"Field Combat" - NES/Famicom

Field Combat is a TOSE developed arcade game that came out in 1985. The Japanese Wikipedia says that it came out in May 1985, which places the July-released Famicom version only two months later. Didn't exactly wait to see if that one was going to be successful did we, Jaleco? Supposedly the port was developed by TOSE and published by Jaleco as well, and first party ports are always good news.

The story here, again, according to the Japanese Wikipedia, is that an evil scientist named "Fozomu" has declared war on the entire world to take it over. To do so he's brainwashed every soldier in the army and is using those to fight. The military higher-ups, however, managed to develop a brainwashing beam and install it in a special ship called the Genesis-3, and that's what you'll be piloting to save the world!

I'm pretty sure that's about all the information I can dig up on this game, so let's just play it and see how it treats us:

I like how 'Field' is just tacked on there. It could be any kind of combat, but in this case it's Field Combat.

----- Playthrough -----

Field Combat kinda plays like a vertical shoot 'em up, except you have free range over the scrolling of the screen. It won't scroll automatically, but if you move up to the top, you can move it up, and the goal is, surprise, at the top of the map.

And if you don't examine the game very hard, you'll be unsurprised by what you see here-- you've got enemies coming down the screen, you've got an A button that shoots missiles. It's just an Ikari Warriors style shooting game after all, huh?

But then you press the B button, and--

Wh- what's happening? Why is this happening?

It turns out pressing the B button is how you activate your brainwash ray, but, like, the good guy one. Not the evil brainwash ray the scientist made, this one was backed by the army. And the army is good. Always.

So, what the heck is going on? Well, if you're a curious enough person to experiment, after trying holding buttons and pressing all the buttons on the controller, you may realize that if you press both A+B together, you can summon soldiers to the field that you've pulled off. There's a tally in the bottom right to show how many you have, in fact.

O-oh my god! I finally have friends!?

Yes, it seems that Field Combat was an early take at the idea of the RTS genre. Keep in mind, Dune II wasn't going to come out for another 7 years, and even Herzog Zwei, often credited with being the first RTS, wouldn't be showing up for another 4. So this is pretty unique stuff for 1985.

Unfortunately, the 'strategy' aspect is pretty much zilch. It's more of a real-time-summon-a-bunch-of-guys-on-the-field-and-hide-behind-them. See, the range on your gun is basically the exact same as the range on the enemy guns, so getting close to them to pull any in with your Good Guy Brainwash Ray, which immobilizes you for a few seconds, generally means your death if they're not totally alone.

However, summon some of your guys on the screen and you now have a distraction!

Meat shields!

Unfortunately, you can't really rely on your summoned minions to actually hit anything because they're all extremely stupid and none of them can aim whatsoever, but they do take a bullet pretty well. And that's really all a commander can ask for in a soldier.

Once you manage to fight your way up to the top of the screen, you'll invariably encounter a big door with four guns in-front of it. Like every other enemy, the gun range is basically the exact same as your gun range, so you'll have to either weave in and out to shoot them, or summon a bunch of guys and basically just pray.

I would recommend just doing it yourself because you'll be half dead of old age by the time your guys get there.

The only other thing that really happens in this game is that the enemy has a UFO of its own that can recruit people, but instead of beaming them in, it just swoops down and picks them up like a crane game, which is honestly way more intimidating and cool. Why doesn't my UFO have a giant claw hand?

Hey, could you bring an application for Fozomu's army back with you next time? I have UFO piloting skills.

That's pretty much it. As you advance through the levels, the background and obstacles will change, as well as the type of enemies, but they're all the exact same in behavior. They just move around and shoot, none of them do anything different from one another. And that may be why I was able to complete a loop on my second try.

After that I played one or two more levels and then just turned the game off.

Actually I was hoping you'd let me surrender, I'd like to stop playing.

----- Review -----

How long did I play?
20 minutes.

How much did I beat?
I beat one loop of the game.

Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

The shooting aspect of the game is perfectly easy to understand, you just move and shoot. The first time I played this devoid of any story context, I thought that you could suck people up as an alternative for more points, but I didn't know you could redeploy them, which made this game moderately worse, and certainly harder. A+B is a strange button combination, why not something like Select?

If you had the manual though it would be fine.

Gameplay / Difficulty: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

The difficulty seems high until you realize you can spawn meat shields to take fire for you. That definitely significantly lowers the difficulty to the point where I felt it was unlikely I'd die unless I just zoned out for a second and got hit by a stray bullet.

Shooting people is alright as far as a reward loop goes, but I never felt that in danger, and the AI is so basic there's really nothing to "outsmart" and feel like you did something impressive, so definitely the difficulty/reward loop could use some work.

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

Honestly, there may as well just be one level for all that adding things in the way does to make the game more interesting.

Oh no! Basic geometrical shapes!

The game really feels like one of those "7 day" games that someone made in a competition nowadays. There's an interesting basic concept here, but it seems like the game really lacks any meat to make it worth experiencing or using that concept.

Sound / Graphics: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

The graphics are fine, if a little basic. Things are represented such that you can tell what they are-- various vehicles and soldiers. There's not really anything that exciting here, though. Sound is similarly fine.

One thing that drives me up the wall is the loop of the little piece of "Rise of the Valkyries" that everyone knows that just constantly plays in the background. Man, get that outta here, already.

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

No-- like I was saying above I almost feel like the game feels unfinished or something. It could definitely use more of a sense of style and more tightly tuned content. I think it's fine and all, but I'm definitely not getting personal vibes from it.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

I'm gonna say probably not. It's pretty neat that this is an early example of summoning troops on the field to fight for you, but it's really not fun and you're basically missing nothing by not playing it, so... probably not.

Leave playing stuff like this to nuts like me who want to play stuff like this.

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