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Gain Ground

Titles are hard.

I've always hated naming things I write, whether it was headlines for news articles or titles for meeting notes at work.  I'm not going to say I'm bad at it, but I find it very frustrating.  It's one of those things that people don't realize is a major ask of creatives/copywriters/etc.

With that in mind, it won't come as a surprise that I am going to give Sega a pass for giving this week's entry a confusing name.  It could just be me, but the first thing I thought of when I heard the title "Gain Ground" was a football game.  That was about as far off as I could have gotten.  Released in arcades in 1988, Gain Ground was intended as Sega's answer to Gauntlet.  While the aesthetic may be similar, I don't think they got particularly close to aping Nintendo's popular fantasy game.  They did, however, create a unique and interesting blend of top down action and single screen puzzle games.  Think Bomberman meets Smash TV.

Gain Ground | Retro Gamer

It took some time, but the game was ported to the Genesis in 1991.  I can't say I've ever played the original cabinet, but all in all this seems like it was a pretty solid port.  There were obviously going to have to be some compromises.  It's not surprising the arcade version has graphics that are far superior.  The Genesis version is pretty ugly, even for its time.  The colors are plain and the backgrounds are bland and simple.  It's yet another title with "Early Genesis" written all over it.  The character models are a little better, but they're still blocky and small and the enemies lack detail.  I'm actually surprised they couldn't make this a little prettier, its not like there are a lot of deep graphical effecs on a game with exclusively one screen levels.  The sound is okay, nothing to write home about but not awful either.

Gain Ground may not look great, but it plays surprisingly well.  The transition from an arcade joystick to a controller is tough with a game like this, because it requires you to shoot in eight directions.  However, it works well here.  Controls are relatively tight and while the hit detection is a bit off, it isn't gamebreaking.  You start the game as one of three characters and can unlock up to twenty as you traverse its 50 levels.  I have to give Sega credit here, they added stages for the home consoles that weren't in the arcade, which is pretty cool.  Your goal is simple: get all of your characters to the exit or defeat all the enemies.  Each enemy attacks you differently, some charge directly, some have slow moving but long range projectiles, some fire in bursts and some sneak up on you.  It really makes you think about what character you have to use in what situation. 

You start the game off with three, a guy with a gun (henceforth known as gun guy) who has long range but can only shoot forward, a lady who throws potato masher grenades (grenade gal) and a guy that throws short range spears (spear dude) in any direction.  You will find other characters throught the levels who will join your cause, each offering their own set of capabilities.  The levels are small, but they are well designed and they force you to get the most out of all your characters.  Some characters, like the gun guy, can only hit enemies on the same plane as them.  He will get you through the first level with ease, but the second level has archers on top of a ridge that he can't hit.  You need to bring out grenade gal or spear dude, who can throw their weapons upward.  They also help a lot in later stages where enemies hide behind barricades they can launch their weapons over.  Then, just when you thing you have it down, the game will start throwing long range archers at you, and you need to switch back to gun guy.  If you lose one of your more valuable characters, you might be forced to simply evade enemies as you try to reach the exit.

I will say that this is a pretty tough game, not the hardest I've played by any means but certainly challenging.  The biggest reason for that is one hit deaths.  If a character gets hit once, they're done.  That said, the challenge is more than fair and outside a few cheap deaths, which came during set pieces that were very obviously designed to separate arcade gamers from their quarters, I never once felt cheated.  It's a true test of skill on the sticks and understanding what each character does.  The challenge also scales fairly well.  Sure, the later levels are harder, but if you can make it through the earlier ones with most of your party in tact it takes some bite out of the challenge.  You also have three continues, which helps a lot.

There were some flaws here. I will say it again, this is ugly even for a 1991 Genesis game.  I have to call out the title screen, that background was so bad it hurt my eyes.  Something like this never would have been allowed today as, on a completely serious note, someone with Epilepsy would not have been able to look at that screen.  I have a headache just thinking about it. The top down perspective sometimes makes it hard to see where enemy shots are coming from, especially with the multiple elevations.  It's hard to shoot diagonally, which can be frustrating as well.  I can't fault them too bad as its far more difficult to do on a controller thatn a joystick.  Finally, this seems like it was really designed for multiple players.  Again, not surprising, as most arcade games are.  I don't even think that is much of a negative.  I had fun playing by myself, but I really think this would have been a much better experience with a friend.

I think the most important thing here is that Gain Ground is easy to pick up and play.  The controls are simple, there's no storyline, no complex mini games and no twin stick controls. Anyone could play this and do okay, but not just anyone can beat it.  That's a good sign, it shows they properly balanced the difficulty.  Even non gamers would be okay with this, you aren't being asked to do anything confusing or complicated. It may have the least fitting title I have ever heard, but I was pleasantly surprised with what Sega did here.  Adding, one screen puzzler elements made the game a little slower than something like Smash TV, but also more deliberate.  50 levels was a lot for a game like this and it was nice that Sega threw  in a little extra instead of just slapping a port together.  Gain Ground was very surprising.  Not an all time classic, but this was a way better game than it had any right being.

8/10

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