Intro

 

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”

 

–Albert Einstein

 

Ah, the future! What form will it take? Will our intellect take us to the stars or bury us beneath a long-suffering Earth? Will we build our dreams–or our nightmares?

 

If thinking machines, artificial lifeforms that mirror the human condition, are to be the inevitable children of our race, we must ask–will our children take after our greatest virtues, or our greatest sins?

 

Fortunately, for today’s who-would-win fight, we have two artificial heroes from the future who take after R. Daneel wayyyyy more than SKYNET.

 

Let’s take a look at artificial heroes from the future (and from the Sega Genesis)–Pulseman, half man, half computer program, and the morphin’ orbot with radical ‘tude, Vectorman! 

 

We got two transforming, highly-stylized Genesis heroes from two different versions of the future. Pulseman is from a fairly cozy, vaguely 70’s-ish future inspired by tokusatsu and Astro Boy and Vectorman is from a dirty, grungy future where humanity left a polluted Earth behind.

 

It’s an orb-bot from a dark future vs a data bot from a bright future.

 

No, it’s not Mega Man X vs Mega Man.EXE, it’s Vectorman vs Pulseman!

 

Shout-out to Genesis Power Battles, an old who-would-win site from 2006. They’re the source of the fight image. I was tickled pink to find someone else not only liked the idea of Vectorman vs Pulseman but actually ran the numbers to find a winner and did it years ago. Props to them.

 

Vectorman

 

 

“You’re History!”

 

“Come on, fight like a robot!”

 

Click here for a playthrough of Vectorman.

 

Click here for a playthrough of Vectorman II.

 

Vectorman is a videogame character from the 90’s, meaning you aren’t going to get a lot of history on the setting outside what the opening slides reveal. There’s no lore Bible, okay? There’s barely a lore pamphlet.

 

The year is 2049 by way of 1995. Captain Planet and “save the whales/dolphins/rainforests” were big in 1995, and so the Earth of 2049 is covered in toxic sludge. 

 

Humanity has decided to do the “leave for outer space, come back when the Earth has regenerated” thing and has left “orbots” behind to speed up the process by cleaning up. The orbots are named so because they’re made of floating orbs held together by what’s probably electromagnetism. Limbs made of floating bits were popular in 90’s video games for some reason. Just look at Rayman.

 

Vectorman is the humble driver of a toxic sludge space-barge that ships waste to the sun (got to put it somewhere!), which makes Vectorman sort of like Wall-E if Wall-E drank a lot of surge and started training for the X-games. 

 

Returning one day after a sludge run to the sun, Vectorman finds that an orbot named Raster (get it?) has gone full Beneath the Planet of the Apes. He’s attached an old nuclear warhead to his head and started calling himself…Warhead.

 

Oh. Anti-pollution and anti-global thermonuclear war. Watch out there, Vectorman. If you get any more edgy and counter-cultural you’ll get on PBS.

 

Warhead takes control of Earth’s orbots through a global comsat network and takes a stand for “tyranny, oppression, and hatred.”

 

Damn. Looks like the Democrats survived all the way to 2049. They got Joe Biden’s brain in a jar somewhere?

 

Warhead plans to ambush humanity and wipe them out after they return to Earth, but when Vectorman turns out to be “unhindered by evil mind-control” in the words of the opening, humanity gets a chance for survival through their Mountain Dew colored savior.

 

In terms of personality, Vectorman is what Bart Simpson thinks Mega Man is. He’s cheeky and full of 90’s ‘tude. He mockingly relaxes when he leans against walls, shoots up peace signs like he’s Richard Nixon when he defeats a boss, and you can even have him blow up the SEGA logo at the start of the game.

 

…Hey hold on. All those enemies Vectorman poses over after killing…you know, they were mind controlled. He’s celebrating killing innocent orbots.

 

Maybe they uh…got fixed later? Sure, they die in big explosions but maybe there’s off-screen remains? 

 

Maybe?

 

So Vectorman kicks Warhead’s ass, and the Earth is once again safe for the return of humanity!

 

Not!

 

(Remember not?)

 

While transporting another load of toxic sludge to the sun, Vetorman’s space-barge gets blown up by a missile and he drifts down to Earth to face his Vectorman 2 foes–giant mutant spiders/insects/and a few snails in one level led by the evil Black Widow Queen, a giant black widow spider with a giant exposed brain on its thorax…maybe they were thinking of the Spider Mastermind from Doom?

 

The toxic sludge that forced mankind to flee for the stars turned out to be really, really good for creepy crawlies. Who would have guessed? You’d think it would be so anti-biological that nothing would grew let alone thrive and turn giant and evil. Eh, life finds a way.

 

But the mutant insects fare about as well against Vectorman as the mind-controlled orbots, and once again Earth is made safe for the eventual return of humanity.

 

So Vectorman saved the planet twice. Can you believe they built him to drive the space-version of a dump truck? God, humanity. Either give Vectorman’s creator an award for going WAYYYYY above and beyond the call of duty or fire him for putting shapeshifting and photon-shooting technology in a robot made to push buttons.

 

Vectorman’s Powers and Abilities

 

 

Photon Shot

 

What better power source for a mildly eco-friendly character from the 90’s than solar power? Vectorman shoots snowflake-looking projectiles as his basic attack in one of six directions–but never at a bottom-diagonal unless he’s in the air which is such a bitch. Vectorman works on Gunstar Red rules where he aims in the same direction that he moves which, in a game where you have a large hitbox and enemies can quickly ambush you from off screen, is also such a bitch.

 

Pulseman has the better game, just going to put that out there right now. Vectorman is hard in the worst sense of the word. It’s hard in a way that forces you to memorize what comes next or you’re toast, and likely was designed that way to pad out its short playtime. But I will say Vectorman II was a bit better.

 

Vectorman can temporarily power-up his photon shot by picking up…power-ups…gained either through defeated enemies or broken televisions (how very Gex!) These powerups essentially boil down to being able to spam a lot of projectiles really fast. Spread shot! Bola-shaped shot! Arcing stream shot! In practice, they’re all the same–lots of projectiles fired at once means lots of dead enemies. In Vectorman II, the photon shot power-ups become lasers, but they more or less function the same as they did in the first game.

 

Vectorman can become temporarily invincible by picking up the nucleus shield which surrounds him with floating photon shots. In Vectorman II, this pick up was replaced by the overkill weapon, a one-shot weapon that wipes out all enemies on the screen in a flash. It’s like a KA-rated BFG.

 

Boot-blasts

 

Vectorman has a double-jump through the use of photon emitters in his feet. He can use these to Mario-stomp enemies…provided you remember to tap the button before colliding and taking damage. Is surprisingly fun. More platformers should let you jet-boot jump on enemies.

 

Vectorman Morphs

 

Vectorman, either through nanotechnology or cartoon logic, can morph himself into different forms like a robot Plastic Man.

 

In Vectorman, you had three level-specific morphs you had from the start to the finish of a level–a train, a frog, and a tornado. Functionally, they worked pretty much the same as regular Vectorman. But you also had power-up morphs that made Vectorman temporarily invincible and able to destroy enemies by touch while also giving him the ability to open up new areas or move faster. These power-up morphs were:

 

Drill mode: Spin around while your feet become a drill capable of drilling through (more like blowing up in practice) certain sections of the ground to reveal new areas.

 

Bomb mode: Turn into a tiny grenade and roll around. When time’s up or you press a button, you explode wiping out enemies on the screen and blowing up certain walls.

 

Rocket mode: Turn into a rocket, fly up, break walls.

 

Dune Buggy mode: Well, that’s what the instruction manual calls it. I always thought it looked more like a motorcycle. Vectorman embraces his inner Junkion. 

 

Parachute mode: Gently float to the ground.

 

Jetpack mode: Gently rise from the ground.

 

Fish mode: Does lying on your side and swimming count as a mode? Apparently, it does.

 

Assimilations

 

In Vectorman II, morphs were changed. The power-up morphs were replaced by assimilations. When Vectorman killed a certain bug, they would drop a power-up that would turn Vectorman invincible and give him a form and abilities based on the bug. Vectorman developed minor Amazo powers between games, I guess?

 

Like the power-up morphs from the first game, they only lasted a few seconds. Unlike the power-ups, they didn’t allow you to destroy enemies on contact. You had to use the assimilation’s special attack to kill them.

 

Shell Bug: Vectorman surrounds himself with an energy shell. It works like the nucleus shield,  but it doesn’t destroy enemies.

 

Scorpion: Vectorman loses his arms but gets a cool looking scorpion tail he can sting enemies with.

 

Rhino Beetle: Vectorman grows a horn and basically turns into the Rhino from Spider-Man. This assimilation works the most like the power-up morphs from the first game by being a form where you run around and kill enemies by touching them.

 

Tick: Vectorman grows Hulk hands (remember those?) strong enough to destroy enemies that require several photon shots to destroy in one punch. SPPPOOOOOONNNN!

 

Fire Ant: This is by far Vectorman’s coolest assimilation. He turns red and gets a big flame on his head. He can shoot a flamethrower much stronger than his photon shot.

 

Vectorman II Morphs

 

Like in the first game, Vectorman has a few level-specific morphs. These morphs last the entire stage and do not grant invincibility. The exception to this rule is the tornado which functions like the power-up morphs from the first game.

 

Helicopter: Shows up in the first level and slows Vectorman’s descent to the ground after his barge gets blown up. It takes the form of spinning orbs on Vectorman’s back, and despite the name the morph functions more like a parachute. You can’t fly up with it.

 

Skates: Functionally, the worst morph. It makes you go fast–and that’s the problem. For those of you who have played a lot of platformers, you know what I mean. Sometimes speed is not your ally.

 

Tank : What the instruction manual calls “the ultimate in terms of firepower.” The tank is, well, a tank. Vectorman’s head is at the back and his turret is at the front giving the tank a suggestive appearance. It’s perhaps unintentional…but it was the 90’s and Vectorman does make rather odd noises when he’s firing so…who knows. Did you see the stuff they got away with showing on Nickelodeon? The tank can fire endless clusters of artillery shells and can rotate its turret to fire shells at an angle or straight up.

 

Tornado: The exception to the rule. This morph functions like the morphs from the first game. You pick it up, and for a limited time Vectorman is invincible and destroys enemies by touch. He’s also a tornado.

 

Much, much, MUCH better than the tornado morph from the first game.

 

God, that level was awful…you had like thirty seconds to shoot a boss through one of those rotating shields with a tiny hole and the whole fight is disco themed so there’s bright lights everywhere making it hard to see attacks and there’s mini-tornados bouncing you all over the place…

 

…It was just awful man, just awful. It made me want to toss the cartridge and put on Ristar or Rocket Knight Adventures every time.

 

Bonus Stage Morphs

 

Vectorman 2 has bonus stages, and in two of these bonus stages Vectorman transforms into an Enterprise-inspired spaceship capable of overcoming the gravitational pull of planets and destroying bug-asteroids which the instructional manual calls “insect planets.”

 

Not a standard form by any means and not factored into this fight.

 

Mind Control Immunity

 

As detailed in the opening to Vectorman, Warhead took over all the orbots on Earth through a global satellite network, but Vectorman was able to resist being hacked.

 

Vectorman’s Stats

 

 

Vectorman’s Durability

 

–Unharmed by underwater mines blowing up in his face. Mines are the “destroy to get an item” objects for Vectorman’s water level and the explosion that occurs when you detonate them doesn’t hurt you.

 

–Unharmed by his barge getting hit by a missile and blowing up in the opening of Vectorman 2.

 

–With fully upgraded health, can take 10 hits before dying.

 

–Can walk on plumes of fire without harm in Vectorman 2. Touching lava still hurts Vectorman, however.

 

Vectorman’s Strength

 

–At the end of Vectorman 2, unleashes a blast that destroys a giant cave.

 

–Was able to ride up a tornado to fight Warhead, the final boss of Vectorman, and resisted being spun around by the tornado’s wall but otherwise unharmed.

 

–Fought Warhead’s forces for 16 days straight (levels are called days in Vectorman).

 

Vectorman’s Speed and Agility

 

–Boot-blasts give Vectorman a double jump that hurts opponents below him.

 

–Certain morphs like the dune buggy from Vectorman and the skates from Vectorman 2 allow Vectorman to boogie at a reasonable clip, though they were awful to use from a gameplay perspective as they made you go too fast and the stage was populated by hard-to-shoot flying enemies.

 

–Through Newton’s third law, Vectorman can slow his descent by firing at the ground. Strangely, firing at an angle while falling doesn’t push you to the side any. But who are we to argue physics with a dude that can turn into a train? Clearly, he’s operating on a level beyond our level of knowledge.

 

Pulseman

 

 

“Here I am!”

 

Hey kids, look! It’s the guy that inspired the pokemon rotom!

 

Click here to watch a playthrough of Pulseman.

 

Years before Game Freak hit the uber-jackpot with Pokemon, they made Pulseman, a charming Genesis game that was never released in America (the pic above is fanmade), but translated roms are now easily available online, so you really have no excuse not to play it.

 

Pulseman is a fun game that nails the feel of an old tokusatsu show. The way Pulseman moves, the way he fights, it’s all so dynamic and cool. In that way, you can think of Pulseman as a predecessor to Viewtiful Joe. I highly recommend checking it out.

 

Here’s the story: In the future, a very ronery man named Dr. Shakuei Yoshiyama creates “C-Life,” or computer life. This isn’t Conway’s game of life but thinking, feeling, humanoids. Tron people, basically.

 

So Dr. Yoshiyama falls in love with one who gives birth to Pulseman.

 

That kind of invites asking how a physical man impregnated a computer program, but really, once you overcome all the hurdles to make Tron people I bit making hybrids is easy. It’s kind of like how getting to the moon’s far more believable once you get past heavier-than-air flight.

 

Because he’s half-Tronny, Pulseman has electricity powers and can jump in and out of cyberspace through terminals. He decides to become a superhero, because let’s be real here, with 2D waifus now a reality, there’s going to be a lot of hybrids in the future. He might as well get in on the superhero gig before his superpowers become common.

Pulseman’s enemies are the Galaxy Gang led by Dr. Waruyama, your standard Dr. Wiley/Dr. Eggman type. With the help of his girlfriend Beatrice, who used to work for the Galaxy Gang until Pulseman’s charming personality converted her to the side of good (he’s living the dream, isn’t he?), Pulseman crushes the Galaxy Gang’s evil ambitions on Earth and in Cyberspace!

 

Pulseman’s Powers and Abilities

 

 

Because of his unique (to say the least) parentage, Pulseman has all the powers of a man and all the powers of a computer program. This combination works out to make him sort of like a cross between Electro and Tron, or more accurately Video Man from Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, but I doubt any of you know who that is.

 

You should though, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends was a fun show.

 

Basics

 

–Pulseman can exist both in cyberspace and meatspace and functions the same in both. His powers depend on whether or not he’s charged, and Pulseman gains a charge either by dashing or by running in a single direction long enough. Think of it as an exaggeration of rubbing your socks on the carpet to build up a static charge. 

 

–If Pulseman is ever exposed to water, be it real water or simulated water inside a computer, he loses his charge.

 

Uncharged

 

–When uncharged, Pulseman can slash with his hand to create a short current of electricity, perform a crouching kick, or a big flip kick to take out enemies above his head. I love the flip kick. It’s usefulness is minimal, you could go through the whole game without using it once, but it’s pure tokusatsu. It’s Pulseman’s rider kick and that’s awesome.

 

–An uncharged Pulseman can also dash, which is your standard anime hero dash where he blurs a bit and then “teleports” a short distance complete with a confident “Hmph!” Pulseman is such a fun dude to play! While dashing, Pulseman is invulnerable, though the window on the invulnerability is relatively small. When playing the game (and you will, won’t you?) be careful not to dash on top of enemies. 

 

Charged

 

–While charged, Pulseman gains access to two abilities, each of which drains the charge. The first is flash arrow, a bolt of electricity that, while cool looking, is pretty slow. 

–The second is voltekker, which became Pokemon’s volt tackle move. Pulseman leaps into the air at a 45 degree angle. If he hits a special wire, he grinds on it, and if he hits a wall he bounces so you can pull awesome Ninja Gaiden wall climbs. It’s very likely that the move got its name from a certain space knight.

 

Pulseman’s Stats

 

 

Pulseman’s Strength

 

–His electric swipe can break blocks of ice.

 

–Flash arrow can go through several enemies.

 

Pulseman’s Durability

 

–Can take three hits before dying, represented by a cool Ultraman styled color timer. When you’re on your last hit, Pulseman’s girlfriend chimes in through his watch to cheer him on. God, this game just nails the tokusatsu theme!

 

–Is invulnerable while dashing or performing voltekker.

 

–Survived an arcade cabinet exploding while he was inside it which wrecked, but didn’t completely destroy, an arcade.

 

Pulseman’s Speed

 

–Has your classic anime hero dash, the kind where you momentarily vanish and reappear a few feet over.

 

–Voltekker allows Pulseman to quickly move through levels, provided he has a wire to travel down or walls close enough for him to keep bouncing off of.

 

So Who Wins?

 

Vectorman.

 

Vectorman has the edge on Pulseman when it comes to power and durability and has counters to some of Pulseman’s powers.

 

In terms of durability, Vectorman has a huge advantage. Fully upgraded, Vectorman can take 10 hits before going down where Pulseman can only take 3. Vectorman also has better durability feats. Pulseman was unharmed by an arcade cabinet blowing up, but Vectorman was unharmed by a missile blowing up his space-barge. Vectorman also has several invincibility morphs and his photon shield. Pulseman can become invincible when he dashes or uses voltekker, but these are brief, conditional forms of invincibility far from the “Mario star” kind of invincibility Vectorman gets from his powers.

 

Vectorman also takes the power advantage. He blew up a massive cave at the end of Vectorman 2 which is way above anything Pulseman has ever demonstrated. He also has a huge advantage in a firefight. Without powerups, Pulseman has to dash or run to build up a charge to throw a single flash arrow while Vectorman fires a photon blast with a tap of a button. With powerups, Pulseman still fires much slower than Vectorman’s default weapon while Vectorman can fill the arena with projectiles with his own powerups.

 

With his dash move, Pulseman has the speed advantage, but it’s not going to help him with the sheer amount of firepower Vectorman will be throwing his way.

 

Could voltekker help Pulseman any? Not really. We know from his fight with his clone that voltekker can be stopped by an equal amount of energy. If Pulseman pulls the voltekker against Vectorman, he gets stopped by a wall of projectiles, transformed back, and shredded.

 

Could Pulseman enter Vectorman and destroy him from the inside? I’m going to say no. The opening to Vectorman tells us that Warhead couldn’t hack Vectorman like the other orbots, and Warhead was using an entire global communications network. Even if Pulseman could enter Vectorman, Vectorman can control each of his component orbs. Vectorman could just detach the orb Pulseman entered and shoot it.

 

Poor Pulseman gets added to Vectorman’s space-barge–under Death Battle rules. In-character, he probably traps Pulseman in one of his orbs pokeball-style.