BURNING RANGERS

Yuji Naka and his co-workers at Sega's Sonic Team have the knowledge about what makes a good console videogame. They gave the company's two most successful platforms, the 16-bit Genesis/Megadrive and the 32-bit Sega Saturn, two of the best videogames in their respective genre with the side-scrolling "Sonic the Hedgehog" and the flying-adventure "NiGHTS... Into Dreams". "Burning Rangers" is an honorable attempt at originality and unproven gaming concepts in a sea of mediocre games and scores of sequels and unoriginal rehashes ("Mortal Kombat 4"? Ughh!), but it is also a game that seeks to get the absolute most out of whatever secrets the Saturn architecture has left within its circuits. The resulting game has impressed the critical gaming press, but has failed to ignite the charts and sold poorly in both Japan and the United States; you know life isn't fair when one of the most technically-impressive and better-looking (well, sort of!) games for your dying system doesn't sell out in its limited-release run.

It's the distant future, and the elite Burning Rangers team of fire-fighters are on constant call to extinguish fires that trap innocent bystanders in their path. Five members are in this team, and you can initially control two of them: 21 year-old Shou Amanabe, and 19 year-old Tillis. Do well in the game and you might be able to control, via reward and/or codes, two other members of the unit: 22 year-old Lead Phoenix and 35 year-old Big Landman (older and wiser of the BR's, and the only black member of the cast). These four are equipped with fire-blasting guns that allows them to blast away intense fires, defeat a random enemy (usually a robot gone haywire) and a mechanized suit that gives them ample mobility to dash/jump in all directions and skip the sudden and dangerous backdraft of fire explosions. Since the game's four/five levels (I forget :-P) are quite large and you have no map to guide yourself, the BR's have a Team Navigator that can guide them through tough obtacles and guide them to locations of trapped hostages and switches that open sealed doors; her name is Chris Partn, a 24 year-old expert in planning and a quick thinker.

What this crew of futuristic rescuers have in common is that they were all touched and dramatically affected by fire, which in some cases has taken away a loved one from the lives of Shou, Tillis, Lead, Big and Chris... their primary reward (and yours, if you really get into the game) is the knowledge that they saved human lives and other families won't suffer through the pain that theirs (the BR's) went through. A little heavy-handed stuff to keep in mind (read the manual for individual stories), and I personally think that character development should be relegated to RPG's and not be so prominent in an action-adventure game; regardless, otakus and anime fans will dig the developed personality of the Burning Rangers cast of characters big-time. Although nowhere near the killer app that the hype made the game to be in 1997, "BR" is a last way for Sega to emphasize that their games aren't made by committe and lack originality. Quite the contrary.

GRAPHICS / VISUALS: B-

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Call it an anime-influenced "Tomb Raider" clone recycling a modified version of the engine powering Sonic Team's previous megahit "NiGHTS". Regardless of your level (which could be an Aquarium or an Outer Space Station with zero-gravity), the game shares a futuristic artistic design for both the buildings (cavernous hallways, tube-covered walls, two-story high reactors, etc.) and the look of the characters and their futuristic outfits. The game's FMV cinemas that appear before/during/after you start playing set the proper storyline and expectations, and are as clean and dither-free as the best conpression allows. The movies are all done in anime style, and the characters and locations in the FMV mirror pretty accurately the in-game style and feel of the graphics. It's obvious that Sega sank a trucklaod of Yen for this puppy to have the quality of the animation it did... shame that the Saturn was being asked to emulate the clean and linear look of the visuals in the FMV.

Some machines are pushed so far technically that the game loses its gameplay charms in the process; the SNES port of "Street Fighter Alpha 2" (choppy animation messed up the timing), the PSX version of Eidos' "Deathtrap Dungeon" (everything!) and Studio 3DO's original "Star Fighter" for 3DO (flying through the heaviest air you've never seen) come to mind as examples of games that pushed their hardware to the max, and failed to sneak an enjoyable game. "Burning Rangers" manages to squeeze light-sourcing from its impressive fire effects, the frame-rate is mostly at a steady 20-24 per-second and there are plenty of colors on-screen to give the futuristic world of "BR" a unique look all its own. But at certain points the game seems to make the Saturn break a sweat, and the massive slowdown and glitchy textures/warped polygons that appear frequently throughout the game doesn't make you appreciate the technical expertise of Sega's programmers, but makes you count the days until the Dreamcast release date instead. Add to that low-resolution and fuzzy edges to the polygon models (the crystals that you are suppossed to collect look round around the edges instead of pointy), and "BR" ends up as a concept that would have benefited from a little more horsepower under the hood. Only the fonts and Menu/Option screens looked good in their high-resolution, along with the stills of the characters (why is Shou Amanabe ALWAYS pointing at me??!! I'm so scared :-P) and the FMV segments.

MUSIC / SOUND EFFECTS: B-

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Kudos to Sega of America for dubbing the voices of the Burning Rangers into English, which adds tremendously to the involvement and atmosphere of the game's premise because (a) Chris Partn will give you helpful hints and guide you out of trouble in tight spots, and (b) will update you on the status of the mission and the location of the hostages. The other Rangers will also communicate with you, and these exchanges will inform you of potential new developments in the mission status; wait until you're in the Aquarium and are told by the Team Navigator about the kids trapped in the basement... subtle stuff that would be missed by the American gamer if the game were subtitled or in Japanese. With the exception of the voices of the rescued victims (they are wimpy, pathetic and totally unconvincing) and the annoying "Don't worry, I'm a Burning Ranger!" line by Shou Amabane, the English voice-over of "BR" features convincing and well-acted vocal talent. Now why didn't "Last Bronx" and "Panzer Dragoon Saga" receive the same localization budget for English translations?

Sound effects are also up to the standard of the voices, with the fire-extinguishing weapon making a mean and loud noise when sending a big blast toward an intense blue heat, and the "swoosh" warning of an incoming fire explosion sounding like it came from Ron Howard's 1991 flick "Backdraft". Music is only confined to the Menu/Option screens and the FMV, because you need to hear the Team Navigator and your surroundings at all time during the actual game; that's fine by me, because the music in "BR" is among the worst, most generic, most idiotic and lackluster J-pop tunes I have ever heard, which is surprising considering this is the same developers that gave us the musical wonderland that was "NiGHTS". I can enjoy and actually grow to like J-pop music if it is at least hummable and redeemable ("Sailor Moon R's" end-title song, "Moon Revenge", comes to mind), but the tunes in this game (what little there are of them, thank the heavens) are pure ear torture. It's as if the composers were tired and just wanted to slap together as generic-sounding a collection of lyrics and tunes as you can imagine.

GAMEPLAY / FUN FACTOR: B-

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The controls are simple (move with the analog or digital pad) and intuitive (tap a button, move the pad and your BR can jump in the air in all directions, even backwards to avoid incoming fire explosions), which helps the clean and simple interface that guides the player through the explosive worlds of these Burning Rangers. Although the game is a go-anywhere 3D world, the hand of the developer is clearly leading the player toward where to go via the obstacles and requirements that are needed to complete the level (just like the "Tomb Raider" series), which tends to give the game a linearity that is reminiscent of the "Sonic" series, or "NiGHTS". Yuji Naka, the leading creative force behind Sonic Team's games, seems to believe that gameplay fulfillment is achieved through repetitive mastering of a game's objectives until they are secondary, which explains the grading system that will reward/punish you for your promptness in defeating a boss, clearing a level of victims and keeping as many crystal as possible (crystals that, just like the rings in "Sonic", are lost and dispersed when engulfed by an explosion and/or mechanized nemesis). The E-mail some of the rescued victims will send you adds to the emotional connection Naka wants the player to feel for his character's roles as life savers, but that will only affect the true "BR" fans that stick with the game long enough to appreciate the little details that casual gamers might not grasp. Stuff like: the ability to replay a completed level with hostages, puzzles and switches moved around to random locations for variety... the thrill of getting a better grade for your performance (like in Capcom's "Resident Evil 2", don't be discouraged if you get a low grade your first time around)... the animosity between the cast of characters (like the non-interactive characters in, again, "RE")... etc. Hey, it worked for "NiGHTS" and "Sonic".

The controls aren't as precise and analog-friendly as I'd expect from the team that made us buy a new controller to play their last game ("NiGHTS"), with very unprecise sensitivity given to a gentle/hard push of the pad. There are certain points (particularly underwater and in zero-gravity) at which I felt I had lost total control of my BR, and that it was impossible for me to go anywhere; practice eventually lessened the problem, but the control is far from perfect when your feet are not touching solid ground, and even then you might have trouble swinging around or stopping on the dime. Playthrough in the initial Practice Level (when starting a new game) will teach you the ropes, but only fighting the real deal will you gain the experience to become more than a rookie fire-fighter. And although in development for quite a while, there are too many glitches and small mistakes that take the shine away from playing "BR". Take the battle against the second boss (the big fish that looks like he came straight out of "NiGHTS"), in which the platforms above-water that the BR is suppossed to be jumping over are nothing but transparent wireframes (like the walls in EA's lackluster Saturn port of "NHL '98"!)... that is just careless, for heaven's sake!

OVERALL: B-

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Neither a savior for a system on life-support in America, nor a boring and dissappointing last hurrah, "Burning Rangers" is one more of the few Saturn games that are giving this dying 32-bit warrior a hell of a sendoff. I just wished that more of these Sega exclusives ("House of the Dead", "Sega Touring Car Championship", etc.) looked like third-generation 32-bit champs, instead of lackluster rushed jobs that are being done by the 'B' team of developers (you know, the folks that did most of 32X's crappy games because the good developers were doing Saturn stuff). Dreamcast never looked more better than when you play Yuji Naka's last saturn project, and wonder what it could have been like IF the Saturn had more juice left in it to squeeze. And squeeze. And squeeze. And...