Assault Suits Valken / Leynos

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/assaultsuits/assaultsuits.htm

The first two installments on these games are more well known as Target Earth for the Genesis and Cybernator for the SNES. Each got their own sequel, for the Saturn and PSOne, respectively, although the latter is just a Front Mission-type SRPG. The article also features a look at Metal Warriors and Front Mission Gun Hazard, which are spiritually related to the Assault Suit series.

[r0ck3rz]

Gun Hazard was pretty well balanced, until the final boss. Either that or I was just too lazy to try and figure out some sort of pattern in there.

[Atma]

The first Assault Suits Valken looks way too familiar to me for some reason. I'm going to have to go check on it but I'm pretty sure this was something I played the shit out of a kid. Nostalgia hit get.

[zzz]

Hell yes! Been waiting for this.

Apr 27, 2009 21:07:14 GMT -5 r0ck3rz said:

Gun Hazard was pretty well balanced, until the final boss. Either that or I was just too lazy to try and figure out some sort of pattern in there.

Yeah, the last boss was a pain in the ass.

[ReyVGM]

I don't know if this is of importance, but there's was supposed to be a sequel to Metal Warriors.


Here's the text from a blog post:

"here is a post I stumbled upon in a forum where the developer himself said that Metal Warrior is not related to the Assault Suits series:
www.lostlevels.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=389&highlight=metal+warriors

"There's been a few e-rumors over time that the fun and excellent 'mech platformer' Metal Warriors was in fact an Assault Suit game before Nippon Computer Systems (the same folks who also brought us Langrisser) ran into troubles and passed it on to Konami, who had published Assault Suit Valken as Cybernator.

Wondering about this, I sought out the co-designer and programmer of Metal Warriors, Dean Sharpe, head of BigApe, made up of former (?) Lucasarts employees, including those who worked on Metal Warrior and Zombies Ate My Neighbors, as well as less notable titles such as Simpsons Wrestling PSX, Herc's Adventures, and Celebrity Deathmatch. But I won't hold those against them.

Anyway, once I explained what Nippon Compurer Systems was, as well as the Assault Suit series, he gave the following info about the game:

From Dean Sharpe, the co-designer and programmer of the game:

Mike Ebert and myself made it from scratch after finishing Zombies Ate My Neighbors.
So no, it was not a spin off of anything. As far as the idea, we just wanted to work on something head to head with a more serious note after doing Zombies Ate My Neighbors. The only other part of the story was that Nintendo was originally going to publish it. We even did about 3 months worth of changes by their request. Then at the last minute they decided that it was too much like Cybernator and the deal got nixed. It was then we went back to Konami whom had also published Zombies Ate My Neighbors. The only other name it ever went by was Battle Droids.

Its funny that you emailed me about this since I'm currently working on a GBA version of that game. It won't be called Metal Warriors however.


For those who want to know more about the Assault Suit series by NCS, here is the rough list of the games:

Assault Suit Leynos/Target Earth for Genesis
Assault Suit Valken/Cybernator for SNES
Assault Suit Leynos II for Saturn, not translated
Assault Suit Valken II for PSX, also not translated, and a strategy game.
Assault Suit Valken "Zero", a remake of Cybernator that is being made for PS2 by X-nauts, who have some sort of incestous relationship with Psikyo. "


So, there you go. That message from the programmer dates back to 2004, so I don't know what ever happened to that 'Metal Warrior' esque GBA game he mentioned."

[Dais]

You might also want to add the Simple DS Series Vol. 18 "The Soukouki Kihei Gun Ground", which is pretty shamelessly inspired by the Assault Suits games - they key distinction being that it allows four-player co-op! Unfortunately, like most Simple games, it's pretty low-budget, ugly and clumsy.

Apr 27, 2009 22:06:16 GMT -5 zzz said:

Hell yes! Been waiting for this.

Apr 27, 2009 21:07:14 GMT -5 r0ck3rz said:

Gun Hazard was pretty well balanced, until the final boss. Either that or I was just too lazy to try and figure out some sort of pattern in there.

Yeah, the last boss was a pain in the ass.

How are you trying to fight him? It's more about dodging it's attacks until you get a clear shot, then shooting you're strongest stuff than every going toe-to-toe with it. Also, if you unlock the Great White Emporium in Sydney, you can buy up to level 5 Spark Shots, and once you build one of those up a bit, you can essentially cheap your way through the whole battle by firing it while never aiming. There's also a youtube video out there of a guy defeating the final boss with only hand grenades, I believe.

also, on Metal Warriors (I really should email Sharpe again to see whatever happened to the plans for a GBA port), while it's true that the levels are generally pretty unremarkable compared to Cybernator, special mention should be give to the large burrowing boss units you have to stop in mission 7 - having parts of a level get destroyed like that, even as part of a script, was pretty rare bacck then.

[Shellshock]

Yeah this had to eventually show up here. Cool.

[Ace Whatever]

I lol'd at the link to Target Earth's ending. Good to know that I keep indirectly contributing to mech game articles. Great read!

is one of Japan's most phenomenally successful anime to existence

And thus birth the Assault Suits series

Shouldn't there be a subject associated with 'birth'? Or can it be taken from the previous sentence?

It's definitely aspects like these that cement Cybernator as an SNES classic.

Shouldn't you use the original name?

, which is stupid, stupid change

Most levels are fairly short, although there are a large number of them. Most levels are fairly short, although there are a large number of them,

You don't start off a jet pack, although you can eventually purchase one.

[Vendaval Este]

I'm very interested in Cybernator. Stuttering Craig of ScrewAttack can suck it for slagging the game off, that man is a joke.

[Haz]

Error: You have Cybernator up wrong as a PlayStation game.

Other than that, good one.

Another very common cheat for Target Earth is the 9 continues one (which I don't think is listed): When you die after the 2nd level, go to the options menu and press Start. A message with some girl on it comes up with the words "Continue Up", and there you go.

[breakman]

The first two games both have a cheat where you finish the first level by only killing the boss, and no other enemies. In Leynos, you get one of every weapon/item in the game, and in Valken you get the Napalm gun, which as far as I know can't be obtained by any other means. (Incidentally, in both games you get exactly 2800 points for killing only that first boss.)

The fourth level consists of an escort mission where you need to protect a convoy of trucks which have an unfortunate tendency to blow up without any clear reason. (Some online FAQs claim these are actually landmines dropped by the attacking ships, but they're impossible to see on the ground.)

You can see them being dropped though, and can then shoot them before or after they hit the ground. And if you don't see them, you can also dash along the ground ahead of the convoy to set them off.

The only real connection with the rest of the games is that it takes place in the same universe, and a couple of characters make appearances, like Leena, the dispatcher from Target Earth, and Jake, the hero of Cybernator. The character designs are by Yoshikazu Yasuhito, who also did the designs for the original Mobile Suit Gundam.

A Wikipedia article (which seems to no longer exist) claimed that story-wise Valken 2 was a remake of the original Leynos. I can't read Japanese, so I can't really tell, although if that is the case it's certainly a heavily altered version of that story. They do both have the same rival/antagonist character though. IIRC, he's called something like Lance Kulzas in Target Earth, and Rance Kalzas in Valken 2. Although, the character portait of the Leynos/Target Earth character actually more closely resembles the female character who's always with him in Valken 2.

Oh, also, note the box art logos: Valken games are Assault Suits, and Leynos games are Assault Suit (although the first Leynos says otherwise in-game).

[dire51]

Thanks for the links to my old ASV/ASL2 stuff on the OPCFG, Kurt. And am I the only one that preferred ASV's bad ending?

I love both of these games to death, but I do admit to being guilty of using the invincibility cheat to get the end of Target Earth. On a side note, what are the odds anyone can translate what gets said during ASV's suicide scene? Or the extra, secret message after the final screen at the end?

[Discoalucard]

Apr 28, 2009 12:25:45 GMT -5 breakman said:

Oh, also, note the box art logos: Valken games are Assault Suits, and Leynos games are Assault Suit (although the first Leynos says otherwise in-game).

I remember reading somewhere that the game was TECHNICALLY Assault Suit Leynos, but the title screen says otherwise, so I just go with that.

Thanks for the updates/corrections all, I'll make them ASAP.

[Ganelon]

They're wrong. Leynos has always been "Assault Suit." Lots of people are just really careless about names. They're both written the same in Japanese though.

Lance is actually a popular NCS/Masaya character. He later became the main rival in Langrisser I (spelled Lance Kalzas in Warsong), their flagship SRPG later on. A castle with his last name makes an appearance in LII. And of course, Assault Suits make a reappearance in the series as the strongest armor.

[Haz]

Apr 28, 2009 12:25:45 GMT -5 breakman said:

IIRC, he's called something like Lance Kulzas in Target Earth

The English version calls him Rance Culzus, to be exact. Yes, Rance.