VectorMan™

VectorMan was one of my favorite genesis games, and IP as a whole. This is likely one of my most played SEGA genesis/megadrive titles outside of the main hitters like Sonic, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, ect.

In 1995, against a glossy backdrop of techno, then-cutting-edge technology brought to life a shapeshifting character who fights using energy blasts from his palms and weaponized double-jump recoil. To use the academic term, it was pretty fucking rad, and at the time, that was enough rack up significant accolades. Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually play that well. It seems to take after the 8-bit Sonic titles on the Master System/Game Gear. Thus, while the environments are surprisingly open-ended for a 2D platformer, the camera is zoomed in so drastically and the protagonist’s movement is so unwieldy that even basic platforming and combat become nauseating and dangerous. To make matters worse, the technically impressive visuals are often undisciplined and confusing, and the sound effects bury the music in endless noise.

Score: 4.5/10

https://www.imlgames.com/vectorman/

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VectorMan is a single-player action/platforming/shoot-em-up sorta thing that came out in 1995 and was developed by BlueSky Software, published by Sega. It was seen by gamers as an answer to Donkey Kong Country but only in a sense that it tries to graphically awe the players of the platform. There are actually no vectors used in graphics but I think that name is a reference to “Vector Piece” animation method that programmer used to set multi-sprite characters into motion. The game was also part of “Play to Win” (P2W, ha!) promotion where some carts had version of a game that gives “You win” screen and then you could claim a prize. Game was released only in the West. 16 Megabit goodness.

The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version. And no, you no win, please try again.


Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "VECTMAN_UE.68K".
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "VM_PC_MG_EFIGS_US.pdf".


It's 2049 and all of Earth population went off to colonize other planets while leaving Orbots behind the clean up all the mess. And it all would have went according to plan until until Raster, high-level Orbot who oversees the works, had a nuclear warhead accidently attached instead of a proper head.
And that's how we are all going to die.

Comes VectorMan. Having just discharged a toxic sludge at the sun he was out of TV reach at a time to fall under dictator Warhead infulence. It's time for him to clean up THIS mess and face Warhead at World Link Center.

And if you wonder, nope, it doesn't feel like game has environmental message going. You don't travel toxic sewers not live forests. It's all clean. Sterile. Grey.

VectorMan is a sort of shoot-em-up game because you do have to shoot a lot in all direction, enemies take multiple hits. Too bad you can't hold fire button for rapid fire, it tires finger, so you better have a contoller with turbo/rapid mode. But it's also a platformer, making you explore the levels, doing double jumps as well. And talking of double jumping, it's pretty great as boosters does damage to enemies. Not just underneath but all around VectorMan. Fine alternative to shooting upward.
Protip: Shoot down to descent slowly.

And you did have some stuff to explore. The game has various powerups to collect, mostly coming from destroyed TVs. Some fancy weapons with limited ammunition, health, lives. Orb in an upside-down pyramid is a checkpoint. The game is filled with photons that you can collect for scores. You get extra life every few ten thousands of them, depending on difficulty, so they aren't pointless. There are 7 special health balls to find that increase your max heath in the game, players who know those will have a huge advantage. But the best are multipliers. Two, three, five, TEN times. Not only they increase the amount of score you get but the health pickups and even lives, making the player take on riskier playstyle for there are great rewards to reap. What doesn't make sense is why there are short time limit for levels, seeing how they already put initiative for player to get going, for the game seems to reward exploration. And who knows in which TV there are powerups to increase your time limit.

Oh, and there are powerups that morph VectorMan into some weird shape. Maybe a drill or a bomb. They last a very short amount of time and are placed right next to needed obstacle, they are just a little variety gimmick. You can't do much either, but at least you are invincible in all of them.

Levels in this game are pretty varied. They are fun, at least in the first half of the game, that is 16 levels long. Water and arctic settings are awesome. But in the second half they have reused the setting of the very first level with different palette too much. Makes the game feel slightly unfinished. A single screen of congratulation for ending doesn't help either. There are few bland stages and there is not enough variety in enemies. Or at least insects are annoying, their swarm respawn too much.
Bosses are fancy as well. There are few stages when Warhead comes to kick your orbutt, these play like minigames. You get a special exclusive morph. Too bad that time limits are too tight at times.
Protip: To pass the jumping shield guy, bait and run under.

You can also bonus stages to find. Find and destroy shield generator that looks like a coal heater and then find and destroy satellite dish. It will end level immediately, which I like more than actual bonus stage itself. It just feels cheap, with title screen used for background. Be a sphere in the center, use D-Pad to shoot in directions from which projectiles come. Survive for a minute to get 25k points, losers get only 5k. Eh.

Now, options. Sound test. Controls. You can turn off sound or music. You can choose difficulty that impact how much score you need for extra life (according to manual: 10k on Lame, 20k on Wicked, 50k on Insane), from 3 to 5 starting health, bosses take more hits. Oh, and you get four lives instead of two on Lame.
And there is Information where you can find out about some pickups. A rare feature for 16-bit.

Ah, and visuals. And audio. Pretty much selling points of the game. But not something too groundbreaking. It puts focus on two things. Characters are made of multiple separately moving sprites. Frankly, Treasure already did an even more amazing job with these but in this game your main character is animated this way too, giving him one of the smoothest animations in a while. Goes great with controls that give VectorMan weighty yet responsible feel. And second is all the little tricks to give game some lighting and shadowing. Sega Genesis actually can use Shadowing that divides pixel's color value by two. Most games used it for fancy pause or to get additional colors. VectorMan makes actual use it for shadowed areas and not just in a single stage. And then VectorMan's spheres and pieces have different animation frames depending on where light comes from and are programmed to react accordingly. It's really cool. Oh, lens flares!
I also like that devs used mainly vertical lines pattern of pixels for dithering. Because on old TVs two nearby pixels would mix into one color so you can create transperency, for example. Vertical lines pattern makes it look stylish on more modern displays while chessboard patterns are fairly ugly.

As for audio. Electronica! It's pretty low-key but great. And you can't complain that they "don't sound like real instruments".

In the end, while the game pushes Genesis I don't think it reaches the level of Treasure games. It's pretty good but bland at times. It does have a nice take on more platformy shooting and art style is incredibly quirky.

TOASTY

One of my favourite childhood games. If you've never played this before, get it right now!