Choose your game Player One





"The Laughing Gnome and the Toad-Beast
took exception to our hero's underpants."


Stage one sub-boss Golem Wood. He's makes the
ground go all wibbly-wobbly and everything.




Stage Two sub boss 'Shell Shock'

Some of Capcom's most original and beautiful hand-drawn 2D art is contained in this game..

During my first year of attendance at University, in the quaint English city of Exeter, Devon I was privileged to have in my halls of residence a small arcade. This was populated with a handful of arcade cabinets including Silkworm, Flying Shark, Total Carnage and Altered Beast. (It was later to house a very strange holographic arcade game called Holloseum which I was never able to work out how to play properly, but I digress) I remember that one day I entered for my daily gaming fix to find that Altered Beast had been removed (probably a good thing as it was never a particularly great game) and in its place was Capcom's Three Wonders. I was immediately intrigued by this new game - it seemed to consist of three titles bundled together in one arcade cabinet, a horizontal scrolling shooter called Chariot, a Pengo-clone called Don't Pull and the game that was soon to take up most of my time and a sizeable chunk of my student funds, a scrolling platform shooter called Midnight Wanderers.

I eagerly inserted a couple of credits into the coin slot, and selected Chariot. I was immediately enthralled by the game's evocative and atmospheric graphics, in a very unique 'Jules Verne-ian' style with lush hand-drawn backgrounds and fantastic and innovative character and enemy design. To me the game's visuals resembled illustrations only otherwise available in some children's fantasy story book, I'd never seen anything quite like them in a video game before. Although I had already played a couple of Capcom System 1 arcade games like 1941 and Mercs which indeed were visually very lovely, Chariot seemed to me to be something really rather special. But it was only after being wiped out by Chariot's Crab-boss and selecting Midnight Wanderers for a quick blast that I became really hooked.

The stage one boss, Balgoss is not to be messed with.

Midnight Wanderers (which had the strange name Roosters in its Japanese release) pre-dates Treasure's rightly lauded platform-shooter Gunstar Heroes by two years but in many ways actually betters it. Taking the role of one of two protagonists, Lou or Shiva, (both simultaneously if you have a pal to hand) the player must fight their way through four long and beautifully crafted scrolling levels to defeat the arch-boss Gaia in order to release the inhabitants of a magical realm from his evil spell. The game is actually a prequel to Chariot, which takes up the story of our dynamic duo after their encounter with the final boss.

At the start of the game you are equipped with a rather nifty arrow-firing gun (I've no idea how these projectiles fit in the gun barrel but it's a nice idea so don't knock it) which can be directed in either horizontal direction and above and below you. Your firepower can be supplemented by picking up a number of different options in the form of cute little critters similar to the familiars of the Castlevania games. These will sit above your shoulder and give you a range of extra weapon attacks including R-Type-like bouncing lasers, homing blasts and flame attacks. All of these option weapons are very well designed and great fun to use. In a nod of similarity to the system used in Capcom's famous Ghosts'n'Goblins series, if you do fall victim to an enemy you lose your clothing and are forced to proceed in your..er.. underpants. This generous second lease of life is terminated by any further hits to our gallant de-trousered hero. Luckily magic teapots can be collected to restore lost garments to your person at intervals during the game. A rather nice feature is the ability to collect 'playing cards' from shootable treasure chests and dying bosses as you progress through each level. Each card shows a number of 'hearts' and this number is added to a counter at the bottom of the screen. Collect 100 hearts and a new life is yours. Ahh.. the days when Capcom used to be so darned nice to us..

The stage two boss battle takes place on this Verne-ian flying contraption against these 'terror twin' henchmen

See also: CAPCOM



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