Game 399: Rambo (1985)

 

  

Rambo

Japan

CCS (developer); Pack-In-Video (publisher)

Released 1985 for MSX

Date Started: 23 January 2021
Date Ended: 23 January 2021

Total Hours: 2
Difficulty: Easy-Moderate (2.5/5) 

Final Rating: 11
Ranking at Time of Posting: 27/404 (7%)

     

You're wondering why the hell I would play Rambo after recently playing Pack-In-Video's follow-up, Super Rambo Special (1987) and concluding that it wasn't an RPG. I understand the reaction. It began when I was stuck with Spelljammer and not in a mood to do all the translating necessary to begin Vision: The 5 Dimension Utopia. As I sometimes do in such moments, I reached my hand in the bucket of skipped, rejected, abandoned, and cast-off RPGs. These are games that meet at least one of these criteria:

• Are for the console
• I started to play but abandoned
• Are so obscure that they didn't show up on my first two passes through the 1980s
• I originally couldn't find, but may have since turned up
• Are in a non-Latin foreign language, but I need to double-check and maybe see if a patch is available
• I rejected as an RPG, but maybe too quickly
  

   

Except for the console games, which are their own category, I like to take one final look at the rest before deleting them entirely. Moreover, since I introduced BRIEFs last year, I generally want to make it my policy to BRIEF anything that some authoritative source recognizes as an RPG, even if I don't. (In this case, that source is Wikipedia, but the Wikipedia contributor is probably relying on Pack-In-Video's own hyperbole.) It keeps me from getting so many e-mails asking why I didn't play a particular game.

When I randomized the list, Rambo popped up on top. I knew right away I had rejected it with good cause. But I was mildly curious why the publisher released two such similar games in two years, and whether Rambo was actually a cruder precursor to Super Rambo Special. I started to investigate the game, which turned into playing it, which turned into winning it. I was originally just going to write a BRIEF, but as often happens, I won the game so fast that I don't need to BRIEF it; I can cover the whole thing. That will keep happening, and I really don't see it as a big problem as long as a non-RPG doesn't grow to occupy more than two or three hours. Some of them are at least RPG-like, and some of them give us interesting things to talk about regardless of how we classify them.

            

Isn't that just like a Vietnamese soldier--brings a bow to a machine gun fight.

       

Rambo turned out to be mildly intriguing for a couple of reasons. First, while it does play similarly to the Super follow-up, it isn't the same game. Gameplay elements vary quite a bit. Second, it actually has a better claim to being an RPG (if not much of one) than its successor. Where Super Rambo had a "Life" bar that had the same maximum value throughout the game, Rambo has a "Power" bar that starts short but gets longer as you kill more enemies. That's not great character development (and I generally reject a game as an RPG if the only development is an increase in health), but it's more than the sequel had.

     

But even more intriguing is the overall approach to gameplay. Rambo is a special kind of action game, one in which there's really only one way to win--one precise path you must take through the game, one limited set of weapons that you can use at any given time--disguised as a somewhat open-world action game. Once you know what you're doing, winning it takes 10-15 minutes. But you need a couple hours, at least, learning how to win. 

        

Deadly creatures pop out of holes in this game. If you flee, you die from their poison. Somehow, killing them allows you to survive. No one would guess that the first time.

       

Super Rambo Special was entirely different. It was an honest open-world action game. ("Open-world" on a fairly small map, you understand.) You had all the time you needed to run around, explore, collect items, and kill enemies, although there was no particular reason to kill enemies except they're in your way. Rambo doesn't work that way. You have a food meter and a limited amount of food to find in the game, so you really can't backtrack at all. You have to figure out, through numerous character deaths, exactly what order to do things and exactly what resources to use. For instance, you start in the south-center of the game map. You need to go right as soon as you start. If you don't, you miss the only available cache of grenades that doesn't require a grenade to access. If you don't pick that up, you can't blow up any of the buildings in the game that contain food, weapons, and other grenades. You can't blow up the bunkers that you need to neutralize to pass. And if you realize it too late, you don't have enough food to go back to the beginning and get them.

  

Once you have the grenades, you might be tempted to use them against foes. Bad idea! There are a lot of things you have to blow open and a limited number of grenades. If you waste one on something as easy as a soldier, you're now "walking dead."

    

I've just blown up a house with a grenade, revealing a rocket launcher, or "R-Gun," as the game has it.

       

Another example: there are two rocket launchers in the game. You need one to get into the area that has the second, and you need the second to blow up a bunker elsewhere. If you explore in the wrong order and use the first RPG to blow up the bunker, you won't have the ammo you need to get into the other area, and the game is over.

  

Whoops! Accidentally walked in front of a bunker.

     

Enemies are another interesting mechanic. As you visit the game's few dozen screens, they're swarming with Vietnamese soldiers with bows, knives, machine guns, and other weapons. (The game's plot is basically the movie's: get in, rescue a POW, get to the choppa.) You can kill them with whatever weapons you possess, but if you run up next to them, you can't use a ranged weapon. As you arrive on the screen, you have a split second to assess their positions and determine whether to shoot or stab. Frankly, I found it easier to use my knife throughout the game. Enemies do respawn when you leave a screen and return, but the respawns always carry knives only and aren't very dangerous. 

   

The POW you have to rescue poses one final danger. You have to find a medkit to fix him up before he'll follow you. Near where you rescue him, you grab a can of gas for the helicopter. The problem--and this anticipates RPG escort missions of the future--is that the POW won't get out of your way. If you walk into a dead end, it's game-over, because there's no way to push him out of the way to turn around.

      

At this point, I've screwed up. The bunker will vaporize me the moment I turn the corner. I needed to have used the southern passage so I could shoot it with my rocket launcher outside of its range. But I can't turn around because of that damned POW.

      

In the context of Lagoon, we were just talking about video game bosses that aren't even meant to be survivable the first time you encounter them. You have to try multiple times, learning their patterns, discerning their strengths and weaknesses, identifying the advantages and disadvantages of every position on the combat screen. But it's rare (at least within the context of RPGs) to find an entire game structured this way. Rambo is basically one stronghold or fortress mission from a Far Cry or Assassin's Creed game, where the character sometimes has to perform a couple of doomed scouting missions before the one in which he wins.

      

I can hear Rambo shouting, "Next mission!? That was supposed to be a one time thing!"

        

I didn't make any GIFs, so if you're interested in how it looks, here's a good YouTube video in which the unnamed player wins in less than 11 minutes. It GIMLETs at 11 points, with two points each in "Quests," "Gameplay," and "Graphics, Sound, and Interface," and 1 each in all the other categories except economy and NPCs.

If you still think covering it was stupid, I understand. I'll post the next entry tomorrow so you don't have to wait so long for a real RPG.