So, What’s The Theme Here?

Fragile NES adaptations of heroes that leave much to be desired.

Silver Surfer

“Intense,” huh? Yeah, that’s one of putting it. “Frustrating” would be another.

The Silver Surfer…wielder of the Power Cosmic, a superpower so badass it’s capitalized. The herald of Galactus. The Sentinel of the Spaceways. Stan Lee’s favorite character. He’s the reason “herald tier,” inaccurate and imprecise though it may be, caught on in vs battle spaces. Even casuals like the AVGN are aware that he’s supposed to be very powerful. He’s a cut above most heroes in the Marvel universe. The Fantastic Four combined couldn’t beat him if he fought them seriously.

So you’d think that his 1990 video game would try and represent his Power Cosmic…but that’s not what we got.

We got Gradius, but the Vic Viper is shaped like a man, has a giant hitbox, and the only pick-ups he can get are the options.

You know, I kind of get it. Sometimes its hard to adapt powerful characters. But if the Atari 2600 could make a fun adaptation of Superman without even giving him a healthbar, you can make something that shows how powerful Silver Surfer is that’s still fun. Maybe you could make something a little like Sinistar where you got to work to defend planets from Galactus and lead him away from them? Or maybe you could make a space RPG where spells are different uses for the Power Cosmic?

At the very least, the Silver Surfer should probably not die in one hit to anything and everything.

You might find it odd that Silver Surfer even had a game in the 90’s, and I wouldn’t blame you. Norrin Radd has never been an A-lister. But he had a wave (he he) of popularity in the late 80’s and early 90’s when his second series really took off. It was like how Green Lantern had a wave of popularity under Johns’ multi-corps stories and appeared in everything.

The story is…not the worst comic adaptation.

Galactus summons his herald and tells him that the universe is threatened by “evil forces of the Magick Domain,” and if you know comics, you ‘re either thinking “Oh, they mean Mephisto, this is going to be sort of like Silver Surfer: Judgement Day” or “Wait, Magick? As in Illyana and Limbo? What’s going on here?” But while Mephisto is in this game, his realm isn’t invading reality. The “Magick Domain” is an original creation for the game.

So Galactus has created a device that’ll BTFO the Magick Domain, but it’s been stolen (What? Was Galactus sleeping? Did he fall into a turkey coma after eating a planet?) and divided up into six pieces. Five have been claimed by Marvel characters, and 1 is in the Magick Domain under the watch of…well, you’ll see. Galactus apparently can’t be bothered with recovering the parts himself, so he sends Norrin “Glass Bones” Radd to do it for him.

Go, Surfer, go and herald to the extreme!

Yes, master, I will!

Powers And Abilities

One hit from anything kills you. Have fun!

After you die, Norrin cries like a baby. Poor man looks like he just read Slott’s run on his comic.

Gameplay is split between side view stages and top-down view stages. Though Silver Surfer’s Power Cosmic lets him do nearly anything from transmutation to space warping, he’s limited in this game to firing energy balls. The balls travel across the screen and can block projectiles, but uh, good luck blocking them all. Enemies typically take several shots to take down, meaning the generic bad guys are more durable than a guy explicitly covered in space metal by Galactus to survive the rigors of space travel and to fly through stars.

Norrin can pick up up to two ball pick-ups which work like the options in Gradius, they fly around Norrin and while they can’t be repositioned like the Gradius options, their direction of fire can be controlled, meaning you can have them fire all in front of Norrin or fan out to fire above and below or to the sides depending on what “mode” you’re playing. They can even fire behind Norrin.

You know…I can’t think of a time in the comics where Norrin created attack orbs, but I mean, it shouldn’t be beyond the abilities of the Power Cosmic. What I’m saying is, it’s not like they made a game featuring Human Torch and had him shoot ice. If only they had Norrin use the Power Cosmic to do other things, like maybe make a forcefield around himself? That would have been welcomed…

Norrin always moves forward, likely because he’s way too confident in his limited powers. That means, yep, the game is a an auto-scroller. Silver Surfer will not hit the breaks, even if he’s about to plow headfirst into a wall.

Noted Foes

Reptyl

Oh, here’s a deep cut. Reptyl was a space pirate active in the 2nd Kree-Skrull war, an event which was prominent in early issues of Silver Surfer’s 80’s/90’s series, which is why he’s here in this game even though he’s general literally who tier.

Retpyl’s stage is alien planet themed. The first part has Norrin go down a river and raid a fortress crewed by guys that look like Reptyl–which is inaccurate, because Reptyl’s crew wasn’t made of guys that looked like him. It was one of those eclectic pirate crews composed of the outcasts of many space races, but eh, I’ll let it slide. Making everyone look like Reptyl is good visual shorthand for “Reptyl’s crew.”

What I won’t let slide is how one of the enemies that can kill you is a rubber ducky.

OMNIVERSE LEVEL RUBBER DUCK.

The second part is basically more the first but with a top-down view. Some of the fort parts of the stage remind me a little of Contra with them being nestled between jungle trees. At the end, you fight a mini-boss.

Is…Is this a Skrull? I mean, Reptyl wasn’t exactly on the side of the Skrulls, he fought Super Skrull as a matter of fact, but I can buy one being part of his crew. The face looks kind of Skrull-ish, and Skrulls had turned into weirder things than a giant turtle.

The third part of the stage is the first, but at the end you fight Reptyl astride a dinosaur. No, that doesn’t happen in the comics. I don’t know why he’s on a dinosaur, but it goes to show the general problem with his stage–it’s reptile themed, not Reptyl themed. It should be Surfer vs a bunch of a space pirates, not Surfer vs a planet of TMNT looking dudes.

Kylor

Kylor is a Skrull emperor, more or less, and he started the 2nd Kree-Skrull War. Why he would want to sabotage something that would preserve the lives of Skrulls, I have no idea.

Kylor’s stage is a rather generic space battleship stage, something seen in countless shoot-em-ups. The enemies are robots or guys in space armor who don’t look much like Skrulls even though they should be Skrulls. I mean, come on, we’re fighting the Skrull emperor here. The goons need to be green and have pointed ears. But you know, given that parts of the stage look like giant computer circuits and the enemies don’t look much like Skrulls, I wonder if this wasn’t originally supposed to be Firelord’s stage, since Firelord is Xandarian and they have the big Worldmind computer that powers the Nova Corps? I think what might have happened was that they planned for four stages and then a fifth final stage but felt that they needed another level or their game will feel too short and empty. So they slapped together a level out of Mephisto assests and generic “fire” assets, gave it to Firelod, and gave Firelord’s actual stage to Kylor.

Kylor’s “boss battle” supports my theory, because it’s easily the most phoned in boss battle in the game. The other boss battles have some lead-up to them. For Kylor, you just fly down a hallway and destroy his launchers. He’s super-easy, it feels like they put him in as an afterthought.

The Possessor

Yes, there is such an Elder of the Universe named the Possessor. There’s actually quite a lot of Elders outside the ones associated with the Infinity Gems, but they don’t get a lot of attention because they’re kind of lame. Came in point, the Possessor’s whole deal is that he’s obsessed with the acquisition of knowledge, which makes him like the Collector but nerdier. I guesssssss I could accept the Possessor taking one of the parts. The Elders aren’t exactly known for exorcising good judgement in the pursuit of their obsessions. Maybe he’s interested in seeing what would happen when the Magick Domain invades?

Oh god, am I actually running no-prize defense for the Silver Surfer NES game? Where did I go wrong in my life?

The Possessor’s stage is a bunch of weird alien ruins, ancient statues and columns floating among the stars. Eyeballs and alien ghosts attack Silver Surfer, and you know what, I actually dig this stage. This is exactly the kind of place the Possessor would hang out in to study the knowledge of a lost civilization.

His boss fight has him hide behind a statue that shoots aliens ghosts, which is again very appropriate. He’s not the Champion. He’s not going to throw down directly with the Silver Surer. Props to the dev team for this stage it’s not bad.

Firelord

What the hell? Firelord isn’t even a bad guy! He’s a good Xandarian soldier! That time he fought Spider-Man was over a misunderstanding! Go read the comic!

Did the developers confuse him for Terrax or something? Terrax’s whole deal was being the evil herald that also backstabs Galactus in the back. He would be perfect for a plot like this.

Parts 1 and 3 of Firelord’s stage are generically “volcano” theme. But part 2 is Hell, more or less. It looks like an extension of Mephisto’s stage. You get giant gargoyle mouths leaking lava. You get jack-o-lanterns.

Look at this utter nonsense

Firelord himself appears behind a giant brazier and makes a rather token show of resistance. He half-heartedly shoots a few fireballs from his staff and then after taking a few shots doesn’t explode, he just siddles his way off-screen like he’s very embarrassed, but can you blame him? Anyone would be embarrassed to be in this game.

Mephisto

I can actually see why Mephisto would hoard part of the device. I mean, he is the Devil, after all. And if all life in the universe ends, I imagine that allows him to “cash out” quite a lot of souls.

His domain is appropriately a gigantic hell castle that would put Castlevania to shame and provides a nice contrast with the more sci-fi levels of the game. It’s such shame that Firelord’s stage is basically just a extension of his own, it ruins some of the contrast.

He fights Norrin in the form of a giant wall mounted head, which is sad, because you’d expect a guy as charismatic as Mephisto to do something more than copy Medusa from Kid Icarus.

The Final Enemy

After Mega Manning through five levels to acquire five pieces of Galactus’ device, Galactus reveals that the final piece has been taken to the Magick Domain itself. Retrieving it sounds like a job for the 616’s Sorcerer Supreme, or at the very least, someone that can endure a rubber duck colliding with him, but Galactus is going to sit on his butt and send you to get it. God, can this universe’s version of Galactus just not move? Do his heralds have to bring him planets and toss them to him like they’re feeding ducks at the pond? Does he come with a sun-sized sign explaining in several alien languages why you should feed the Galactus fresh lettuce instead of bread?

Right before you enter the Magick Domain, you get to see the big boss of the level.

And it’s a Marvel character…maybe?

Mr. Sinister? Is that you?

What are you doing in charge of a hostile universe?

You know, it’s not like Marvel didn’t have several extra dimensional invaders by 1990. When you think “threat from beyond the universe” you think Shuma Gorath, Dormamu, guys like that.”

Why? Why Mr. Sinister?

If you can believe it, things get even weirder as you play through the stage.

The Magikal Domain is just as chaotic as you’d thin it would be. The first part is a bunch of horned skulls and mushrooms floating in space, fairly normal at this point in the game, but the second part ratchets up the weirdness with floors made out of mouths and giant spiked spines serving as obstacles. At the end you fight a giant lobster for a miniboss. The third part has floating tongues and dissolving elephant heads (pretty graphic for an NES game).

Yeah, evil chaos realm, got it.

For some reason, they’re crying mercury?

Well, whatever tortures giant elephant heads for fun can’t be a fun guy to have in charge of the universe, so we got to take him out, even if does look like the coolest X-men villain.

So how does Mr. Sinister fight?

Not at all like Mr. Sinister.

Behold, the final boss fight of the game:

That’s…not Mr. Sinister. That’s not…anyone.

Who is this? The lovechild of Ben Grimm and Thanos? A rock soldier from Dimension X?

Well, for a place that’s supposed to be chaotic and weird, we sure got a chaotic and weird boss. This nameless freak runs across the screen while randomly firing his giant pistol. That’s it.

Let me just check to see if there’s anything on who this guy is supposed to be. Even if he’s an OC, he’s got to have a name, right?

…No! No one knows! He’s completely nameless and inexplicable! But something I did discover in my research, that the name of the universe in which this game occurs is called Earth-TRN093.

You know, sometimes alternate universes can be extremely divergent from one another. I know in Marvel they’re all technically supposed to be alternate timelines, bur if you stack enough divergent choices from the dawn of time, you can end up with some weird stuff. What if this is actually the TRN093 version of Thanos? Like in this reality he’s not an Eternal, he’s one of Dormamu’s mindless ones who got supercharged off magic? And Mr. Sinister went into magic instead of biology and became his link to physical reality?

What if TRN093 contains a copy of NES Silver Surfer but it’s actually good?

…Nah, I cant buy that being an alternate Thanos up there, but I can’t buy NES Silver Surfer being good in any universe, infinite realities be damned.

So what happens after you kill…whoever it is that you fight? Galactus uses the finished device to end the threat of the Magick Domain, but then announces that he intends to keep the device for himself to use it for…whatever. Probably planet eating, because that’s all he does. But Silver Surfer says he’s going to take the device to some place far, far away and hide it.

And he does.

While Galactus just kind of stands there.

You’d think he’d tractor beam Norrin and take the device, but he doesn’t.

Galactus kind of sucks in Earth-TRN093. He doesn’t do anything but tell Silver Surfer what to do. But I guess that tracks, because Galactus is the source of the Power Cosmic, and the Power Cosmic sure made Norrin Radd into Norrin Wimp.

Ultra Magnus

Ultra Magnus. Optimus Prime’s second-in-command. The one Optimus himself entrusted the Matrix of Leadership to.

Rank doesn’t always mean martial prowess. I doubt our Brandon-in-Chief could use the restroom without assistance let alone fight, but when you’re a member of a race of super robots who have been fighting a cosmic civil war for aeons, it’s fair to expect that you’d be at least as tough as the cannon fodder on the enemy’s side.

You can see from Ultra Magnus’ tech spec that he’s not supposed to be a weenie.

But would you believe that his video game has him so weak that generic Deception seekers can kill him in one shot while he needs two to kill them and that their shots go far longer? 30 mile missiles? Nope, not here, not even close, and that’s just the start of this game’s problems…but let’s back up a bit. What game are we talking about, exactly? Convoy No Nazo, 1986, translated as The Mystery of Optimus Prime (Convoy is what they call Optimus Prime over in Japan.)

Convoy No Nazo is an interesting product born of Transformer’s position as an American IP built from Japanese products. You probably know how Transformers came about, their general origin isn’t too esoteric, but if you don’t, back in the 80’s, American toy company Hasbro bought the distribution rights to two of Japanese company Takara’s toylines. The first was Diaclone, a toyline in which Earth’s army of mech pilots, the Diaclones, battled against the insectoid Waruder invaders, who being sticklers for theme, piloted bug robots. Have you ever wondered why old Optimus Prime toys came with a little cockpit seat inside his chest? That’s because before Optimus Prime was Optimus Prime, he was a mech. The Autobots came from Diaclone, as did the seeker faction of the Decepticons and the Insecticons (they were Waruder mechs naturally). The second toyline was Microman, a toyline about Lilliputian sized aliens and their robot buddies who, being small, disguised themselves as household objects. This is why so many G1 Transformers turned from giant robots into handheld devices. Originally, they were never meant to be giant robots at all! From Microman we got Soundwave and Blaster, cassette tape players, Perceptor, a microscope, Reflector, a camera, and Megatron, a handgun.

When Hasbro brought these lines over to America, they took inspiration from successful toylines like MOTU and DC’s Super Powers which featured good team vs evil team storylines and got a couple of Marvel writers to come up with characters for all these machines. Hasbro, dare I be so corny to suggest it, gave the Transformers the spark of life. The red Diaclone jet mech wasn’t just a vehicle anymore, it was the scheming and backstabbing Starscream. The red truck mech wasn’t just a ride, it was Optimus Prime, noble leader of the Autobots. Hasbro’s toyline, dubbed the Transformers, was a huge success, and is still on shelves to this day. Takara wanted to take that success home, and so Diaclone and Microman were virtually retired and remaining stock were stamped with Autobot and Decepticon logos and sold as Transformers.

This established the general  setup of the 80’s–the toys came from Japan, but the lore came from America. Japanese kids got the toys first, but American kids got the stories, be they in the form of comics or film, first, and if you were a British kid, you got an extra continuity in the form of UK Transformers, but that’s a different kettle of fish to talk about.

The 1986 Transformers film was scheduled to release in America months before it released in Japan, and that created a problem for the cartoon series. The post-film seasons started airing in Japan before they got the movie, which was quite jarring for kids watching it. Who’s Rhodiumus Prime? Who’s Galvatron? Why are all the characters saying Optimus was dead? Takara decided to lean into the mysteries created by the post-movie season and created Convoy no Nazo in which new character Ultra Magnus is tasked by the spirit of Optimus Prime to uncover the truth behind his demise. It’s essentially a whodunit with the goal and reward of the game being the unearthing of movie spoilers.

In the context of the movie, of course, this setup makes no sense. Optimus’ death wasn’t some locked room whodunit. Everyone saw his fight with Megatron. And Ultra Magnus was certainly aware that Optimus had died. He was by Optimus on his death bed. He received the matrix from him. It’s like this game takes place in an alternate universe or something…which um…well, we’ll get to later…

Wonky story aside, the game is just bad. The controls are clunky, the hitboxes are janky, and the difficulty is less a test of your abilities and more a test of your patience with the game. To add insult to injury, the game has very few Transformers. Let’s say you’re a hardcore fan, let’s say you’re willing to forgive a lot of jank just to play a game with your favorite characters.

You get, on the Autobot side:

Ultra Magnus.

Rodimus Prime, who you unlock by colleting hidden Rodimus letters throughout the game, and who plays identically to Ultra Magnus.

Bumblebee, who you only see in a cutscene if you destroy a specific red seeker in certain stages and acts as a level skip.

The ghost of Optimus Prime, who talks to you in the ending through a disembodied head.

That’s it for the Autobots. 1, 2, 3, 4, and I’m being extremely generous with the tally. Your average group shot in the cartoon featured more Autobots.

And on the Dcepticon side, you get:

Mensaor

Bruticus

Megatron

Trypticon

Again 1, 2, 3, 4. Those are the only named Decepticons that show up, though there are also generic jet seekers you can pretend are Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, et al as well as generic tank Decepticons that might be clones of Blitzwing (the “Come on down, Autobrat” guy from the movie who gets his barrel bent by Kupp) and generic Cassetteicons who might be clones of Laserbeak or Ratbat, it’s hard to tell by the sprite. If we count generics as characters, there are 7 Decepticons for 11 Transformers total, in a game all about the Transformers, a race of super fighting robots locked in eternal civil war.

Most of the enemies you encounter in the game aren’t even generic Decepticons but “robot drone” enemies that look like they could have come out of any sci-fi game. It makes for an incredibly dull and uninspired game when most of your enemies could be slotted into Batman or Metroid without causing a problem. The stages are also uninspired, especially for something made to tie into the film. If  Rodimus gets to be put in as a movie tease and if the entire point of the game is to find out who killed Optimus Prime, then why not put in levels like the Autobot City, the Junkion planet, the Quintesson planet, and Unicron? Those would have been a lot better than “Wasteland” and “Ruins.”

There’s one slight silver lining to this game its that the bosses are easy. The game is a hard Mario type (Mario type is easy bosses, hard stages and Kirby type is easy stages, hard bosses). But it’s only a slight silver lining because they’re also boring. All the bosses are static images that move up and down like targets at a parish fair shooting gallery.

Boring or frustrating too cold or too hot, don’t worry about taking your pick because you’re going to get plenty of both in this game,

Powers And Abilities

Ultra Magnus, being a Transformer, has two mode. In his default robot mode (you’ll be using this for most of the game), he can jump and fire a beam that travels most, but not all, of the screen. The beam has a tiny hitbox, and it’ll graze but not kill quite a lot of enemies in this game. Just because the beam hits doesn’t mean it actually hits. In vehicle mode (the game doesn’t even try and approximate the WUNKAWUNKA from the cartoon, but that’s the least of this game’s sins), Ultra Magus’ beam is replaced by a missile that has a little fall to it’s path, meaning it can hit annoying low-to-the-ground enemies. Ultra Magnus can also fire upwards and sort of function like the tank in Space Invaders. But vehicle mode comes with a big drawback–no jumping.

Ultra Magnus can acquire three power-ups to help him. The F powerup gives him limited flight (which, of course, conks out at the worst possible moment leaving you to plummet to your death). The P powerup gives him an extra gun. This extra gun can’t be aimed, and fires at an awkward angle. Except to get killed by things that go right between your beams. The B powerup, which stands for barrier, is the most useful powerup. It allows Ultra Magus to withstand 3 hits, then it fades. While it’s active, the music changes, so you when you first get it you might think you’ve got starman invincibility. But no. It’s 3 hits and no invincibility flicker, meaning you should play as if you never picked it up at all.

Alternity

Okay, the see that comic up there? It seems like a bunch of gibberish, right? I’m going to do my best to explain what’s happening up there without writing a book.

Alternity was a line of Takara Transformer toys in which the vehicle modes were based on licensed vehicles, like real-world vehicle brands. Sounds simple? Well, the lore they wrote for the line was anything but.

The Alternity is a highly revolved super race of Cybertronians originating in a timeline that split off from the G1 timeline. The Alternity, at least the Autobot ones, fight to protect the entire Transformers multiverse. The Alternity exist beyond space and time and passively connect telepathically to all their alternate universe versions. As in there’s an Optimus Prime Alternity, and he has telepathic contact with all Optimus Primes from the Bayverse Prime to the RID Prime. All Optimus Primes are the Optimus Prime Alternity, but each Alternity also has avatars, which are like superversions of who they typically “are.” That silver Optimus in the comic? That’s one of the Alternity’s avatars. He’s standing in the Bayverse toyline universe and he’s fighting with an avatar of the Megatron Alternity who is standing in, of all universes, the Kiss Player universe. Don’t look that one up, trust me here. That they’re fighting each other literally across universes should give you an idea how powerful Alternity avatars are.

Okay, so now we know who the Optimus and Megatron are up in that comic. Now let’s talk about what they’re doing.

Yes, that Megatron avatar is the demiurgic ruler of the universe of the game, which places Optimus as the Logos and Ultra Magnus as his prophet.

Ultra Magnus is canonically being controlled by an extradimensional god-Optimus.

Levels of Pain

1, Wasteland Zone

Oh ho ho, we would start this game in a wasteland. You’ll find out pretty quick what kind of game you’re playing when you shoot a seeker only for them to transform into robot mode, run and you, and kill you because your shot goes just over their head.

If you don’t figure it out then, you will when you start to confuse the tiny enemy shots with the stars in the background.

Believe it or not, the best way to clear this stage is just to run right. I’ve seen people do it in several videos. Just run and fire, jump when you have to, and you’ll make it. In this level, hesitation is going to get you killed, as enemies will hem you in.

If only the other levels could be cheesed like this…

The boss is a “devistar,” like a miniature Deathstar that spawns little robot bugs. No, these things were never in the cartoon. I’m sure someone out there in vsbw land has Ultra Magnus as small planet level because he can kill these things and they assume they’re actual planets set way into the background. Yeah, sure, the stubby little beam is traveling across the vast gulf of space. Sure.

2, Temple Ruins

Temple of what? Primus? This level is basically the Wasteland but with uneven terrain, meaning that you cant’ just run and gun it. Oh, joy.

The boss this time is two devistars. And if you think it’s lame to copy+paste bosses, brother, you haven’t seen anything yet.

3, Time Tunnel

You’re in a what?

Why is it a time tunnel? Into what future are you passing? Into what past are you descending? Who knows. No one would think this tower of floating platforms had anything to do with time travel if the guides didn’t name it.

Here is where the game ramps up the difficulty. You know how going up and down can be very frustrating in platformers, because it’s very awkward for your guy to shoot things above and below him compared to things to his sides? Oh yeah.  What makes it even worse is that the spawn distance is awful. Have fun watching Ultra Magnus get telefragged by enemies that weren’t there a split second ago.

If any single image could sum up the cheapness of this game, it’s probably this one.

Imagine you have an entire cast of villains to pick from, Soundwave and Starscream and Devastator, and it’s level 3. You haven’t had any named badguys show up, just generic tank and jet Decepticons. So who do you have fight the player?

The bad guys’ logo.

4, Subspace Zone

Subspace is the extradimensional location where Transformers shunt and retrieve their mass when they transform. It’s how Megatron goes from being a big robot man to a gun that can fit inside a person’s hand. I don’t think the comics or cartoons have actually shown what subspace looks like on the inside, but if it looks like this, I can’t blame them. It seems a horribly boring place to visit.

Subspace Zone is the Wasteland and Ruins but without a floor, which isn’t too bad a change. You don’t have to worry about Ultra Magnus being sent flying into a pit like Simon Belmont or Ryu Hayabusa because every lovetap kills him. Silver linings, yeah?

Hey look, a boss that’s actually kind of sort of from the show, and we’re only about halfway through the game. For some reason you fight the Nemesis, the flagship of the Decepticon fleet. For some reason it’s incredibly tiny. Maybe subspace is to blame?

5, Floating City

Floating City is like all the other non- Time Tunnel stages, but now not only is the floor gone but the background is crazily distracting. Good luck keeping track of all the small ball shaped objects when the background is filled with small ball shaped objects.

Finally, halfway through the game and we encounter our first named Decepticon. You’d be forgiven if you can’t immediately identify him given the poor quality of his sprite. It’s the combiner Menasor (note the cars o his arm and leg).

6, Time Tunnel II

What, again?

Yes, again. Yes, exactly again, the only difference being you go down the tunnel this time instead of up and the Decepticon logo is red instead of blue.

7, Glacier Zone

Upon seeing that the Glacier Zone is just the Wasteland recolored white, you might think that the game is going to give you a break for having to go through the Time Tunnel again, but no.

Enemy projectiles in this game are white.

The background is white.

You can probably see where this is going.

At the end of the stage, Optimus Prime’s ghostly head appears to you, signifying that the next stage is going to be critical for revealing the mystery of Convoy.

The boss is the combiner Bruticus (note the tank on his leg). He fights exactly like Mensasor.

It’s worth asking why Bruticus and Mensaor got in the game when Devastator didn’t. Devastator was the first and most high profile combiner team. Devastator got in the movie. But he’s not here, why? If it’s because he doesn’t have a gun to shoot projectiles, the Decepticon logo isn’t known for shooting, or moving for that matter, and it got to be in the game twice.

Or thrice…

 

8, Time Tunnel III

Yep, back up the Time Tunnel. Game of death and suffering indeed!

But remember Optimus’ ghost head in the last level? There is a secret room in Time Tunnel Three. It contains two things, a Rodimus letter and a flying drone that shoots at you.

Now, I want you to imagine you’re a little Japanese boy in the 80’s. You love Transformers. You can’t wait for the movie. You have to know who killed your beloved Convoy. So you blow your allowance on Convoy no Nazo, and though the game is punishing, you stick with it, because you got to know. Was it an inside job, did Bumblebee do it? You just got to know.

You fight to the end. You clear all 10 levels. But though you beat the game, you haven’t solved the mystery. It doesn’t tell you who killed Convoy! All it tells you is that you need to collect all the Rodimus letters so you can play as Rodimus.

So you go through the game again, and again, and again, finding all the secret letters until you get them all. In Time Tunnel III, you find one in a secret room with a flying enemy overhead that shoots shots down at you. You don’t want to mess with it, obviously, you’ve come too far to risk failure, so you drive past it, get the letter, and leave.

You clear the game again. This would have to be, at the very least, your second playthrough, but it’s likely your tenth, or maybe even twentieth, because this is the 80’s and you cant’ exactly look up where all the Rodimus letters are. You unlock the ability to play as Rodimus. You feel excited. You can see the finish line. Once more, onto the breach, with Rodiumus Prime, and you’ll finally solve the mystery of Convoy.

But you beat it again…and still, nothing.

What went wrong? You beat the game, you beat the game several times, so why won’t it tell you who killed Convoy?

What went wrong was this–in the secret room in Time Tunnel III, you have to kill the enemy. You can’t just avoid it and get the letter. And you have to kill it fast–if you take too long, you’ll be teleported out of the room. But if you do kill it in time, you’re treated to the above image of Megatron–the culprit, the one who killed Optimus Prime.

It was Megatron with the Hot Rod assist in the ruined Autobot City.

That’s right. The entire goal of the game comes down to killing a single enemy in a secret room in the 8th stage. Everything else is just a distraction.

This game was made to make boys cry.

Hey, it’s blue now!

…That’s it. What more can be said?

9, Underground Machine City

So, since we know the goal of the game is hidden away in the 8th level, what’s the rest of the red herring padding like?

It’s like this–do you remember the final castle in the original Super Mario Bros? The one where it loops if you don’t take the right path?

Yeah.

Have fun doing the death hallway on repeat until you luck into the answer.

There’s also this point pick-up secreted behind an alcove of drones.

What is this thing, you ask? Oh, just Takara’s Goliwog.

I’m serious. He’s called Dakko-chan, and then didn’t retire him as their mascot until the 90’s.

I know you’re probably thinking Dakk0-chan isn’t that bad. He’s got the Mr. Popo look and the pickaninny bow, but it’s a sprite in a game where the sprite’s aren’t that accurate to what they’re supposed to represent, so is Dakko-chan really that bad?

Well, you tell me.

As if this game wasn’t cursed enough already, it’s got the G1 version of Skids and Mudflap.

You’d think that Megatron would be the final boss given that he’s the Decepticon leader, but no, we got one more stage. Want to guess who the final boss is? Galvatron, maybe? A comedically undersized Unicron?

10, Time Tunnel IV

Again? Time Tunnel, Again?

That’s 4/10 levels being nothing but one level repeated. Nearly half the game is

This is such a kusoge.

Oh, but check it out, we don’t get a Decepticon logo for a boss this time (though if the game concluded with a fight against a logo, would you be surprised?). We get to fight…Trypticon.

Not Galvatron?

I get you wanted to keep parts of the game secret, but Rodimus Prime is in here. And Megatron was a stage before. Trypticon just seems…well, I’d say off, but honestly, off is the baseline for this game, so Trypticon being the final boss works just fine.

He is comedically undersized, perhaps even more than the Nemesis, and comedically underpowered, as with all the bosses in this game. Once you dumpster him, the game is over. Don’t you feel accomplished? You found out who killed Optimus Prime and got all the Rodimus letters. You even got the creepy little golliwog. You’re done, unless for some godforsaken reason you want to play through the game as Rodimus, who I must remind you is just a recolored Ultra Magnus. And if you want to do that, more power to you, you strange, strange creature. Shine on, you crazy diamond. There can’t be many like you in the world who would willingly dive back into a hell they’ve escaped.

That’s it. That was the game.

And what a game it was.

Which Game Is Worse?

Convoy.

That’s not to say Silver Surfer is good, or fair, or balanced, or anything like that, but Silver Surfer is very much like Gradius where the difficulty plummets so long as you have all your options out…with the caveat being that if you die and lose your options, you’re in for a world of hurt. But Convoy doesn’t have scenarios where you can “cruise” through the game. You’re always in hell when you play Convoy.

So, Who Wins?

Ultra Magnus.

Believe me, I was just as shocked as you are now.

Here’s how they compare:

Surfer has the superior range (his shots go across the screen while Ultra Magnus’ shots only go across most the screen), superior rate of fire, superior projectile size, superior mobility (his natural flight is MUCH better than the crappy limited flight Ultra Magnus has), and superior fire coverage, since he

So why does Surfer lose?

Because of three things:

The first is Ultra Magnus’ barrier. True, without invincibility frames and with Norrin constantly going PEW PEW PEW PEW, the 3-hit barrier doesn’t count for much, but it does count, Ultra Magnus can take more hits than Silver Surfer.

The second is that Silver Surfer auto-scrolls. He cannot break, nor can he slow down. He will follow Ultra Magnus. He will continually get closer to Ultra Magus, which is very key to keep in mind, as Silver Surfer, through is own recklessness and overconfidence, mitigates his range advantage.

The third is, yes, the Alternity stuff. Ultra Magnus is controlled by a higher dimension Optimus Prime with super root reflexes and a keen tactical mind.

With his barrier, Ultra Magnus can set up a clash where he gets his hit in, even at the cost of getting him himself. It’s not an easy scenario to set up, not even a likely scenario under human limitations, but under the control of Optimus Prime, it becomes the only scenario that’ll play out.

And one hit, either with Ultra Magnus’ beam or his body, is all it takes to drop Silver Surfer.

Scramble, Ultramagnus, for great justice.

Interesting Update!

I learned from my good buddy Smacky Jackson, author of the incredibly funny Tad Danger, Substitute Ranger (a member of the Capeworld multiverse!) and Transformers fan something interesting. You remember how Ultra Magnus would fight giant Decepticon logos? Well, in the IDW series, they actually decided to give the Decepticons giant flying logos.

These ships are called worldsweepers, and each has the power to destroy a planet Death Star style.

I am impressed how every bit of minutia in Transformers gets canonized. This is something I normally only expect from Star Wars and Star Trek. Well played, Transformers.