Are you familiar with the name Manfred Trenz? How about a company called Rainbow Arts? Perhaps the name Turrican will be more relatable? It all depends on how far back you started playing video games, especially in Europe. All three names warranted attention for Commodore 64 and Amiga owners, since they were synonymous with arcade quality games at home - sometimes even too close to comfort for other Japanese heavyweights. The company eventually departed from the microcomputer market and ventured onto console hardware. To this day it's still impossible to understand how a German-developed game ended up being a Japanese Super Famicom exclusive, but that is exactly what Rendering Ranger: R2 is, and as something of an oddity it has attracted the attention of Super Famicom collectors all over the world. But is it a good game?
We don't need - or ever have needed - a plot in order to justify shooting evil aliens in the face and this game presents you with none, leaving the motives of our lone soldier up to the player's imagination. The game starts off in a devastated, war torn city with the player having to navigate their way through the streets, avoiding the odd bottomless pit and destroying enemy robots that come in many varied forms and directions (so it's a good thing we can fire in all eight of them) until you face the inevitable boss, a screen-wide gunship which is partial to flamethrowers. As an opening stage it's quite an eye opener, with bags of action from start to finish. However, this level merely serves to deceive the player, for there is much more to Rendering Ranger: R2 than what it is presented in that opening stage - it's no exaggeration to say there's a whole other game lurking past level two.
Level three will leave you speechless. After hopping onto a space fighter that impressively rotates while taking off at the end of the previous stage, the viewpoint scales back and Rendering Ranger: R2 becomes a fully-fledged horizontal scrolling shmup - and a beautiful one at that, with lovely parallax backgrounds, asteroids and enemies filling up the screen constantly. At the end of the level a screen-sized capital ship awaits your challenge. Level four continues the shmup theme with a giant, Mode 7 rotating mech to contend with before level five puts you back on foot. By this time, you'll be left wondering exactly how this is possible on the SNES. You could easily believe this as a game running on SNK's Neo Geo or even 32-bit systems like the PlayStation or Saturn - yet the reality is that it's running on the humble Super Famicom without the aid of any special custom co-processor chips. How? Why? The answer is mostly due to Trenz's legendary assembly skills. By programming directly in assembly and not in a more human-readable interpreted language, Trenz worked wonders on a console which has never been famed for its shmup credentials - and with any slowdown to boot. You won't find any sort of stuttering in either the run'n'gun or shmup sections of this game. This feat alone is enough to place Rendering Ranger: R2 in the upper echelons of shmups and run and gun blasters on the system, but fortunately there is more than technical prowess behind this game's appeal.
You start with two different weapons: A classic spread shot and a blue laser. Picking up red and blue power ups will upgrade both respectively. There are also yellow and green pickups that will allow you access to two other weapons: yellow fires in all directions and green is a rebound shot. All of them are handy in the numerous hazardous situations the game throws at you. Pressing X will unleash a smart bomb, unique to whatever weapon you have equipped. Unlike Contra III, you don't pick and stock them; instead, they have a cooldown period so they need to be used wisely. Weapons are shared between both run and gun and shmup levels.
The graphics are all CGI models turned into two dimensional sprites (Donkey Kong Country really shook things up in the previous year) despite the game having started development with traditional sprite art (Manfred still has this version locked away in his possession). This was actually a request from the publisher to make the game more attractive to the increasingly demanding 1995 market. In fact, the run and gun levels were not even a part of the game, which was initially planned as a pure shmup until the publisher once again stated that it would be very hard to sell a game on that concept alone. It is the same publisher that said only Virgin Japan was interested in picking up the game for release. As such, the western version of the game Targa was never released - the only difference is the fact that our hero doesn't wear a helmet, choosing to fight the enemy hoards with his long black hair and beard exposed.
Despite all of its amazing content and satisfying gameplay, there is one small negative aspect: the difficulty. We understand the people at Rainbow Arts were raised playing arcade games and as such all of their games tend to verge on the hardcore, coin-stealing game design of old and Rendering Ranger: R2 doesn't cut the player any slack. Even regular enemies will take several shots to destroy if you don't have your weapons fully powered up, and this will be often the case because when you die (and you will, a lot) your selected weapon at the occasion of your demise will be powered down. Facing the bosses with unpowered weapons makes an already difficult task even more so, and is often unfair and borderline insane on shmup levels. Fortunately there is a password system in place, so more often than not we found ourselves playing to reach the end of the level instead of completing the whole game in one sitting. It will take practice and patience but it is such a terrific and thrilling sensory overload that it is as hard to drop the joypad as is figuring out your way through the massive Metroid-style level five.
The game is lacking an epic soundtrack by Chris Huelsbeck, the man responsible for all those amazing earworms in the Super Turrican soundtrack. But as is, the music in game is perfectly adequate. We were simply spoiled by Huelsbeck's efforts scoring other Rainbow Arts games in the past, and the quality of his work is so high that its absence here is worth noting - especially as he and Trenz have worked together so many times previously.
Conclusion
Rendering Ranger: R2 is a labour of love from a small and dedicated team that spent nearly three years making the Super Famicom do things people assumed impossible. It's a lovely hybrid of a regular run and gun game and superb shmup. It looks absolutely incredible with detailed backgrounds and bosses up to three screens tall, the controls respond flawlessly and as previously stated, there is no perceivable slowdown anywhere to be found. A technical masterpiece that is much more than just eye candy and a great way to prove that the Super Famicom could indeed handle shmups as easily as the Mega Drive or PC Engine in the hands of the right developers. It's almost criminal that due to its very limited production run in Japan (only 5000 copies, apparently) very few people ever got to play this gem. As such, expect to find prices in the hundreds for a loose cart nowadays. A complete in-the-box copy of the game? Well, let just say you will need very deep pockets for one of those, but unless something incredible changes, Rendering Ranger: R2 is the closest we'll ever get to a proper Turrican 4 or Super Turrican 3. Trenz used the pseudonym "The Master" in his early computer game credits. Spend a few minutes with this slice of Super Famicom brilliance and you will quickly understand why - assuming you can afford a copy, of course.
Comments 38
VC release maybe?
It does seem the mid 90s were the beginning of the rush for more and more impressive visuals. I think that's why SNES and Megadrive are so fondly remembered- the perfect blend of graphics (for their time) and gameplay.
Another shoot'em up, but this time unknown to me. Such a review has negative effects on me: it will be hard not to regress to the old me, who never owned a SNes and got his "reveenge" by pirating around 90% of all its classics and great games. The sad part: I live in the country where reconditioned SFC were produced recently and I still have none.
Anyway... let's go make the rom into a n3DS VC.
@Kid_Sickarus Second half life period of the 16bits consoles have graphics who don't age.
The price on an original has gone a bit nuts in the last few years. I'm just glad to grab a complete copy about ten years ago for 130 Euros. It is a good game, just bloody difficult as the review points out.
Great review shiryu
Hey look, here's another game that never released in Europe.
I see European SNES copies on Ebay. They must be pirated.
And also a boxed Japanese version for €1,500+.
@MrHeli Thank you.
Gameplay video up: https://youtu.be/-JEMrzAdvWs
@Shiryu Cool.
@Shiryu Why not paste the video itself in the comments section?
(or under the article)
Here ya go:
@Shiryu Great review man as always. I've actually played this,it was a ROM though.I only played the first couple of levels,unfortunately not far enough to see it transform into a horizontal shoot em up.Might need to give it another go.
There's another Japanese game I had and enjoyed but the difficulty put me off,the name escapes me.You had to protect the President of USA.You were in a mech suit and there was a kind of over head map between levels and the president would follow you in his motorcade.Your character could actually leave the mech suit and run around firing his gun,he was tiny though.Do you know the game I'm on about?
@ThanosReXXX Because I keep forgetting the tags that are valid here. And your URL is messed up.
@OorWullie "Front Mission 2: Gun Hazard". Soon to be under my judgement.
@Shiryu That's the one! Nice one,I look forward to reading that.
@Shiryu Yeah, I see now that it doesn't work anymore. But that really is an NLife thing, and an annoying one at that. I have no idea what kind of voodoo they are using with daily site maintenance, but sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.
The tag to post a video directly is [youtube:<video code>] and with video code I mean everything that comes after "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=" which in the case of this video is "-JEMrzAdvWs", so replace "<video code>" with that and you should be good to go, normally speaking that is.
I always use the same format, and usually it works, like in your previous retro review (Ogre Tactics) where I also placed a video.
Although chances are that is now also a broken link or not working...
Oh, by the way: once again a great review. And a cool game too. Used to play it quite often, but I never finished it because I wasn't good enough...
@ThanosReXXX I believe the Youtube embedding feature had been disabled a long time ago because of spam in the forums. I guess it must be some sort of server issue then.
I believe the single production run in Japan was for 5000 units. A real shame because a lot of Rainbow Arts / Manfred Trenz never got to play or even know about this game's existence. Please read all about it on the link that is in the review that takes you to SNES central for a very insightful interview with Manfred himself.
@Shiryu The feature is off and on, since I have been posting videos up til a few days ago, when it still worked perfectly. Either way, it's highly annoying that it seems to randomly stop working from time to time.
When browsing through my older comments, my previous videos still seem to be working, and I used the exact same code, which makes this even stranger...
Case in point:
https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/snes/tactics_ogre_let_us_cling_together#comment3513794
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/05/video_this_animated_homage_to_r-type_makes_us_sad_the_series_is_dead#comment3504777
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/05/rumour_sources_go_to_battle_again_over_nintendo_nx_power#comment3499279
@Shiryu Oh boy... time for this old Titan to eat some humble pie. I did indeed mess up the url, and forgot one tiny little hyphen at the beginning of the video code. It is working just fine now, as you will see if you scroll up...
Another game to keep an eye out for.
I still feel sorry for NintendoLife, they're having to review old games because it's a bit bleak on the Nintendo scene lately.
@wazlon Well, I'm having a blast.
@Shiryu Glad to hear it
..Wow..amazing game..like Contra, Metroid and R-type had a baby..if there was some beat em up in there it would be the only game I would ever need, lol...nice review, thanks...now if only M2 could add it's 3D magic and put this on 3DS VC, I'd be in heaven..
@SH007ME You forgot the graphics of "Donkey Kong Country".
Like any retro review from here, no looking the bad points of the game. The true score of this game is around 6. Only the shrump parts are really good.
Who expect something like a Super Turrican game, keep distance from this game.
I too still had a repro of this game.
@FlashBoomerang That's because I review games according to the time of their release, not by todays standards. I compare them to other game of the genre on the system, in this case the SNES. The run'n'gun part is perfectly funcional but it is inferior to "Contra III" hence I would have given the game between 6 or 7 if it was those stages alone. But it is not, and I must weigh heavy the shmup sections which make about 66% of the game (there are more shmups than run'n'gun levels) and despite not having mentioned that there is a boss that is three screens tall without no slowdown whatsoever in the battle with it, I had no choice but to push this past 8.
That is my system and you are free to judge the game a 6 in your opinion,. I just want to make it clear I am not reviewing any of these Super Famicom games based on current gen reviews scores or policies.
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify that. Carry on!
Can't remember if I've actually played this or just watched gameplay videos, but yeah, it's a very impressive game and a great showcase for what the SNES was technically capable of in the right hands.
I mean, Christ, on one of the shmup levels it has parallax scrolling of at least 8 background layers at one time (or at least that's how it appears visually*), alongside all the enemies and explosions going off all over the place, with no slowdown. That's extremely impressive, and it goes head to head the very best looking shmup levels I've seen on Mega Drive.
Edit: Also, just noticed that the end of Level 5 uses the stereo sound to great effect with the music too.
*It's possibly achieved by a combination of using all the available background layers plus some scrolling trickery do with rendering on the horizontal axis (similar to the scrolling trickery the Mega Drive used to get around its 2 background layer limit in many games), or something along those lines.
@FlashBoomerang Well, the run 'n' gun levels certainly aren't up there with the likes of the best Contra games, imo, but I'd say they're better than a 6/10, easily.
Note: I've only just tried the game, and I've only played the first level and a half of run 'n' gun stuff, but I think those levels were better than a 6/10, imo. I'd probably give them a 7/10 based on the first level and a half (all things being relative to the times of course). They're not quite as "organic" feeling as the levels in Contra III; many level elements feels specifically placed in a "gamey" way at times (pits/gaps, turrets, enemy placement, etc.), and the jumping doesn't instil me with as much confidence as it should (something about the jump motion doesn't feel quite perfect, yet it works fine—but I am playing with a slightly wonky Xbox 360 pad, which we all know has a rather ****** d-pad, so that could be part of the issue), but it's still all solid and fun.
Judging it relative to its times, I'd definitely score this game above 6/10. Technical merit alone would probably score a 10/10.
Let me give scoring it a go (scoring it), based on what I've now played and seen:
Presentation: 6/10
Minimal, with almost no cutscenes, a simple but decent Options menu. It gets the job done. In-game presentation, all the little incidental/background details that set the scene (like explosions in the background or ships and stuff flying past during battles), are generally very good.
Graphics: 9/10
A bit fugly in places, due to the specific rendering technique and some iffy art design, but mostly pretty good. Technically, it's stunning: The SNES is being pushed to its absolute limits here with multi-layered parallax scrolling, loads of sprites onscreen, countless explosions and lot's little particle effects, some huge bosses, neat graphical tricks like wavy/warping scenery in some levels, and more. On a technical level its one of the most impressive games I've seen on the system, and the fact it's pushing out graphics like this with apparently no slowdown whatsoever is stunning. I only wish more programmers could work the SNES like this, because many of its best games suffer from pretty bad slowdown, especially the arcade conversions, and without the slowdown they'd be near perfect in a lot of cases (Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts and Super R-Type being a couple of examples that immediately spring to mind).
Sound: 7/10
Nothing particularly hummable or standout but it's all solid, and there were a couple of times where the stereo was used to nice effect. The sound FX for the weapons are nice and meaty too.
Playability: 7-8/10*
Moving and shooting is fluid in the run 'n' gun levels, jumping across gaps feels a tiny bit of a gamble at times (like you're not quite sure the jump is going to go exactly where you want, although it does). The guns feel great, especially when powered up, and the specials are powerful and satisfying. Shmup are smooth and look like a lot of fun, with intense action that never slows down, even when there's a tonne of stuff going on.
Lastability: 7/10
It wouldn't take particularly long to play through if it weren't so tuff, but it is tuff, so you'll likely be playing it for quite a while if you actually intend to see the final credits.
Overall: 7-8/10
If the shmup sections are as fun as they look, I'd go for the 8/10 score. It's fun, challenging, has some cool and impressive boss battles, a nice mix of run 'n' gun and shmup gameplay, and it's easily one of the most impressive SNES games out there on a technical level, and one to really show off what the system can do when in the hands of people who are able to take full advantage of it. If there was ever a game to use in your SNES vs Mega Drive "console/graphics wars" arguments . . .
It would probably go something like that.
*Note: I haven't played enough to give a true account here, but I've now watched an entire playthrough of the game and played the first couple of levels, so I have a decent enough idea of what it's like. If the shmup sections hold up I'd give it the 8/10.
VC a must!!
@Shiryu: I am really enjoying this series, albeit it makes me thirst for games beyond my gaming budget. I've played a few super famicom games at home here in the States thanks to my trust Retro Duo, and "discovered" one amazing baseball game. Experiencing these glorious shmups and platformers you have written about though, would be great.
@bluedogrulez Is it "Ken Griffey Jr's Winning Run"? Or is it a Japanese one like the "Power Pro-Kun" series?
@Kirk
Contra 3 and Demons Crest are games wrich received score 8 in reviews in old magazine games from snes era. This game is a score 6 by the standarts wrich I remember.
The game design of this game is too poor. The motion of the character let a unconfortable feeling. And you are hugely overestimating the graphics too, wrich oscilate a lot in the the game from terrible art to some few good art.
If you guys want think it is better than 6, well... keep thinking. But not way you will convince me about it.
@Shiryu: Super Kyuukyoku Harikiri Stadium. The first one. Player upgrades and batter/pitching action similar to Baseball Stars (NES) (my personal gold standard). Hideo Nomo's sprite is animated in his famous "tornado" windup. There's even a second league with a handful of MLB teams/stadiums (which is odd, given licensing issues). Any way, very solid game that the West never got.
@bluedogrulez Licensing in Japan was always a much cleaner affair. Those teams probably have player names and team logo slightly altered and as such are able to show up in the game free of charge. Pretty much like most wrestling games made in Japan. I will have to go search for that one, unsure if I ever played it or not.
@FlashBoomerang We are not here to convince anyone. Reviews are always subjective affairs and everyone rates different aspects differently. I respect your point of view as I expect you to respect mine. No one is here to change minds, just raise awareness.
@FlashBoomerang Trust me; I'm not overestimating the graphics. The art isn't amazing, in fact, it's even kind of ugly in places (as I've said), but, technically speaking, this is some of the most impressive stuff you will see running on the SNES.
There's a chance you don't know enough about game design, programming, and the limitations of the SNES to know why it's such an impressive game graphically for the system, but, suffice to say, it really is. The graphics, on a technical level, really are overall very impressive, if a little fugly at times.
Seriously, there might not be another game on SNES that runs this well with so much stuff going on graphically all the time (be it the multiple scrolling background layers, intense weapon fire, loads of little explosions and effects, lots of enemies and level sprites, some huge bosses, cool screen effects like warping and twisting areas, and all running at a rock-solid presumably 60fps frame rate)—and this isn't using any addition chips in the cartridge either. This level of visually intense/hectic action was usually only seen in Mega Drive shooters at the time, in shmups like Thunder Force IV or a run 'n' gun game like Gunstar Heroes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmO8WGx1hcE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v3B1hzMwnQ
The rest of the scores I'm not that adamant about—and, to be fair, Famistu only gave it 22/40 back in the day*—but I'd put the graphics way up there (judging them on a technical level).
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_Ranger:_R2 (you can see the score lower down on the page)
10 years ago, a complete copy would probably cost under $400.
Now, better have at least $1,500 ready if you want it.
The only other Japanese-exclusive Virgin game I can remember is the strange beat-em-up Gourmet Squadron Barayarou.That isn't exactly a cheap game these days either.
@Kirk
Wow, you finded the famitsu score. 22/40 looks fair to this game. And this is a score from snes era with sure.
Even the game had overcomed technical challenges, the experience the game deliver is bad.
I'm ok with your opinion, but mine is about the experience. I am a player. The feeling of the game need be good to me. And any programmer wrich think technical over experience probably will have hardships to do the public enjoy his games.
Tengai Makyo zero, for example have 72 mega in snes cartdige, the bigger, and yet is a bad experience. Even rpgs of 12 or 16 mega like the first breath of fire, Dragon Ball Z - Super Saiyan Densetsu, Dual Orb 2 or Albert's Odissey delivered experiences tons better.
Brandish is another good example, even with the change of vision, wrich no other rpg series in snes have, the experience of the game is bad. The game is hated. Most of people even think in the chance of vision like a bug at first glance. The experience is very worst than Dragon View, Soul Blazer, Brain Lord and Terragnima, and other action-rpgs, more conservatives, most of time, in the game.
@KingMike ... are you per chance KingMike from King Mike's Translations?
i have this on my Everdrive and it is awesome, so much fun.
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