Hiroshi Kawaguchi - Space Harrier (Main Theme) / Squilla

Space Harrier by Kilian Eng

DREAM PARADOX

Just-teen weekends were often spent gawping at unaffordable Japanese consoles in Liverpool's première import rip-off den Chipshop 2000. Even alongside an acknowledged classic like Super Mario 64, Sonic Team's NiGHTS into DREAMS... (don't blame me, those ellipses are part of the full trademark title) was fascinating. Whilst Mario (deftly) translated 2D platforming into a 360-degree dreamworld, NiGHTS dabbled with a new-ish input system, requiring a chubby new controller with an embedded analog joystick that allowed the on-screen jester chap to glide effortlessly around lush, primary colour environments. My previous experience of flight in video games was other Sega games like Space Harrier and After Burner - both basically untethered racing games were your input is limited to shifting a vulnerable sprite around a flat surface to avoid hazard graphics. In comparison, NiGHTS was futuristic, even slightly unfathomable.

Disaster Year 2001: Devil May Cry

Begun as a Resident Evil entry, with a combat system based on Onimusha bug findings, Devil May Cry defied its derivative origins to become a charter example of the extreme combat sub-genre. Devil May Cry is at once a then-gen nitro remix of Biohazard spook-mansions, the sole successful 3D update of Castlevania explores, and a riveting recalibration of abandoned side-scroll tick jab gameplay. The game features multiple swing weapon disciplines, each staffed with a assortment of unlock special actions, as well as ever escalating lead shooters.

What makes Devil May Cry so exciting is that your armaments never become irrelevant. There's always a new way to use them; danger foes can conceal unforeseen weakness to an action you've all but discarded. Everything you acquire has a specific function, and used correctly can whittle mob health in seconds. Devil May Cry's combat system enjoys the kind of depth usually only seen in impenetrable frame-count fight sims. It's fun though. The hero, Dante, is a smart mouth upstart. Endemic genre stoicism discarded for pure glee whoops, and chatty eye-rolls on Boss re-encounters. Distraction side quests provide tasks that get you thinking about how to push the limits of your moveset. There's even a super-identity trip to the Fantasy Zone that sees a seething Space Harrier Dante chasing after a marbled Father God, interact tuned to on-rails blaster. A wonderful game.

André Duracell

Duracell is a Lyon residing one-man-band who, through use of his bare drum kit and a modular synthesiser, can thunder his way through vintage video game themes. Good man! Ports of call include a frantic jaunt in, and around, Hiroshi Miyauchi's triumphant Space Harrier suite, and a blistering race through a Chris Huelsbeck Turrican piece. Also of note is Duracell's guerrilla staging, man and kit in amongst the crowd, thrashing away, surrounded by tapping fans. Poke round his MySpace page for upcoming dates and news. One man band? He's a one-man Fantasy Zone!

Get ready!

Space Harrier

Turrican

Duracell has also lent his cyclone stylings to a lesser played PC Engine classic: Saigo no Nindou: Ninja Spirit. Unfairly overshadowed by the likes of Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Spirit adds a super fun twin-stick style slash control to well established screen-wander-kill-everything gameplay. Seek it out!

Duracell's take on an 8-bit home-computer-conversion Ninja Spirit theme.