a 'top' to be honest.

Damn that artwork couldn't be more 'early 90s European computer art' if it was made of chrome. It's basically an example image to explain the concept of 'pillow shading'. You never see art like this anymore; it's like the techniques used to create are a lost technology.  

"For some unfortunate planets there is a final twist to this embryonic evolution. The introduction of an intelligent lifeform. And the appointment of an overlord or god to govern these poor misguided people."

It's not that weird to see a completely top down view of a character in a 2D video game, but it's really strange to see one in the intro. Artists just don't draw people from this angle if they can help it. Mostly because all you can see is the top of their head and their shoulders.

"The competition for such godship is fierce among the universal powers and demigods. As they each seek to gain total control of the newborn world. Slowly the great orb becomes surrounded by all manner of creatures. Most will have travelled through many light years to witness this godly contest."

Most of the audience will have travelled many light years, but not all of them! I guess the rest of live right next to the giant glass orb at the top of the universe and can drop by to watch whenever they have the time.

MS-DOS

"A contest that takes place in the form of an ancient heavily game. A game of evolution, destruction and power. The game of... MEGA lo MANIA."

Oh, so this video game is a simulation of an actual game? Okay that makes sense. It's like Windows Solitaire, or FIFA or A Game of Thrones: The Board Game - The Video Game.

This is a shot from the DOS port, which has a lot more colours on screen than the other versions, allowing for far more intricate hair and yellow cracked teeth. Whether that's an upgrade or not is up to you.

Japanese version (Mega Drive)

The Mega Drive/Genesis port can't compete with the DOS game on colours and it only has a single picture in its intro slideshow, but if you play the Japanese version you get this alternate image of a 120ft tall anime goddess watching her medieval troops get abducted by aliens. Which is what happens in Cannon Fodder 2 now that I think about it (not the giant anime goddess part).

Meanwhile the SNES port has no images at all for its opening narration, aside from a sword in the background. Also the text feels like it's been translated into Japanese and back. It's not Engrish, it's just become a bit clunky and soulless.

Edited image

Here's another bit of trivia for you: the game credits features some sneaky hidden messages. They're practically the same colour as the background, but if you change the palette they appear!

There weirdest thing about the credits though is how it starts listing characters and their voice actors... in a 2 disk Amiga game from 1991. Voice clips in games was nothing new at the time, I've heard a voice sample in a ZX Spectrum game from 1984, but they apparently put in an unusual amount of effort for this one, hiring professional radio actors and recording in an actual studio. Unusual for the 90s I mean. The multimedia interactive movie fad became a thing a couple of years later, with Hollywood actors appearing in tiny fuzzy video clips, but even by the late 90s good acting was never a sure thing.

The game goes straight from the intro, to the credits, to the player select screen, where I get to pick my character from a selection of demigods and Mafia bosses. Here's some trivia for you: if you stare at the screen long enough you might catch Oberon winking.

It's a lot easier to catch Madcap doing it.

SNES

The SNES port is unusual as it features new portraits. Also you can see here what I mean about the text looking like it's been through a translator. Scarlet's not 'fiery' anymore, she has a 'violent temperament'. Instead of being a 'demigoddess', she's a 'half-human, half-god'. The Mega Drive version also has its own set of redrawn portraits, but only in the Japanese version. You've already seen what Scarlet looks like in that other screenshot.

Alright, I have a choice between 'fiery', 'backstabbing', 'vindictive' or 'cunning'. Hmm. I think I'll go with Scarlet, seeing as she's always the first in the list, she showed up in the Japanese Mega Drive intro, and I don't really want to pick any of the others.

Oh cool, I was starting to think that the game just wasn't going to give me a menu screen. It always feels weird to me when a game drops me right into the action without giving me a moment to check my options or at least asking me to press 'Start'.

Auto slow? Sounds handy whatever it is, but it defaults to off so I'm going to leave it alone. I did try turning the SFX on, but it turned the music off, so I flipped it right back. It's weird because I'm allowed to have speech and music together. In fact a speech on/off option is weird in general. Other ports typically let you have everything on at once, so this is mostly an Amiga issue.

I'm also a bit surprised to see the LOAD/SAVE option in a game this old, but I'll try it out.

Okay, that's not what 'save' means and you know it. We already have a word for what that is, and it's 'password'.

It's a bit of a shame there's no saving, because I feel like I've missed out on getting another Cannon Fodder-style save disk formatting screen.

Cannon Fodder (Amiga)

Man, you know you're going crazy when you start getting nostalgic for save disk formatting. I could format an external hard drive for my Xbox right now, but it's just not the same! Also I'd lose all my stuff on it.

Alright now that I've decided to just leave all the options alone I'm going to try to work out how to start a new game in this thing.

Oh damn, it's got tooltip boxes that pop up when you hover the mouse cursor over something! That was not a common feature in 1991. At least I don't think it was.

Thanks to the helpful help boxes I've learned that I've got three islands to pick from in this epoch, with Aloha being the smallest. It's also letting me choose how many men I want to send to the island, which I guess is a kind of difficulty select? I tried sending all of them, because I want to win, but 98 is the maximum, so two dudes will have to stay behind and watch I suppose.

I eventually figured out that the next step is to click one of the boxes in the tiny map above to place a starting tower in that sector. There are only two sectors so there's not much choice and nothing to show which is better, but I'll go with... the bottom sector.

ALOHA OF THE 1ST EPOCH

That name at the bottom of the screen isn't going away huh? It's like the designers planned ahead and put empty space that can be cropped for the ports which have a smaller screen size. Because how many other systems can pull off 320x256 like the Amiga?

(I don't really want to know the answer to this).

Okay I'm playing the actual level now, and I've still got the tooltips thankfully. It's like having an in-game manual that only pops up when I need it and shows me the exact thing I want to know! It's telling me that the collection of arrows and icons over on the invisible sidebar are the buttons to switch between different menus. The lightbulb lets me design stuff, the logs show my stock of elements, and the sword lets me assemble an army.

SNES

The SNES version takes a bit of the ambiguity out of it by just using words and honestly I approve. It's just a shame they took out all the tooltips so there's actually fewer clues about what it all means. Plus the SNES can't fit the whole screen into its resolution, so instead of redrawing the art they put the side bar on top of the island and made it so it can slide out of the way. The main downside of this is that the cropped art's going to get stretched to fill a 4:3 TV.

The game looks a bit like an RTS like Warcraft or Command & Conquer, but the screen doesn't scroll and there's no little guys to order around. I clicked the map to check out the other half of the island and it's just as quiet over by Oberon's crappy hut.

This might seem like the exact same screenshot but if you look really carefully you'll see that some of the little icons have changed. That's because I'm on the design menu now, looking at all the new technologies I can develop. Like sticks and rocks. My people are so primitive that they haven't even invented the rock yet.

It doesn't seem like there's anything stopping me from skipping that step and moving straight up to spears and catapults though, except that it might take a bit longer.

I clicked a stick hoping for some information about its damage stats compared to the other weapons, but it told me nothing. Though the game did give me another chance to tell it how many men I wanted to assign to the task. So I went with 'all of them' again, and this made the time on the clock go down.

It doesn't seem like I've got anything better to do right now than research stuff, so I'm just going to keep clicking stuff and waiting until I've got all of it. I don't know what the advantage is of having both spears and catapults is, it seems a bit redundant to give me two columns of weapons, but I'm sure it'll make sense eventually.

Developing all this advanced weaponry has dragged my society into a new era! I've reached a higher tech level so my hut has transformed into a way more sturdy-looking castle and a big sinkhole has appeared.

It's also given me a lot more buttons to click, so I can assign people to mine for materials, check what materials each weapon needs, and even construct another building. Still no little dudes running around and chopping down trees though. C'mon Sensible, little dudes is your thing!

Hey, it put the mine building over the hole! That makes sense. Though hang on, they're mining parasite? Like, literal bugs? Eww.

My dudes keep growing in numbers over time, so I have enough now to send 70 of them down the mines and still have some left over to get some weapon designing done. Oh, I figured out the point to having two columns of weapons by the way: the left column is defensive weapons for the guards placed on my buildings. I've got a full set of archers defending my castle now!

Oh crap, I was just putting a couple of defenders on my mine when Team Yellow showed up! 24 of them, according to the yellow shield next to the map. There are so many tiny guys running around the field shooting balls at their opposition right now; it's turned into the weirdest Sensible Soccer match I've seen.

I sometimes retake videos like this if I'm really slow with the mouse, but I think this GIF helps show off how confused I am by this interface. Even with the tooltips literally telling me what to do it still took a bit for it to sink in. I got it in the end though: there were enough materials to build 13 archers by clicking the bow, and clicking on the sector afterwards deployed them there.

Then my knights totally wiped out those cavemen in about four seconds, and they weren't even aiming in the right direction! I'm starting to think I might have a slightly technological advantage over my opponent. I should probably send some guys over to his castle to find out.

Interesting formation they're using there, but it's getting the job done. I've got absolutely no control over what's happening here right now, the soldiers just do their own thing, so there's nothing else for me to do now really but watch the show.

The enemy's desperately sending out new people as defenders, but they're no match for the 23 soldiers I was able to arm with state of the art weaponry and get out on the field. Those shadows under the arrows and spears are a nice touch, by the way. They help get across that they're arcing through the air. In fact the game's a lot more interesting to look at in general when stuff's actually moving.

Well I did it! I figured out the controls and led my men to victory on my very first try. And now that I'm back on the menu screen I've learned the horrifying reason why it only let me deploy 98 people on the first island. Because I DON'T GET THEM BACK!

Now I have two dudes left to beat two islands, one each. The game outwitted me after all.

Though actually I just remembered that it gives me a LOAD/SAVE password! I doubt the password includes data on the amount of men I've deployed, so if I type in the new code it gives me I may be able to play the second island with a clean slate!

Well that's just the same damn password.

Okay fine, I'll go play the next level with just one guy in my hut. Maybe it's actually possible, I don't know. Plus I suppose I did want to check if the game over screen's any good.

BAZOOKA OF THE 1ST EPOCH

It's nice to have a change of scenery at least. Wait, this just a palette swap of the last bit of scenery! Well, I suppose the trees are different. Also the left side is flat, because this is the top corner of an island with four sectors. I'm going to have to figure out what I can do with empty sectors at some point.

Actually it seems like I won't be figuring anything out because my population isn't increasing. I can't even begin designing anything until I get at least two guys, and things would take forever to finish anyway. Seems to me that this really is completely unwinnable with one guy, but I'm going to put the game speed to max and see what happens anyway.

Turns out that the population did eventually increase (I dunno, maybe my dude invited his friends over, or split into two like an amoeba). In fact I had 9 blokes in my hut by the time Caesar had ran out of empty sectors to conquer and sent his 26 man army after me.

Turns out that the game over screen's rubbish.

Right, it's pretty obvious that I'm going to have to start the game over and replay Aloha with just 33 people or less so that I'll have some left over for the next two islands. Actually I'll go with 25 for the first island, as they'll probably get trickier as they go on.

LATER

Alright, I've beaten Aloha and I'm back on island 2! Well, it could be whatever number you want really, as you can play the three in any order. But I'm playing it second and this time I have 33 people with me. I've also started in the bottom left corner just for a change.

Man, it's nice to be able to research things and put guards on my base and stuff again! In fact I even have enough people to make an army, so I'm going to see if I can send them off to build a second tower in an empty sector.
 

Oh, I see how this works. It's just like the research: by moving my army here I've assigned 27 people to the task of building a new tower, and it'll take a certain amount of time (shown by the clock). If I send more people it'll speed the process up.

It didn't take long to get my second base built and then I discovered something weird: each location has its own resources and tech tree. I can't just arm my new place with the best defences like my old fortress has, I have to design them again first.

I can see on the map that Caesar's got small green dots in the both the top sectors. The only reasons I can think of to put an army in an empty sector is to build a tower or move them to the next sector along, so he's got ambitions to expand his territory as well.

Fortunately it's really easy to take a undeveloped tower with no defences, so as soon as Caesar finished his new base in the top left sector I just rolled in there with my dudes and blew it up. Then I killed all the cavemen he sent after me too.

If you ever wondered who'd win in a fight between Romans and cavemen, it's Romans. The cavemen never stood a chance, even with double the numbers. Wait, if they had double my numbers here, that means Caesar just threw most of his dudes at me and lost them. I could just pop next door and blow up his main base as well!

Well, that map was a lot easier the second time around. The moral of the story: if you're going to conquer an island, bring more than one dude.

CILLA OF THE 1ST EPOCH

Hey it's snowy this time!

I've got two theories about Cilla, the final island of the first epoch: first, it's named after singer Cilla Black, second, I've just screwed it up by choosing to start in the centre. In retrospect this was a bit of a tactical error, as there are two opponents on this stage and if they want to fight each other they'll have to go through me.

I tried to make an alliance with someone to avoid fighting a war on two fronts, but they weren't interested. So now I'm going to have to switch to an alternative strategy, which I'm calling Operation: Immediate Victory.

I researched catapults, used the materials I started off with to kit out my whole force with them, and then sent the troops north to catch Yellow Team with its pants down. If this had gone badly I would've lost all my dudes, but Oberon's men were still at caveman level so it was a massacre. In fact I suffered so few losses that I decided to push my luck and go attack Blue Team's base as well!

I did it! Absolute victory in just under 3 minutes. Man, I spent so much time designing new stuff on the first two islands, when I could've just researched just enough to give me an advantage then marched right into their HQ.

Scarlet is now the Crown Princess of Cilla and the Eternal Goddess of the 1st Epoch, which means I'm done with the first area and I'm ready to see what's next!

Oh. Well this is familiar. 100 more guys, three more islands to beat. I'm even up against the same opponents!

The next island's called Dracula, so after Aloha, Bazooka and Cilla I'm starting to see a bit of a theme emerging. I checked and there's 28 islands in the game, so that must be the point where they couldn't think of any more words ending in 'A'. (They could've made it to 30, but they used two of them up in the title).

DRACULA OF THE 2ND EPOCH

Hey we've all started off with the level 2 fortresses this time. Seems like whenever I complete three islands and move up an epoch I get to start off at a higher tech level. Which I guess means I get to progress further with my weapon designs. I'm in 3000 BC though so it's going to take a while before I reach biplanes and nukes. In fact it's going to take a while to do anything, so I'm spying on Yellow for a bit.

Wait, did Blue send three dudes to attack Yellow's fortress or did I just catch the end of an epic battle here? Either way, this means Blue and Yellow are fighting each other, not me, and they're doing it with cavemen. Okay, I've got a new strategy for this map: instead of rushing in once I get the tiniest advantage I'm just going to hang back and build up my tech and materials while these two invest all of their dudes into killing each other off. I might even claim some extra territory if I can be bothered waiting for my army to build the new tower.

Actually I just realised I will have to take another sector as the one I've started with is a bit rubbish at coming up with new weapons for some reason.

Mega Drive

Oh, here's something I should probably mention: if you enter the password JOOLS on the Mega Drive/Genesis version you can play a secret shoot 'em up minigame where you fly around as a spaceship and explode.

I think what you're supposed to do is fly around this scrolling star field shooting the little enemies and collecting the bricks they drop. Then you use them on the giant evil Oberon head that's flying around. But whenever the thing appears on screen I've only got a half-second to react before I'm eaten by it, so I can't make it past level 1.

Fortunately I'm doing a lot better in the main game. In fact I've reached the 3rd epoch now!

GAZZA OF THE 3RD EPOCH

Now my fortresss is even swankier.

This sector I've picked isn't so great though. There's only one design to create here and it's a level 3 shield, so it's probably going to take my 26 dudes forever to complete. There may be something I can do to fix this, I don't know, but I do know that the next sector will have different resources. I just have to wait for Oberon to quit snooping around and pull his yellow army back and then I can go forth and build a new base.

Yellow team walked down here all the way from their base in the top left, so it doesn't seem like there's a limit to how far an army can wander and I can theoretically take any tile I want. They're all equally mysterious though so I'll just grab the sector right next to me.

A FEW SECTORS LATER

The hell? I've tried three sectors now and they've all been terrible. Look, it hasn't even given me a design button at all this time, the lightbulb on the left is entirely missing!

Man, I thought I was in trouble before, but now I've definitely lost this island. While I'm screwing around building tower after tower, the others will be building better weapons, and I started off in the middle of them so to fight each other they'll have to come after me. Look, Madcap's already destroyed my first tower in the bottom right!

Okay now the game's just taking the piss. I built a fourth tower in the top right sector and it's given me no buttons at all! Well, except for the one to assemble an army and get the hell out of here. It seems like the entire right hand side of Gazza Island is a trap. Madcap hasn't even bothered building bases here, he's just been destroying mine.

I figured the match was hopeless at this point, so I quit back to the menu screen and started the island again. This time I started off in the one square I hadn't tried yet. Turns out that it's the only one worth having, and only barely. I built what I could and took Oberon's square before he had a chance to set up decent defences.

Well, Gazza was a pain, but it's over now. Madcap was no trouble once I got a decent start.

I'm actually a little tempted to keep playing, but I don't think I'll be seeing anything else worth showing off for a long while. From what I remember of ancient history, rifles and jet fighters didn't get invented until ages after 100 BC, so it'll be mostly swords and arrows for the time being.

But here's the latest password if you want to keep playing yourself.


CONCLUSION

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Wow, Mega lo Mania was not a good choice of game for a site that shows off screenshots. I think I just set a new Super Adventures record for the number of near-identical pictures in a row.

It's not an ugly game though, especially not for 1991. Plus it has music too! I can't remember what it sounds like and I may not have even been consciously aware of it at the time, but I'm pretty sure it was there. My most vivid memory of the game is of clicking on things to make a number go up, because the gameplay's all about distributing the correct amount of workers to where they should be. You have to acquire the right amount of materials to equip the correct amount of people with the optimal level of weaponry so you can send them to where they need to be without them all getting killed. The trick is figuring out the correct proportions.

People used to compare this to Populous at the time, I guess because there wasn't much else it could be compared to. It's apparently the first ever real time strategy game with a tech tree, so they were still building the genre's foundations at this point. Personally I think it's a bit like a proto-Civilization... except not turn based. Also games can take 5-10 minutes instead of 5-10 hours, at least early on. I've only played smaller islands so far, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of game where you make a mistake, recover from it, and then try something else. By the time that little dudes started fighting I had a pretty good idea whether I was going to win the island or not, and I didn't have to wait long for the result. Sure it felt like I was watching that tiny clock for an eternity sometimes, even with time acceleration dialled up to full, but the game's actually pretty quick. You might be wondering how the time acceleration works when you're playing multiplayer... well, it doesn't have any. Multiplayer I mean. The game's entirely single player only, which is a bit strange considering well it'd suit competitive play.

I'm struggling to decide whether I like the game, mostly because I still haven't really got the hang of it. Even now after getting a quarter of the way in I'm sure could replay that first island, get my ass kicked, and not have a clue what I did wrong this time. And the game definitely seems like it's going to get more complicated from here, with new buildings, more interesting technology, and more reliance on those minable elements I was basically ignoring. You can't be tactical like in later RTSs like Warcraft and Command & Conquer, luring enemies out and things like that, it's all about knowing how many people you should assign, and that knowledge likely comes from trial and error. Fortunately retrying is painless, unless the frustration of beating your head against a metaphorical wall over and over gives you a headache.

I didn't go crazy and play a bunch of the different ports this time as there didn't seem to be a point; they're all very similar. The Amiga, Atari ST, PC-98, X68000 and FM Towns versions are basically the same thing from what I can tell. The DOS version is the same thing with more colours. The SNES and Japanese Mega Drive versions are the same thing, except with different art in the intro. Plus they have you steering the cursor around with a controller (unless you have a SNES mouse). I'm not keen on the way the Mega Drive game's cursor snaps to stuff when you move it around, I prefer how the SNES game just lets you move it anywhere, but otherwise they worked fine when I tried them. Obviously a mouse is better, and out of all of them I preferred the Amiga original, but if it says Mega lo Mania on the box, you're getting Mega lo Mania. Even when it says Tyrants: Fight Through Time instead.

I am going to give Mega lo Mania a 'Not Crap' star, because it's surprisingly accessible (to a point) once you know what it actually is and I found myself getting into it once I actually got some momentum going. I doubt I'll ever think "You know what, I feel like putting Mega lo Mania on and playing that for a bit," but I'm glad that I did play it again, for a little while.

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Alright, that's another game ticked off the list. Unfortunately the list never ends, which means you've got another game coming up soon and if you want you can take a guess at what it'll be in the comment box below.

You could also share your own thoughts on Mega lo Mania, as the comment box is multitalented and likes to show off.