Last Battle (Sega Genesis, 1989)

When I first got my Genesis, I looked at the screen shots on this poster that came with it. Since I was new to the 16-bit technology and looking for games that appealed to me e.g violent games, Last Battle caught my attention. Here was a game with large characters that are martial arting all over the place. What else could I ask for? Well, for one, a game with some actual game play and one that isn't harder than hell would be nice.

One of the big selling points during the early days of the Genesis was the bigger, more colorful characters compared to the NES. Unfortunately, this caused a focus more on presentation than substance. The graphics in Last Battle are relatively nice compared to other games of the era. The sound and music seem muted. I had to watch myself from playing Last Battle then switching to another game because the other game would blast out my ears since I turned up the sound while playing last battle. Last Battle is pretty limited gameplay wise in that you walk from one edge to another with a limited arsenal of kicks a punches. This causes the gameplay to get old very quickly. You do get to select a path on an overhead map, but that really doesn't provide much variety. The bosses will cause you the most grief since they have a set pattern which you will need to attack. This wouldn't of been such a frustrating game, but once you die, you are dead. You must start over from the beginning. There are no checkpoints, passwords, or anything that allow you continue. It is basically the equivalent to hitting the power button while playing or unplugging the AC Adapter. But I guess this was the norm with games that were released during this era but at least you had a few chances where Last Battle you had one guy and that was it.

I still play this game every once in a while since I have beaten other games I thought were too hard. I have managed to make some progress, but for the most part I am not anywhere close to beating it. And the simple fact the game only has limited fun and appeal, I don't really invest too much time on it since I have so many other better games to spend my time on.