Soldier Blade (1992) [TG-16]

“Every lover is a soldier.”
-Ovid

So I recently picked up the TurboGrafx-16 mini console and of the games I wanted to try out right from the start, I found Lords of Thunder too hard, Bonk’s Revenge too easy, but Soldier Blade just right.

Turbulence

This galactic mech-blasting vertical-scrolling shmup represents the fourth title in the Star Soldier series, preceded by 1986’s Star Soldier, 1987’s Starship Hector, and 1990’s Super Star Soldier, which was also released for TG-16. Soldier Blade evidently endured a rushed development of less than 6 months, resulting in several changes to the original concept and it went from Sonic Blast F-92 to Soldier Blade.

While I don’t think there’s any substantial argument for Soldier Blade pioneering anything significant for the shoot ’em up genre and space shooters everywhere, I was actually surprised to learn about its development woes. Maybe it’s because of its position as the fourth child in the Star Soldier line, but I thought it was immensely playable for its straightforward concept, its power-up system, the ability to sustain more than one hit, and its enemy placement and design.

I knew I wanted to play something shorter, more bite-sized for my first TurboGrafx-16 game ever. Soldier Blade fit that bill snugly.

The scars of its development are still there, though. There are unbalanced enemies, some strange difficulty spikes, and “straightforward” is the other side of the coin from “bare”. This, more than likely, is why I was able to complete it first among all the games on my TG-16 mini.

The 8-bit Review

Visuals: 7/10

TurboGrafx-16’s place in games history is a weird one and it’s odd to talk about the 16-bit visuals of a system which, despite having 16 in its name, had an 8-bit CPU, but I was routinely astounded at the visuals in Soldier Blade, particularly when it came to the enemy sprites. 1992 is pretty early on for how detailed, defined, and large the sprites are, and the true black under the well-chosen color palette makes it all pop. The TG-16 mini also includes some CD-ROM games but I already thought that Soldier Blade looked fantastic.

Audio: 7/10

In the rich tradition of shmups, Soldier Blade has a soundtrack that slaps. I couldn’t pick out a central theme that could help tie it all together and become truly memorable (and I did restart it several times), but the music is far from disappointing and in fact well-suited to the space and the shooting, plus there’s the immediately iconic voiceover: “Alert. Alert. Alert.”

Gameplay: 7/10

Soldier Blade starts you off with a familiar red-tinted bullet-type weapon but players soon bump into power-ups: red, green, and blue. Red enhances your bullet weaponry while green switches out the bullets for some kind of wave weapon. Blue, my personal favorite, grants you a laser weapon. You can store extra power-ups as health points (each hit detracts one level from your firepower) or expend the stored power-ups to perform a super attack. Beyond this, your ship can fly at two different speeds adjusted by the player and you also get a support ship when you grab your first power-up. Nothing crazy, but it’s a kind gameplay system for what I thought to be a somewhat longer shmup than many.

 Accessibility: 9/10

While I empathize with descriptions of Soldier Blade as being too easy, I think that’s that helps distinguish it at least a little bit from the difficult bullet hells or the games where you can only take one hit before falling. There are only three power-ups so your firepower systems aren’t too difficult to understand and grabbable items don’t require a manual to interpret. That said, it still took me a few days and several attempts to best all of its challenges.

 Challenge: 6/10

On every operation (level) there’s a mini-boss and a boss, each representing a highlight in the action and a bit of an extra challenge. Some are easier to figure out on the spot than others, but even when the game reaches its final stages and the bullets are practically filling the screen, I thought that, despite being on the easier side, the progress of difficulty was fairly smooth.

 Replayability: 3/10

Stage select and time attack modes are at least something, but there aren’t a whole lot of reasons to replay Soldier Blade unless this really is your shtick. A bit of a lack of replay value should make sense, anyway, considering the straightforward, bare, and ease of access descriptions we’ve already considered.

Uniqueness: 2/10

Contemporary critics dinged Soldier Blade for its unoriginality, and although retro critics would later show a kinder side toward the game (as can be fairly typical), I tend toward agreeing with the contemporary crowd here. I’ve so far seen Soldier Blade referred to as “that shmup with the mechs?” and there’s something revealing about that, beyond it having tertiary mention next to Blazing Lazers.

Personal: 7/10

Of all the games I took for a test drive on the TG-16 mini, Soldier Blade is the one I kept coming back to and kept wanting to play more of. Considering it’s not the only shmup on that mini, that’s got to be a sign of how quickly it grew on me, most likely because it served as an easy access point to what was a completely new console to me.

Aggregated Score: 6.0

Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage, Mage Cast, or Story Mode.