Game Info
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Developer: Factor 5
Publisher: Softgold
Year of Release: 1993
Game Review & Impressions
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The third and final entry in Turrican series on the Amiga is an interesting beast, not least because it's the final game Factor 5 ever created for the machine. The studio had shifted focus to producing games for the console market, with the Sega Genesis being the lead development platform this time around. I'd only intended to record the Amiga version of Turrican 3, but I decided to play through the Genesis version (Mega Turrican) shortly after, so that I might appreciate any similarities and differences.
Right off the bat, Turrican 3 looks and feels like a console game. The levels are more structured, more polished, and it's more enjoyable experience. The previous Turrican games were iconic for their technical achievements, but the level designs and gameplay were idiosyncratic to that period of Amiga development, which aren't to everyone's taste. With Turrican 3, the general flow of the levels, overall quality of the artwork and presentation is to a higher standard -- if Factor 5 was looking to make Turrican appeal to a console-oriented market, I think they succeeded.
So, how does the Amiga version stack up against the Sega Genesis?
In terms of actual mechanics and content, things are mostly consistent between the two versions. One major difference here is stage 1-2 is part of the regular base game on the Amiga, but for reasons unknown is a secret stage on Genesis, and can only be accessed under very specific conditions. Stage 3-1 is also slightly different in that the ships and platforms are static on Amiga, possibly due to some kind of limitation, but other than that, I'd say they're comparable and play pretty much the same.
What differences do exist are focus on presentation. The Amiga has the upper hand in the audio department, featuring another great soundtrack by Chris Huelsbeck, but it lacks the additional background graphics and parallax effects present on Genesis. The OCS chipset and graphical capabilities of the machine were most likely a limiting factor here, readily apparent in the colour palette restrictions seen in this version. Although the console version definitely has the edge on a graphical level, the Amiga version is still pretty good.
So, Turrican 3 is the most polished technically accomplished game in the series, but I also can't help but feel it's lost a little of its identity along the way. Maybe it's the Amiga fan in me talking, but there was a certain charm about the garish gradient backgrounds and baffling level layouts that the series had become famous for. It's a more polished product, but perhaps a little less exciting as a result.
Information & Trivia
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- Released on Sega Genesis as "Mega Turrican"
Video Notes
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- All gems collected
- All extra lives collected
- Secret gold suit collected
Chapters
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00:00 Intro
05:47 Stage 1-1
11:09 Stage 1-2
14:59 Stage 1-3
16:43 Stage 2-1
20:00 Stage 2-2
23:59 Stage 3-1
26:33 Stage 3-2
33:22 Stage 4-1
45:02 Stage 4-2
48:21 Stage 4-3
59:40 Stage 5-1
1:07:56 Final boss
1:09:24 Ending