Riot Zone (TurboGrafx-CD)

Developer:

Westone

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Release Date:

1993 (1992 in Japan)

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Systems:

TurboGrafx-CD, Arcade (kind of)

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This week on Super Adventures we're going to the Riot Zone, on the TurboGrafx-CD / PC Engine CD-ROM².

Though it's also known by another name, as it started life as an coin-op called Riot City. The licensing agreement that developer Westone had with original publisher Sega said they owned the rights to the game, but not the characters, bosses or names, so when they ported it to Hudson Soft's console they had to give it a makeover and a new title. It's a bit weird they didn't just port it to Sega's Mega Drive / Genesis instead and save themselves the work, but I suppose they must have had their reasons.

The game never got a European release in either form, but the console version did reach America, so there'll be nice English cutscenes for me to completely understand. Well I'll be able to read the text at least.

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Hey I found a typo! Oh hang on, I should give you a link to the soundtrack in case you want to have it playing in another tab while you're reading, for the full Riot Zone experience: YouTube link.

The game begins with two New York cops bursting into their chief's office to tell them that "the Bossman's still in the DragonZone" and they're ready to take him down!

But the chief reveals that he's pulled all his men off the case! That's the opposite of what they wanted him to do! Then he calls one of them (Hawk) a troublemaker!

Also he's the guy's dad?

I checked the original intro to see how close the translation is, but then I remembered I don't speak Japanese and Google Translate's not so great with it either. Same plot, different dialogue is the impression I'm getting. To be honest I was more curious about his pen. It looks like it started out as a cigar and then got painted over for the American release, but nope it's always been like that.

Anyway, the chief has some fatherly advice for Hawk:

I've always wondered if Westone is supposed to be pronounced Wes-tone or West-one. No confusion about the DragonZone though; it's definitely not Dragonz One.

Hawk tries to protest, but the chief cuts him off. I could tell it was meant to be Hawk talking because the text is colour coded. Though they've animated the lips moving to match the text being printed on the screen, and it's still the same shot, so it was the chief who said Hawk's line.

But this isn't over. Hawk hands over his handcuffs and gun, and tells him that he's going to the DragonZone alone!

His partner wonders why he's worked up about this, so Hawk lets him in on a secret.

They kidnapped his girlfriend!

Oh, I should've mentioned that his partner's got a red jacket and a mohawk to match. Plus he wears earrings and dog tags, and has stars tattooed on either side of his head. I guess he spends a lot of time undercover with 90s video game gangs.

The kidnapping comes as bit of a shock to his partner, but he knows exactly what to say to cheer him up.

It's not that big of a deal, dude! It's the 90s, girlfriends get kidnapped all the time. Princesses and presidents too.

But he's got his back.

Aww, I was hoping for a bro handshake. A thumbs up is fine, but the scene was crying out for them to slam their hands together and pose dramatically in the doorway of their chief's office. I mean we're in the blue void of serious feelings here and it's just finished a guitar solo.

A lot of CD games used the extra storage to add voices or video cutscenes, but this doesn't do that. If you clicked that link earlier you already know this has full CD soundtrack... which sounds a lot like a regular 16-bit soundtrack except the guitars and drums might be real. It's extremely 1992, but in a good way.

YES! Not exactly what I had in mind, but close enough.

Meanwhile, in arcades...

Riot City (Arcade)

The arcade version of the game doesn't just have different characters, it's got a different intro with a different plot.

I'm not copying all this text into Google Translate, but the gist of it is that Paul and Bobby are narcotics agents investigating a drug syndicate operating out of Riot Island. But Paul gets a phone call from his girlfriend and realises she's been kidnapped, so they need to get over there immediately and punch everyone.

Seems like kidnapping a cop's girlfriend is pretty counterproductive actually. If movies and video games have taught me anything, the rest of the police force is only there to contain their true power and once they go rogue they're unstoppable.

Riot City (Arcade)

The two of them get in a speedboat and head off to infiltrate the surprisingly compact Riot City, located above the cliffs of Riot Island. There's no speedboat scene in the console game, so the DragonZone is presumably in New York somewhere. Probably next to the Riot Zone.

Anyway, the intro's over so now I get to pick my options.

There's three difficulty settings, so I just left it on the middle one, 'Normal'. But I did put the credits up to 5 (because it doesn't go up to 'infinite'). That's all there is apart from the sound test, which in this case just turns the console into a CD player.

Alright, now I get to pick my character. As far as I can tell the only difference is that Tony might be slightly slower and wears proper knee protection.

Two characters seems a bit stingy for a game like this, as they typically come with three in my experience. They also tend to come with two-player co-op, but Riot Zone's not into that either. Tony promised Hawk wouldn't have to do this alone, but it turns out he was lying.

Cut to a wanted poster featuring two half-assed Wolverine cosplayers. One of them's kind of got the hair right, but he's forgotten the mutton chops. In fact he's forgotten the cheeks altogether.

Rescuing his girlfriend is Hawk's absolute priority, but that doesn't mean he can't put it off for a while and collect some bounties instead. These two are worth 8000 dollars... points, so if he doesn't beat them up he's basically just throwing money away! Or points.

ROUND 1 START

Hey it's got a little map to show my progress! It looks like the same map that's shown in the arcade game, but the level itself is different. No rain effects on the first stage of the coin-op.

Man, Hawk's such a generic 90's vest and jeans hero. In fact he's almost a clone of Axel from Streets of Rage.

Hawk's a lot taller though. In fact he's exactly as tall as Paul from Riot City, whose art he was clearly based on.

Paul has a faster punch though. It's like he's got a pneumatic hammer for an arm. I slowed it down a bit for you in this gif, but you get the idea.

Anyway, I should start walking to the right and hitting enemies. Hopefully they've all handed in their guns as well or else this could go very badly for me.

Yeah, this is familiar. I get a few hits in one thug while the other comes around and hits me from behind, just like in Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and every other game like this I've played recently.

It doesn't feel quite as inevitable in this though. I reckon if I'd just been slightly smarter about where I was positioned during my punching I could've managed them both without being hit.

Damn, I just hit this guy so hard I punched his dinner right out of him! I'm not used to enemies dropping health items in these kinds of games. Though I am used to the health only dropping when I've got a full bar and don't need it. Thanks for that, game.

Uh, did this one just drop a kettle?

They've been dropping things like sunglasses, a mirror and perfume, so I figured they'd taken them from Hawk's girlfriend. Doesn't seem so likely anymore.

The arcade version has the treasure hidden inside smashable objects, so you could assume that Paul's girlfriend left him a trail of breadcrumbs to follow, but it seems like the two heroes are basically like magpies and can't help swiping shiny objects*.

*Magpies don't actually do this.

Riot City (Arcade)

Hey I got some glasses this time!

You can also see here that the arcade version is able to put more than three enemies on screen, in addition to both players. It's still not quite a riot though, and the process of pummelling them is very much the same. Neither game lets me pick up weapons, so every new encounter is another opportunity to choose between giving them a four-hit combo, a throw or a flying kick.

Hey I survived to the first boss fight! I'm up against a guy called Mr Lee (who sounds a bit like Bruce Lee) and a woman called Miss Chan (who doesn't sound like Jackie Chan).

There was a bit of a surprise mid-fight when Lee leapt off a building and Hawk fell several stories to follow him, but there's been nothing really challenging about the battle. I mean I'm losing health all the time, Lee's got a nasty habit of interrupting my combos in a way that the average thug can't, but the game makes me feel like I'm doing well.

Crap! I hate it when that happens!

This is the kind of scrolling brawler that lets you spam special moves as much as you like, at the cost of your own health. If I damage anyone with this move I also take damage myself, so it's for emergencies only.

The trouble I'm having is that I like to jump around and attack people, and the special move is activated by pressing jump + attack, so every now and again I'll get Hawk spinning around like this by accident and take damage. Though fortunately I don't have to worry about that for a while; I can't accidentally trigger my special move when I'm already entirely out of health!

My inadvertent inverted pirouette took out Mr Lee, but Miss Chan still had two hits left in her and took me down in one. Fortunately I hit 80,000 points and gained an extra life 0.7 seconds before her killing blow connected, so I still have 3 lives left! Round 1 clear!

If he does that for every boss he's going to run out of knives soon.

I was curious to see if the arm changed if you play as Tony instead of Hawk, so I replayed the first stage as him and... nope. Nothing much changed at all really, though he does have a different walk animation.

ROUND 2 START

In fact Tony has an incredible walk animation, though his counterpart in the arcade game has him beat. Bobby may have the best strut in any brawler ever made.

If you're wondering why I only make it halfway across the screen in this GIF, it's because if I went any further the camera would start scrolling. Hang on, I recognise this screen... this is the first level of the arcade game! I guess they're not so different after all.

Here's Riot City for comparison:

Riot City (Arcade)

I told you about Bobby's walk cycle. The dude has the chest of Rob Liefeld's Captain America and he wants you to know about it.

The TurboGrafx version has lost a few colours (and the top 25% of the background), but it's actually pretty faithful for a game with a different title, characters and plot.

Though hang on, is this a cameo by Poison from Final Fight?

Riot City (Arcade)

The boss of this dungeon wears considerably less purple in the arcade game, but they still have a habit of lying on a plank of wood next to decomposing corpses. That must be so uncomfortable.

Either way there was no jumping off skyscrapers required for this battle. In fact it was a fairly typical fight. Sometimes I used a four-hit combo, sometimes I tried a throw, and I did a few flying kicks as well just for the sake of variety. Eventually their health bar ran out and the appropriate wanted poster got stabbed.

ROUND 3

Look at the round 3 boss though, he's got knives coming out of his hands and his back! I keep trying to get in close to get a few hits in, then out spring the spikes again! Plus he likes spinning through the air at me like he's Sonic the Hedgehog. The ugly one from the movie trailer before they fixed the CGI.

Well that's fine, if he likes flying through the air so much I'm going to keep throwing him. It does a lot much damage than flying kicks and it also makes me smile.

Though I've got to be a lot more careful now as I'm down to my last extra life. One more resurrection left and then that's it. The game's been on the easy side so far, I haven't really struggled in any single fight, but it's been wearing me down through attrition.

TWO LIFE BARS LATER, IN ROUND 4

Well, that's it. I don't know why these three are still kicking as there's no one left to kick. Still, I had a good run; made it over halfway through the game on my first try.

Wait, hang on, that says 'credit 5' up there. So my lives were just lives then, not continues? Oh, well that's interesting.

If you're wondering how I made such a dumb mistake, the best excuse I've got is that I gave myself five credits in the options, so when the game started and I saw five lives under my life bar I just assumed that's what they were. Because otherwise this game would be really easy.

Riot City (Arcade)

Here's what the continue screen looks like in the arcade game if you're curious.

It's a little disappointing that the console game doesn't have an image, but the arcade version manages to disappoint in its own way by not having another picture after you make your choice. I wanted to see a shot of him breaking free of the chains, or the screen getting covered in blood, or something.

The regenerated Hawk kicked his way through a casino wall, then went straight to a wrestling ring to ruin everyone's fun there as well. Actually the crowd doesn't give a damn what he's doing. He leaves them alone, they leave him alone.

The round 4 boss is called Fuji. He's got a rug on his back, a roof on each shoulder and I've no idea what's going on with his neck. I hit him a few times and I won.

I know I haven't actually described the combat much so far, but that's because it's much better to see it in motion. See, what happens is I'll be walking over to the right of the screen, beating people up...

ROUND 5

Then suddenly assholes appear with no warning! Sometimes they charge at to me, sometimes they slide, sometimes they jump; they've all got their own move I need to watch out for.

So I beat the crap out of them using a mixture of four-hit combos, throws and flying kicks and move on to the right.

Then more assholes show up!

Here's some advice: when enemies are lying on their ass they're not sneaking up behind you. Knock all enemies on their ass.

Man, everywhere I go there's assholes leaping out of nowhere!

Okay, they don't surprise me like this that often, but it's often enough to be annoying. I don't mind dealing with their gimmicks but I do have to be aware that they exist first! Give me warning arrows on the sides of the screen or something.

Well I'm down to my last 3 credits now. Not really stressing over it though to be honest.

So is this the Bossman of the DragonZone then? He's a bit of a pushover. Well, as much as the other bosses anyway.

Sure I lost a continue to him, but I came into the fight with just one spare life and I was two hits away from beating him when it happened (as usual).

Two credits left now. So if I'd put the game on the default number of continues I'd be on my last set of lives at this point.

Oh look, the suspicious spiky samurai statue in the background's exploding.

I have to be honest, I kind of expected the statue to come to life and become the true final boss, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. Why not introduce supernatural weirdness right at the very very end of the game?

This guy's got a sword, which is a bit of an unfair advantage on its own, but he can also shoot fireballs from it! I'm going to have to use everything I've learned up to this point to take him down.

Everything I've learned tells me that I shouldn't give him a chance to hit me.

He still managed it a few times, because I'm rubbish and it's my very first go at the game, but I had 3 extra lives left over afterwards (plus those 2 credits) so as last bosses go he's kind of a cakewalk. Maybe hard mode is significantly more difficult.

I saved the girl and got in the news! And Tony was there too! There's also a shot of Alex running to a door, which I guess is him going back to Chief Dad to get his gun and handcuffs back.

Riot City has a different ending, but the hero still rescues his girlfriend and saves the day. In fact the arcade game's ending has a photo of the characters getting married!

Then the game surprised me with a 'enter your name' screen right after the end credits. I wasn't ready! It gave me 9 second to input my three letters and I was down to 6 by the time I'd picked up my controller again.

So I'm 'RA?' now, the Ancient Egyptian god of the sun... perhaps. Top of the high score table though!


CONCLUSION

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I honestly didn't expect to win Riot Zone. My plan was to keep going and see how far I could get with my five credits, and seeing as I was losing lives at the rate I usually lose continues I figured that once they were gone I'd be done with it. But nope, I finished the game, making this one of the rare Super Adventures where I got to screenshot the ending. I generally intend to stick with a game for about an hour or so, and this is about an hour long, so it all worked out.

Wikipedia describes the game as being 'archetypical' and I can see why. If you've played one of these before you know what you're going to get from this. Unless you're expecting weapons, or set pieces, or some kind of twist on the gameplay to ever happen. Certain types of enemies walk on screen (or spring out at you without warning) and you have to keep in mind what unique move they're going to pull on you while you work on clearing the screen. Then you go along a bit and more enemies appear, hopefully a different combination of types, and you work out how you want to deal with them.

It's repetitive, it's nothing special in any respect, and normal mode's a bit of a pushover, but it didn't really frustrate me. I was never really annoyed by anything, and I'm great at getting annoyed. Plus the visuals are pretty decent, the music's suitably cheesy and catchy, the controls are fine... the game's alright. If you just want to hit people for an hour while listening to a full CD soundtrack, it's got you covered.

The arcade version doesn't have the CD soundtrack or Tony's tastefully decorated head, but it's built for more powerful hardware, allowing for better visuals and more enemies on screen. However, you still walk to the right and hit things, and there are still no riots.

I suppose I should give this a 'not crap' star then? I mean I did finish it.

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