Have you ever played a game and thought to yourself “I would have loved this when I was a kid?” That’s how I feel about Alien Syndrome on the Sega Master System. I was always a big fan of horror, and the atmosphere in this one is top notch. Well as good as you can get with an 8-bit game anyway. Now, just because I know I would have enjoyed it back in the day doesn’t mean it’s still a good play. Today we’re taking a look at Alien Syndrome for the Master System. Is it still worth playing in 2021? Read on to find out!
Alien Syndrome originated in the arcades. This should tell you two things about it right from the start; it’s short, and going to be nail biting difficult. The game was designed to eat quarters, after all. The game takes place at some point in the future where space exploration has opened up. You play as a soldier sent to various space stations to rescue members of the crew before the place self destructs. Alien Syndrome is played from an overhead perspective as you guide your character throughout a series of environments consisting entirely of corridors on space stations and dark rooms where boss characters dwell.
All weapons you get in the game are projectile shots. You begin with a simple pea shooter that is fairly effective but has kind of a short range. There are only a few others such as a fireball, flamethrower, and laser. They’re all better to use against the hordes of enemies, but you revert back to the original pea-shooter rifle when you die. Speaking of dying that’s going to happen a lot. You can only take one hit before you perish. It’s kind of ridiculous considering how many enemies you’ll be facing, and the large groups can be difficult to contend with. This is especially true when they’re using projectile attacks. Power-ups don’t replenish when you die, and that can be annoying.
Besides weapons there are a few other plaques with differing effects. Touching one with a question mark will give you extra points. The W transports you to a fixed location elsewhere within the level. It can be used to your advantage to move throughout a stage, but unless you already know it’s destination you’ll find it to be more of a guessing game than anything else. I suppose it will be beneficial to players competing to beat their high score. The enemies you encounter generally take one shot to take out of commission. What’s weird is that they spawn out of nowhere. This can make it difficult to avoid them when they first appear.
When I said that Alien Syndrome was hard I meant it. This game will chew you up and spit you out the first few times you play no matter how good you otherwise are at video games. The timer is daunting and the countdown causes a lot of stress. I found myself forcing my character to rush through each stage even when I had plenty of time left. It caused me several deaths simply because I was being careless. What makes this particularly tough is the fact that you have to track down all hostages within the time limit, and then return to the exit. These aren’t particularly well hidden but the stages are large and this aspect of the game forces you to search high and low.
To be honest Alien Syndrome’s weakest point is the aforementioned difficulty. You never have a chance to enjoy the environments or have fun exploring. You’re under constant stress. Only being able to take one hit before dying makes the game feel extremely unforgiving. The boss encounters are well done but the lack of backgrounds or even any environmental elements make these a bit stale. Typically these require a ton of hits before they go down all the while they’re shooting projectiles at you. They give chase, but very slowly. In my opinion their designs are really cool but functionally they’re all pretty boring. It’s also annoying that you have to fight the final boss with just the original pea shooter no matter how you play. What’s nice is the fact that any damage you’ve done to them remains with them even when you lose a life.
Graphically the game is okay. It doesn’t push the Master System hardware in any meaningful way, but Alien Syndrome is still pretty good looking. I can appreciate the fact that it’s still recognizable from its arcade counterpart. The stages are differentiated with different graphics and color schemes which is pretty cool. You’ll also face different enemies (some based on the aliens from the film Alien) and these all look really nice by 8-bit standards. As I mentioned earlier it’s really weird that the boss encounters feature simple black backdrops, but whatever. It’s not a beautiful game by any means, but Alien Syndrome is pretty enough. The soundtrack is also pretty decent with some fitting music which helps establish a great ambiance. It’s limited by the weird audio hardware of the Master System.
Alien Syndrome isn’t a great game. It was designed around eating quarters and making profits. In this case that doesn’t translate well to a home release. While Alien Syndrome does retain that old Sega arcade magic it’s far too frustrating and with not enough content. This isn’t the game to play if you get annoyed replaying the same sections of games because you keep dying. Alien Syndrome should have been altered a bit for this release in my opinion. As it stands this game just isn’t very fun in my opinion. I’m still convinced that I would have loved Alien Syndrome as a kid.
