Bio-Hazard Battle is a horizontal shmup for up to 2 players, that was developed by Sega of Japan and released around 1992. Nope, it has nothing to do with Resident Evil series that is known as Biohazard in Japan. Also, this Sega's shmup is known simply as Crying in Japan. Because that's what average player does upon trying to beat shmups, I guess. Released on 8 Megabit ROM.
It's also the only shmup on the Steam's Sega Classics. Ha. And to think that Genesis was only the second after TubroGrapx-16 in how many shoot-em-ups it had. But hey, where are racing games, Sega?
The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version. Yep, Western version, so you get autofire.
Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "Crying_USA.SGD".
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "BH_PC_MG_EFIGS_US.pdf".
Has online (in Bedroom HUB only) and local multiplayer.
Hundreds of years have passed since G-Biowar I. Only a few survivor remain frozen on O.P. Odysseus, an orbiting platform circling planet Avalon, as powerful retrovirus rampaged over the planet. Your mission as a bunch of bioship is to go down and check out the least hostile areas of planet to see if it's wise to set colony up yet.
I also like how in original US manual they wrote the objective for each stage. In Stage 1 you are just descending. In Stages 2-5 you are scouting the least hostile region, for some reason going on rampage instead of “k, there are monsters, let's stfu”. In Stage 6 you are going after Flying Destroyer massive bio-ship as it can just blow up any would-be colonies. And in Stages 7-8 you are checking out the biolab where the virus have been first created.
Don't expect anything from ending tho, it's nothing but ships returning back to platform. No fanfares.
And yep, setting is totally awesome in this one. You are exploring a post-apocalyptic world where the bio-monsters went rampant. They take on a variety of disgusting forms, mostly appearing as a variety of overgrown bacterias and insects. My favorite design of them all is a big human heart with long thin spider legs that shoots out blood cells that you see on pre-last stage. Too bad that boss design isn't as crazy, but it's still quite a delightfully freakish game. Enough that I wasn't paying attention that the background is actually quite plain and often is lacking.
The music also isn't lagging behind. It's quite unique and pretty damn awesome, showing that Genesis sound chip didn't suck. It has this weird dooming feel to it, with deep bass. Feels slightly bio-tribal, so to say. Though I wish all stages had unique tracks and repetitive booming boss music isn't going to win everybody over. Though I do think that it's supposed to be just haunting. It does.
Ah, and I actually haven't played that many shmups, so I am not sure if I can critique them right. Only tried a bunch of them for the first stages or so. But Bio-Hazard Battle seems to do just the right things for genre. One of the differences of horizontal shmups from vertical ones is usually an inclusion of environment to navigate through and this game does this. But unlike many of them, you can't die by colliding to the walls. Seriously, that should have been a rule in the genre, not exclusion. You also have a bunch of lives and 10 continues. You die on single shot. You go back to beginning of the stage only when you lose all lives, otherwise you respawn on the spot. You can also find lives hidden in the levels, you have to shoot at them to reveal them. Or you just get them for each 20,000 score you get.
That, and difficulty is just right in this one. All depending on settings. Actually, the first level starts off real easy, with almost nothing to do, boring players who wanted hard shmups away. Then Stage 2 comes in and the remaining players who wanted easy shmups get hit against brick wall, ragequiting. Then Stage 3 doesn't hold behind either and Stage 4 grabs your head, shoves it into dank caves and then hits it against the knee. Good game.
It's also quite different from your usual shooting and flying. Because the real hero in this game is satellite that orbits around your ship, aiming away from your movement or so. Hard to explain. But it's invincible and it's the one who gets all the shots power-ups. Heck, you can actually go total pro and block every shot that is thrown at you by placing satellite in front of it. So it's all about aiming and placing it correctly, while avoiding all the shots that are coming at you. While the only thing you get is just puny green shooty and charge-up shot that is actually real nice.
Also, you get to choose one of the four ships on start and after using continue. They vary in speed and have one of the two possible power-up for each type of power orb. They contribute a bit to the depth, yep. Like, orange “I don't want to aim” power-up will give homing laser that is good in open spaces to two ships and the bouncing rings that is great in close spaces to other two ships.
Also, power-up work in such way: There are 3 power levels for satellite shots. You level it up only when you grab same-color power-up. When you pick another color power-up, you get different weapon, but you don't lose power level. You lose single power level only when you die.
Protip: Start by grabbing green power-up if possible, then grab the one you want.
As for options, there is usual sound test. And you can set difficulty, which does have big impact, changing speed of projectiles sometimes and how aggressive enemies are with shooting. And set amount of starting lives from 3 to 5.
Oh, and there is multiplayer. You can play cooperatively with another player from the start of a game, which is pretty rare thing to see in horizontal shmups back then. I think that this way another player can continue without restarting stage if you are still alive. There is no collision. But another player will block the shots, so sorta friendly fire, but without damage. Not sure why they put it on.
Too bad that it slowdowns a lot in this mode. The 1-player game already gets slow in later stages when chaos is going on the screen, which I am thankful for since I suck at this genre so far, all yay free slow-mo. But I can only imagine how bad it goes in 2-player mode. Nope, didn't get to play with friend so far, so no idea.
Overall: great game with unique setting, nice difficulty, unique yet not-gimmicky gameplay. I don't see why it should not be considered a classic on a system.
Also, while Thunder Force was done by Technosoft, Sega recently got rights on games on them. They should put those onto Steam.
