Tempo for the Sega 32X was never going to be a big success. This game was released in the days of 90s platformer mascots with lots of attitude. Basically, a copycat to the spirit of Sonic the Hedgehog. Not many of these became franchises, and even fewer were successes. Tempo had a lot working against it. The biggest hurdle it faced was being released as an exclusive game for Sega’s doomed add-on console. It was however directed by the mastermind behind Hudson Soft’s series Bonk, and that alone meant I had to seek this one out. Today we’re here to give Tempo a look and listen.
It’s pretty tough to nail down this one when speaking of the story. You play as the titular character who is an anthropomorphic cricket with a love for music. He’s out to defeat the evil king Dirge, with a little help from his girlfriend Katy of course. The scenario is told as if Tempo were a contestant on a musical themed game show. Fitting with the theme the backgrounds are designed like backdrops on a television program. It’s kind of neat, and helps this one from feeling completely derivative. The game show angle is never overplayed and doesn’t feel like a gimmick.
Tempo is a side scrolling platform game. The similarities it has to Bonk are immediately pronounced. By default our cricket hero thing walks, and rather slowly at that. You can run by double tapping either left or right on the directional pad, but this comes at the sacrifice of your reflexes because the momentum must be countered to come to a stop. You can also slam into walls which temporarily disables Tempo. Running recklessly will poses too much of a threat to use frequently. Tempo jumps about as fast as he walks which allows for some meticulously platforming.
If there’s anything Tempo isn’t lacking it’s abilities. His default method of attack is a kick. You have to get up close and personal to defeat foes with it, but it’s perfectly effective in most settings. Tempo can also shoot musical notes by snapping his fingers, but this only stuns opponents. It still has it’s uses, and even stops boss characters in their tracks making it incredibly useful. Despite having the ability to strike foes your main means of defeating enemies is still the tried and true jumping on top of them. This is made easier by the fact that by holding down the jump button you can flutter your wings and gently float down to the ground. It’s highly useful in timing your jumps and aiming.
The mechanics are pretty solid. What isn’t, however, are the level designs. Call me old fashioned but I much prefer going from one side of the screen to the next. Here the stages are more vertically inclined. What’s more is they aren’t particularly straightforward. In some areas you’ll need to use warps and these can take you any which direction to new self contained sections. Other times the stages are too wide open. You’re given too many directions you can go. Tempo tries to help players by featuring arrows leading you in the direction you must go to proceed. I felt that this aspect of the game was messy, and sometimes made little sense. It does mean there are lots of secrets strewn in each level, but I for one didn’t think the rewards were interesting enough to put in much work.
Tempo is also a little too easy for my tastes. Our little bug guy comes with a life-bar and it depletes rather slowly even on the higher difficulty level. You can take a lot of hits compared to other similar games. What’s more is that your health can be recovered by oft found musical notes. There are only a few different power-ups, but the primary one allows Katy to follow Tempo around. She moves in tandem with him and can defeat foes that get in her path. There’s also another wherein Tempo breaks into a dance routine and destroys all enemies on-screen. The power-ups are… okay. In this regard the game doesn’t offer up a lot of diversity, but it’s enough to keep things interesting.
Themes are one thing that Tempo gets right. The overarching musical component is in your face from start to finish, but each of the six levels (yes, there are only six) are all based on a different concept. You have a Christmas stage, one that takes place within the human body (as you enter through the mouth. It’s weird, but it works), a circus area, cityscape at night, and more. These are all quirky, but I really enjoyed what Tempo had to offer in this regard. The bosses are not as impressive. You’ll fight things such as a giant shoe, a pair of headphones, a clown, and other uninventive giant sized foes. Sega really should have spent more time at the drawing board.
Let’s get one thing out of the way here and now. In no way shape or form could Tempo run anywhere near at this fidelity on the plain old Sega Genesis. This game makes fantastic use of the Sega 32X’s hardware. It’s a treat for the senses. For starters the use of color is excessive, but in the best way possible. Everything is incredibly colorful with very few drab backgrounds. These seem to be in place just to highlight how vibrant everything else is. The animations are exceptional. Tempo moves with all the fluidity you would expect from a 32-bit game. Enemies have equal fidelity. The boss characters are the stark contrast. They’re digitized ala Donkey Kong Country, and do not meld well with the rest of the presentation. Overall Tempo looks incredible.
It’s easy to see why the soundtrack is so polarizing. Upon starting the game you’re greeted with a deliciously 90s hip hop theme all about our hero Tempo. It sounds a little muffled, but the fidelity is pretty good considering this game is on cartridge. I like it, but I can understand why others would not. The rest of the soundtrack fares better, and hasn’t aged quite as much. It’s a mix of bleeps and blips with a funk techno motif that fits the themes of the game pretty well. The sound effects are standard fare. I must say that I’m thankful Tempo doesn’t have the wisecracks so many other ‘radical’ mascots did. Our hero being silent does this game a lot of favors.
Tempo is a fantastic game. By Sega 32X standards, that is. It is one of the few standouts in the library and has a unique style for the time. The music/insect theme is kind of cool actually, and Tempo is armed with enough different abilities to keep gameplay interesting from start to finish. Unfortunately that’s not saying much because the game is pretty short. I was able to get to the end in under two hours, and the bonus mini-games aren’t anything to write home about. If the level designs were tightened up a bit Tempo could have been a real classic. As it is, this game serves as little more than an interesting cliffnote in Sega’s history. If you have a 32X then I recommend it.
