Pulseman

"A Shocking Title!"

Pulseman was a game that was never released in North America, but when I tried it out, I liked it. I keep on coming back to it every now and then just because it was really good.

All I know about the story is that there are computer life forms called C-Life, and Pulseman is the son of a C-Life and a human that went into the cyber world. Also, this evil guy is spreading chaos all over the electrical network all over the world, and it is up to the super hero Pulseman and his C-Life girlfriend (who updates him on current global crime alerts) to stop this nefarious evil guy!

This game uses Japanese Text and American Voices, so you'll understand some of the things that are going on.
The gameplay is fairly good. The biggest downside is the 3 Health per Life. Sure, you can restore a health or two, but you can't expand what you already have, and this game is about 12 or 13 levels long. Since you don't have a lot of health, you'll need some skill. The other annoying thing in the gameplay is the old "knocked back into a pit" syndrome. You get hit and, because you can't recover, you are helpless to fall into a bottomless pit of death.

Despite the few flaws, the gameplay is solid. Sonic Lovers will enjoy this game. The game moves at a good pace, and there is variety of techniques that you can do with your moves. The move that makes Pulseman different from all other sparky super heroes is his Voltecca technique. He can use it to either travel a little bit or he can use it to travel on certain "power lines" (or whatever the game calls them) in which he transmit himself on until he reaches an end point.

This game is not linear .... sorta. You have a group of crimes that you have to solve before you can move on. Each crime scene is marked with a level, so you can proceed 1, 2, 3 or you can mix it up a little bit, although there is no benefit to doing so.

The other part that I love about this game is that each boss has to be defeated in a different way. You can't juts punch and kick your way though the boss as you would in almost any other game. In this game, you must defeat them in strategic ways. The puzzle of it makes it challenging.

Despite the variety in bosses, the game does get repetitive. This repetiveness is then enhanced by long levels and NO SAVE BATTERY! This game is a classic "complete in one sitting" type of game.

All in all, this game is worth checking out and will make you come back for more.

NOTICE: I think the biggest shocker of this game is the fact that this game was developed by the same people who made the world-wide gaming phenomenon known as Pokemon! Thank you, Game Freaks!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/01/06