Sargeant Saunders' Combat!

"A Game Your Dad Should Play"

This is a Japanese strategy game based on the late 50s TV show, Combat. My father often told me about his love of grabbing his plastic rifle, girding himself for war, cathode ray-tube style, and sitting down to exclaim at the adventures of Saunders and Co. Fast forward to 2003, when his bored son happened across this little gem, and you have the makings of the review of a very strange little game. One wonders if we'll be seeing a Bewitched dating sim from the Land of the Rising Sun anytime soon. Enough background, on to the review!

GAMEPLAY: TAKE THAT, RALPH-SAN! 8/10

A relatively simple strat game, a little Advance Wars, a little Front Mission, all pretty fun. At first glance, you'll wonder what the hell this is, and why the hell you put this anywhere near your Famicom in the first place. Persevere: if MIDI renditions of the show's theme at the title screen doesn't have you rolling in the aisles, the dead-serious pixelated montage of the series cast will. And if you stick around, there's a good game here, too. Successfully throwing a grenade to take out a trench of Germans had me howling at the screen in victory, at least.

GRAPHICS: SKIP THIS PART IF YOU OWN AN XBOX. 5/10

No, it's not terribly pretty. Yes, the animations are not cute, superdeformed, or anything in the conventional Japanese style. It's got big enviroments, but you wonder if they couldn't have thrown a few yen at getting some decent sprites. It looks like a crappy Mechwarrior game where the programmer took all the pilots out of the giant robots and gave them BB guns out of perversity. And you can't shoot anyone's eye out, either. Which leads us inexorably to-

SOUND: THE EARPHONES! THEY DO NOTHING! 5/10

The title screen is the highpoint of the aural experience here, I'm afraid. Considering that in itself is a piece of kitsch, that doesn't say much for the rest. What should sound like thunderous rifle fire sounds like a pop, blood-curdling death screams sound like ecstatic groans, and grenades just sound like, well, crap. I didn't really notice the in-game music, if indeed it had any, so at least it's not obnoxious.

STORY: SOMEWHERE IN THESE SQUIGGLES THERE'S A GREAT STORY, I'M SURE OF IT. ?/10

Your guess is as good as mine. While all of the menus and options are in the King's English, with Japanese subtitles below, there are no such subtitles for the screens that explain exactly what it is you're supposed to be doing. It's very simple to figure out your mission objectives, but we'll never know what wonderful twists and turns this game no doubt contains. It's much more fun just to make up your own story. I myself imagine Saunders battling the Khaki Empire with his Rifle of Doom.

CONTROL: WHATEVER YOU SHOOT, GOD FORGETS. 10/10

They had to get a least two things right, and this is one of them. Simple onscreen menu, choice of positions (standing, kneeling, or prone) line-of-sight aiming, outfitting your war machine beforehand, and weapon ranges all serve to make this game a little bit ahead of it's time. You'll strive to put yourself in the perfect position to make that coup de'tat with your Thompson, and actually enjoy it instead of pounding the game pad/keyboard in frustration.

DIFFICULTY: EH, NOT VERY. 3/10

This is not Disgaea, so if you like your strategy games catalepsy-inducing difficult, look elsewhere. For those of us who are hopeless when it comes to these games, it's nice to be able to kick a little Axis behind now and again.

AVAILABILITY: DON'T BOTHER LOOKING AT EB. 1/10

I'd never even heard of this game, and you're talking about a fellow who has a boxed copy of Captain Novolin sitting on his shelves. Then again, where there's a SNES emulator, an Internet connection, and a will, there's a way.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A fun, unpretentious game with nostalgia value. Not enough of those today. Show it to Gramps and maybe he'll fill you in.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/03