Curse is a 1989 video game developed by Micronet for the Mega Drive video game console.[1] It is a horizontally scrolling shooter with five levels. Although an American release was planned, it was never officially released outside Japan.
Plot
The story takes place in an alien solar system and focuses on the history of its two inhabited planets: Parceria and Seneca. For many years, the people of these planets lived in harmony together with the seemingly more advanced Parcerians continually visiting the Senecans. However, something happened on Parceria: something caused the Parcerians to shut off all forms of communication, visitation and activity with Seneca. Over time, Parceria’s environment died out, leaving only a planet-wide barren terrain. Hundreds of years have now passed and the current generation of Senecans see Parceria as nothing but a dead husk with the concept of life and companionship on it being mere, long forgotten legends.
Gameplay
Curse is similar to many other sideways/horizontal scrolling shooters, most notably R-Type. Various power-ups can be collected to boost weapons and speed. The object of the game is to shoot all other enemies that appear on screen and avoid crashing into bullets, enemies or foreground scenery. There are end-of-level boss enemies that stay with the player until they are defeated. There are no difficulty settings but the extends (aka: 1ups) are awarded every 1 million points.
Reception
The game utilized full parallax scrolling through most of the game, however, the graphics were not considered as anything special by the reviewers of the time. The game’s audio received better reviews and a sound test was available by holding down buttons A and Start on the title screen (various other options were available here for adjusting the game difficulty and other standard features). Console XS gave a review score of 28% and opining the game is the worst shoot ‘em up ever on the Sega Genesis.[2] MegaTech initially praised the game being fun to play although criticizes Curse that it suffers from a lack of originality and when the player loses they lose the extra weapons and very difficult to continue since the game only has five levels.[3] Mega Play’s four reviewers gave positive reviews giving both positive and negative reviews on the game’s challenging gameplay and one reviewer felt the gameplay was unfair because of the amount of enemies attacking at once although praised Curse that it stood out as a great shooter for the Genesis. The reviewers also criticized the shooting animation and the lack of levels.[4]
References
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d “Software List (Released by Soft Licensees)”. セガ 製品情報サイト (in Japanese). Sega. Retrieved May 15, 2023.
- ^ “A-Z Software”. Console XS (1): 128. June 1992. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
- ^ “Game Index”. MegaTech (1): 77. December 1991. Retrieved June 22, 2022.
- ^ “Mega Reviews”. Mega Play (1): 29. December 1990. Retrieved June 22, 2022.
