It was a smart move by Nintendo to include the Zapper peripheral in with their Nintendo Entertainment System bundle in the Western world. Duck Hunt was included, and this was my first foray into the world of light gun games. I was a fan immediately, but there weren’t too many titles that took advantage of this. When the Super Nintendo launched there was no such controller included with the system. Eventually Nintendo answered this by releasing the Super Scope peripheral, which to me, seemed like a huge technological leap. Because it wasn’t included with the system it obviously didn’t catch on, and I didn’t get a Super Scope until decades later. I was always curious about the titles that took advantage of this peripheral especially because there wasn’t a whole lot of light gun games released in this era. This led me to Battle Clash. It’s noteworthy because it was created by Nintendo’s own developer Intelligent Systems, and because it’s stuck behind additional hardware it didn’t have much fanfare and has been largely forgotten.
Battle Clash is very unusual for a Nintendo published title. The story takes place in the far future after violence has laid waste to most of the population. Rule has been established through something called the Battle Game. This involves large mechs referred to as “STs” (standing tanks) doing battle with one another. You play as just one of these pilots; specifically the gunner, and the movement of your machine is handled by another character whose father lost his life in the game. It’s a little melodramatic at times, but each of the combatants (and your allies) are all memorable with charming designs that absolutely reek of early anime combined with Saturday morning cartoons.
The main game is a light gun shooter, but it’s far from typical even by this era. Gameplay consists of fighting an opponent one-on-one aboard your mech from a first person perspective. You don’t have to worry about directly controlling your robot; this is done automatically and is set to a specific routine which usually involves chasing the front facing foe around a two dimensional arena. This means a lot of rapid horizontal scrolling that can be pretty crazy and gives a fantastic illusion of speed. It’s actually pretty immersive, and it’s unlike pretty much any other light gun shooter of this era.
The game itself is played in a very linear fashion with a world map marking your progress (it’s best compared to that of Street Fighter II). At the onset of a battle you’re treated to some dialogue and then it’s an all out war. As I mentioned earlier you view the world through a first person perspective here, but have no control over the movement of your mech (mechs only move left or right here). The life bars for both you and your opponent are displayed on the top of the screen and these deplete as you take damage or hit the enemy. You have several options for shooting your foe. By holding down the fire button you constantly shoot small bursts, and while idle your weapon charges for a more powerful blast. This system is pretty simplistic, but the developers did an awesome job at making it incredibly strategic.
You can destroy most enemy fire (represented by pink incoming balls) by simply hitting them, but others require the charged up shot and this is usually indicated by the opponent charging up themselves. Your goal is to shoot your opponent enough to drain their life bar at which point you move on to the next opponent in a brand new match (meaning your life bar is restored and you’re treated to several new lines of dialogue.)
Battle Clash is different from your everyday light gun shooter in numerous ways. For example; both your character and the opponent are in constant motion in most cases. This is one of the few light gun shooters I’ve ever played where you actually have to lead into your shots. You have to take note of movement patterns, and visual cues. In some cases your foe may be stationary, but honestly it doesn’t make that much of a difference because gameplay most often has you moving at the same speed as your enemy with only the occasional change depending on the opponent. What really sets this one apart from other light gun shooters of the time however is that you can target different sections of an opponent for a myriad of effects.
Sometimes the developers got lazy and your foe will only take damage when you destroy specific sections of their body, but in other cases they let their imaginations run wild. You can destroy sections of their armor containing weapons of course, but also destroying specific targets can render your opponent immobile making them easier to hit. This keeps gameplay fresh in each match because every enemy is different, and it keeps you on your feet. The game itself is incredibly hard, but not unfairly so. It’s short, but you will die numerous times (and there’s no save feature) but memorizing enemy patterns is hugely rewarding here. If you want a light gun shooter where you can shoot indiscriminately then this is not a good choice.
Battle Clash is on point graphically. The game makes great use of the Super Nintendo hardware. Everything is extremely colorful, but this doesn’t look like a children’s game. The mech designs are the real highlight here with a significant amount of detailed sprite work. They also animate wonderfully, and the game engine supports some fantastic rotational effects and dithering. Battle Clash looks incredible for an early Super Nintendo title. With how fast the motion is here this almost feels like your standard Genesis title; Intelligent Systems really managed to push the system even with its limited speed. There’s no ‘blast processing’ here, but you would almost think there is.
While characters are interacting little pictures are posted of them and these are surprisingly well drawn. As I mentioned earlier they kind of look like a mix between anime of this era as well as Saturday morning cartoons. The mix is interesting to say the least. The soundtrack is pretty decent. It’s a mix of rock and techno music, and every stage features its own song. It’s all very enjoyable, and one of the boss encounters in particular offers audio cues for his super attack which is super cool. The audio is really good here, and it actually has an effect on gameplay in some cases.
