Daikaijyu Deburasu

"Strategy simulation with a Godzilla flair..."

Daikaijyu Deburas is a strategy/simulation game released by Data East for Japan exclusively in 1990. It was a simple military strategy game where you control units, each with their own strenghts and weaknesses, and move them around the map in preparation to attack Debura, a giant Godzilla look-alike that's terrorizing the entire city.

The story takes place in year 199X, in Tokyo. One day, an gigantic egg fell from outer space and crash landed in Japanese waters. Awe struck and suspicious, the army sent out fleets to investigate and bring back the egg. When they did however, a giant monster named Debura rose out of the water and began to angrily attack the city and it's citizens. They place you, the commander of the army, in charge of managing the troops and protecting the city. Armed with the best the military can offer, your job is to stop Debura from causing significant damage by any means possible.

While the story may seem simple enough, it works well with this genre. Strategy is the main focus here, and there's enough of it to keep you busy and active for a while. For any that have played games such as Military Madness, you will feel right at home.

As for the scores...

Graphics: 5

Nothing really to shout about here. The graphics are very simple, like most military strategy games. The maps are plain, but you still know what's what and where's where. The maps various objects, such as city streets, buildings, and what not are all identifiable without having to pay too much attention to details.

The chracters in this game look plain as well. Each character is represented by an anime portrait on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, usually when there's talking going on. While the anime portraits are nice and decent, you never get to see your character walk around the map. The only thing you see on the map are your units, which are just simple renditions of how they look like in real life. Your units are always the same color, blue. In other words, your units are always blue, and never change.

Though the simplistic graphics work well, they're not perfect. For one thing, it's hard to identify what that unit is when you first play. Some units, like the rocket launcher, look really odd and not very much like a rocket launcher. It's also hard to distinguish some ground units from each other. The background maps, while also effective, are just not any fun to look at. Battles usually take a good while to beat, but having to stare at some plain, uninteresting map makes the job seem even longer. Had the graphics had slightly more variety and better design, it wouldn't be as bad.

To sum it up, the graphics are simple and effective. It won't really bother you that much that all your units are blue, and that all the maps are simple, but better graphics and more detail would've been appreciated.

Sound: 5

Music here is nothing memorable. All the tunes and sound effects sound cheap and low quality, and not to mention limited. The music doesn't change very much throughout the game, and on top of that, you hardly hear it. If you do manage to hear it, it's really nothing memorable.

The sound effects are equally as bad. Your units don't make any sound while moving. Also, when you attack, all the units make a ''bwoo'' noise for their attack. Whether it be a machine gun, or a rcket launcher, all the weapons sound the same, and it gets boring to listen to very fast.

Talking in this game is also bad. In fact, it's not even talking. It's just the typical NES ''Beep boop boop beep'' type talking sound effects. This also gets very annoying since there is a lot of dialogue in this game, and you can't speed it up. If you've played Xenogears, then you know how slowly the wonrds come up.

Overall the sound isn't really important in a game like this. However, that doesn't excuse the fact that the few sounds this game does have are bad. Simple ''Beeps'' and ''boops'' are annoying enough. When you fire a rocket and it goes ''bwoo'', then you know something's wrong. All in all, sound quality is lacking.

Controls: 8

Like most strategy games, control is simple and responsive. Moving your units around is a cinch. Units also move across the screen quickly, so you don't feel like you're moving them around forever. The menus are all easy to navigate. The menu options are all very clearly written and very direct in what the do. ''Attack'' means attack, ''Undo'' means undo. Any more simple and it would be an insult to your intelligence.

However, there is a slight problem with the controls. This is mainly due to the slow speed of the dialogue coming on-screen rather than the controls itself. Sometimes when you push a button during a dialogue, you might accidentally push it on the wrong option. When you play you'll see what I mean. This isn't really a major flaw, but annoying nevertheless.

In a nutshell, controls are very good in this game. Simple and responsive, controlling your units is as painless as you can get.

Mechanics: 7

Mechanics are like most other strategy-simulation games. Move your units, attack with your units, move them again, attack again. Very simple and easy to get down. Your units each have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, air units are quick and nimble, and can move farther around on the map than ground units, but they are weaker at attack, and while they dodge attacks more often than ground and water units, they get hit harder if they fail. Ground units are the opposite. These kinds of dynamics for your units adds to the strategic element found in most stratgey-sim games of this kind.

Like mentioned above, your units have a certain range for how far they can move. Given their natural restrictions (Ground units cann't go in water, and vice versa), a unit's mobility is based on this number. A jet has a range of 12, meaning that it can move 12 spaces across the map total in any direction. Also, since it's an air unit, it can fly over anything in it's way, except other air units. This is yet another factor that increases strategy and mechanics.

There are some things missing though. In some other strategy games, namely Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, your units are able to do a team attack. 2 or more units can attack 1 target at the same time. In this game, there's no such thing. 1 unit attacks at any given time. This makes some battles last very long and unnecessarily so.

Despite the flaw, the mchanics in this game are well done as far as games like these go. Simple to get down, hard to master is what games like this are all about, and this game accomplishes just that.

Challenge: 7

The game is quite challenging for something that looks cartoony and childish. The difficulty lies in each unit's advantages and restrictions, but also their HP. YOur units don't have that many HP compared to the opposition, has 100+, so managing your units and guarding them are a must. THe enemies can destroy your units, especially air, in a matter of hits. Usually, 3 or more hits on any given unit means it's gone.

To make matters worse, you must protect Deburas from getting to the egg. If Deburas manages to reach this egg and take it, the game is over. This adds another layer of challenge. Not only must you nurse your units, you must also nurse the egg.

To some, this may be a challenge trying to overcome their HP and brute strenght, but to others, it will seem unfair. Even the your strongest units can be taken down easily by Deburas. On the other hand, it takes hits, and hits, and hits for you to take him down, even on the first mission.

Overall the challenge is well done. Though a little unfair, it's tolerable enough that you will win in the end if you're smart enough...just make sure you have a lot of time to spare.

Replay: 3

Replay is pretty much non-existant in this game. Once you have conquered every map, and seen the mediocre ending, you probably won't want to touch this game again. The ending alone is not enough to make you want to play through every single battle. While there is a password feature, it's not enough to warrant multipple replays.

The game also lacks a 2 player option, which would've helped. Either 2 player VS or 2 player co-op would have increased the replay value twofolds. The most fun in a strategy-simulation games comes when you play against another human. The predictable CPU AI just doesn't cut it.

In general, don't expect this game to be played over and over. It's not going to be nor is it that kind of game. A two player feature would've helped, but I guess the producers though it would be fun enough by yourself. They pretty much thought wrong on that one. Like I usually say, beat the game once then store it neatly on your shelf.

Overall: 6

Overall, this game is average. It's not awful in most areas, but it doesn't excel in any other than control, with challenge being slightly behind. This game can be fun if you're a strategy buff, and a fan of Military Madness...or if you're just a fan of Godzilla-like storylines. Whether or not Deburas is a Godzilla character beats me. If you can take the challenge, as well as the slow dialogue, and happen to like strategy games as well, then you might want to give this game a try. Keep your standards low and you won't be dissapointed.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/11/00, Updated 04/11/00