I remember I mentioned when I wrote an article that in order to get seniors and readers to accept “video games” in the editorial department, you had to lend or write some games adapted from anime to be accepted by conservative people. Even when I was a child, I would be very happy to see games adapted from anime, such as Mickey Mouse, Popeye, etc.
I have loved ULTRAMAN since I was a child. The original Superman in 1966 was not broadcast until I was in the third grade of elementary school in 1981. (Although I had already seen the Thai version of The Monkey King and the Magnificent Seven in the cinema in 1974 when I was four years old.) I lived in a small village in Malaysia at that time, and I didn’t have the opportunity to see many things! The first Superman game I came into contact with in my life was the ULTRAMAN KID handheld game in the 1980s. It was for playing with kicking iron cans. I remember buying it in 1984. I lent it to a classmate to play with and he took it to the bathroom and it got damaged. He said he had no money to pay for it, which made me very regretful.
That was my first handheld Superman game.
I looked through the games released by Superman in the past, and it turned out that there are a lot of them, and many of them are models that I have never played. I can only lower the threshold and talk about the game history of the first generation of Superman in this issue, but I set the threshold to clear and understandable images, mainly based on the Showa TV version, which makes it much easier to talk about. Of course, other Showa series will still be mentioned, after all, the first generation is a member of the Superman Brothers.
Because I like ULTRAMAN, of course I want to have a Superman game! Although Superman was released on disk in the FC era, I never had the chance to buy it and play it. Until one time I read from a Hong Kong anime magazine that BANPRESTO was launching “ULTRAMAN” in SFC. At that time, it was very shocking. You can see that the graphics of Superman games on MSX in the past still look like the ATARI era, but the disk version of Superman in the FC era was already quite good in terms of the performance and graphics at that time. It used the SD-type Hayata team members to shoot side-scrolling action games, and then transformed into normal-scale Superman to continue fighting. But it lacks the sound effects of the TV version.
Superman games in the MSX era
I have never seen the original or remake of the Superman game from the FC era.
I saw the introduction of the SFC version of “ULTRAMAN” in the Hong Kong animation “ACLUB”. In addition to the beautiful graphics at the time, the book at that time introduced this: Through the powerful power of SFC, the game can restore the sounds in the show, such as Superman’s signature roar, each monster’s unique roar, and the sound effects in the tokusatsu can be reproduced one by one! But the most difficult thing for me is that the book also mentions that the sound of friction between Superman and Monster’s holsters can be reproduced!
At that time, I thought, the Superman and Monster holsters are undoubtedly made of rubber, but can the sound effects produced by friction be recorded in the real world? Of course, this is just the writer’s personal understanding of the sound effects of the Superman series. In fact, if you are an Incredibles fan, there is a sound effect when the monster walks. When the audience sees the sound effect of the fake monster holster walking on TV, they will naturally associate it with the sound effect of rubber friction.
In the Superman show, monsters have fixed sound effects when they walk or fall to the ground.
Okay, I seem to have gone too far! Talking back to the SFC version of “ULTRAMAN”, although its 2D images are not that restored to the tokusatsu drama from the current perspective, the images were quite advanced for the time! The opening music is restored from the show. For the first time in the game, Superman can make the same voice as in the show, “Shuwatch!”! The cries of other monsters are faithfully restored, as well as the sound effects of hitting, falling to the ground, flying into the sky, etc.! To me at the time, this was a pioneering work brought about by functional evolution.
At the time, it was the first Superman game to return the sound effects in the show.
Another thing that impressed me deeply is that the game faithfully restored Superman’s “clumsiness”. If you have watched Superman in the early Showa era, Superman’s battles were basically “wrestling”! From battles, we often see Superman trying to collide with a monster but being knocked down by the monster, or just about to get up and being knocked down by a monster. These can all be reproduced faithfully in the game!
Superman’s clumsy performance of being knocked to the ground every time he rushes towards an enemy is restored in the game.
However, the mechanism of this game is that you must use Specium Ray to end the monster, and to emit the beam, you need to store energy grids, and Specium Ray is the last grid! Other light skills can only reduce the blood volume of the monster. Remember that the monster’s blood volume will be restored. You must hit it until its health volume is gone and finally use Specium Light to finish it off! Sometimes, Superman’s “three minutes” has passed before he has saved up, and he is defeated like this! So to play this game, in addition to enduring the “clumsiness” of deliberately recreating the tokusatsu, there is also the three-minute setting that requires Specium light to end, which is actually quite difficult.
You need to use the Specium Ray to finish off the monster.
Back then, the game was actually back-ported back to the arcade, and the arcade version had more monsters than the home version. I remember before I owned SFC, I played this game in the arcade, but I didn’t know how to defeat the monsters? It wasn’t until I owned SFC and learned how to operate it from the manual that I went back to the arcade to take revenge.
Posters from the arcade version of that year
The second level of the arcade version features transparent monsters, all of which are monsters that are not available in SFC.
This version of “ULTRAMAN” happened to be a collaboration between Japan’s Tsuburaya and Australia when they filmed “ULTRAMAN GEART”, and the same system was used to remake it into the American version of SNES’s “ULTRAMAN GEART”. Later, Japan released the sequel “ULTRAMAN SEVEN”, adding
The team-piloted fighter mode and capsule monsters appear first to help Superman reduce the monster’s health. However, this series did not launch “The Return of Superman” and “ULTRAMAN ACE” as the TV series developed sequentially. Instead, the SEGA MD version was transplanted in 1993, and “ULTRAMAN POWERED”, which was co-produced by Tsuburaya and the United States, was launched on 3DO in 1994. This time, it was shot with CG and real leather holsters. Mortal Kombat was also presented in this way back then. It is a realistic production method that has not yet become popular with CG.
The American version was changed to the then-new Superman ULTRAMAN GEART.
The second generation of SFC version is launched sequentially ULTRA SEVEN.
1994 Launched ULTRAMAN POWERED in 3DO using a similar system
This method continued in 1996 with SEGA SATURN’s “ULTRAMAN: Legend of the Giant of Light”. This time, a group of supermen, a group of monsters and aliens battled in a Street Fighter style. Even its fighting system adopts the Street Fighter style, pulling back to block, command-style special moves! The combat system is much more exciting than the previous SFC Superman! However, I believe that not many people have played this game, because it requires a special ROM to play. In other words, it is difficult for Asian players who mainly play clones to access it. The game uses ROM to pre-read polygonal high-rise buildings, and then combines them with the 2D CG characters in the disc. This method is also used because those high-rise buildings can be destroyed, but the combination of 2D + 3D makes the 2D characters look bold when zoomed in and out… Even the 242i output of CRT TV back then was difficult to avoid.
It was the first ULTRAMAN opening OP to be depicted with CG.
But at that time, I saw a rare ULTRAMAN drawn with CG, whether it was CG animation or 2D CG in the game. At that time, it was the first ULTRAMAN drawn with CG in Japan, which was a big step forward in technology. The CG animation at the beginning of the game shows the technology of that year. The smooth ULTRAMAN made it possible to eliminate the holster feeling of Superman. There are no zippers or gloves, and the complete alien is presented.
The characters are 2D CG and the background is polygonal.
In 1998, BANPRESTO launched the first ULTRMAN fighting game in history – “Ultraman Fighting Evolution” using full polygons. The fighting method is close to ordinary 3D fighting, and different from SS Street Fighter style fighting! Most importantly, the quality of the polygonal Superman presented by the PS1 is almost on the same level as SS CG videos. This is really surprising! Of course, deconstructing it from a modern perspective, it is actually not difficult to present ULTRMAN with PS1 functions! Superman is not a human being, so there is no need to deal with hair, eyes, clothes and other materials, just red edges on the skin! There is no need to make three-dimensional rendering of the red edges, ULTRASEVEN can use textures for some facial details. Plus it’s a fighting game, so the polygons only need to be processed by two people, and this time the background won’t be destroyed. So SS is actually capable of doing it, but I don’t understand why it chose to use backward technology to do it?
The graphics are very good, and it makes people wonder why SS’s Superman was made using old techniques?
In 2001, BANDIA launched its own handheld console “WonderSwan”. It launched an enhanced version of Wonderswan color and transplanted the old version of SFC ULTRAMAN to it. However, the images were produced using CG shooting methods. Since the selling point of Wonderswan is not the 3D function, it is considered a step backwards in technology.
The WonderSwan version of Superman is a port of the old version, but the image is CG.
Then in 2002, BANPRESTO launched “Ultraman Fighting Evolution 2”, in 2004 “Ultraman Fighting Evolution 3”, and in 2005 “Ultraman Fighting Evolution Rebirth”! It is a fighting game about Superman and monsters like the first generation, but because the platform was changed to PS2, more detailed graphics can be made. At least Superman’s fingers are now there, unlike the polygons of the original PS1.
The second generation still revolves around the Superman brothers of Showa, but adds LEO and 80 that were not in the previous game. The third generation began to add Heisei Superman, such as TIGA, Dyna, GAIA and Cosmos. Rebirth selects several popular Superman to show Superman from a new perspective. For example, Specium Lighting no longer repeats TV’s expression techniques, but uses more powerful and powerful techniques to express them, striving to eliminate the traditional techniques of tokusatsu dramas.
3rd generation Heisei superman
Rebirth presents Superman’s special moves in a new and tense way.
The “Ultraman Fighting Evolution” series actually stopped making home versions here, but “Ultraman Fighting Evolution 0” was launched on the handheld PSP in 2006. In fact, MEBIUS and ZERO were put aside, and “Ultraman All-Star Chronicle” was launched on the PSP in 2013. It is an SRPG work, a new attempt to use the Superman of the Land of Light to fight against hostile forces.
The game is presented as an SRPG
However, there was actually an episode released in 2004, which was “ULTRAMAN” which returned to the origin. Like the 1990 SFC version of “ULTRAMAN”, it was mainly based on the original Superman series. It sincerely restores the settings in the play, but it is relatively strict. For example, it is very precise and only gives you three minutes to defeat monsters. It’s actually very difficult to store Specium’s light at that time, and the monsters will also hide. Other light skills cut too low blood, and every field is full of mud wrestling, overpowering monsters → being counter-pressed by monsters → overpowering monsters. Although this is the fastest and safe way to store energy value, the repetition of the first value is boring! What’s even worse is that even though you’ve already stored enough energy or time is running out, the system is still asking you to play mud wrestling in endless reincarnations. Just like that, three minutes passed and they were defeated.
And this game also inherits the spirit of the SFC version, which is to restore Superman’s “clumsiness”! Often they will be knocked down by monsters before traveling… to restore the performance in the play. Therefore, it is inherently weaker than the monster, and with the three-minute limit, this game has a certain degree of difficulty. Another surprising thing about this game is that it includes “The Return of Superman”, but it only has three levels and cannot be continued.
The inclusion of ULTRAMAN JACK is one of the surprises. JACK was initially set to be the first generation of Superman returning to Earth.
This game is also the first to restore the ABC TYPE of Superman’s three faces.
From the 3D CG ULTRAMAN in the SS and PS era, it was possible to remove the feel of leather cases such as glove zippers and restore the original design. However, when my home console moved to PS3 and XBOX360, even Hideo Kojima said: “We used to use CG to create smooth and flawless objects, but now we add traces of use on the objects to make them lossy and make them look more real!” So I am also looking forward to the next-generation performance of ULTRAMAN and KAMEN. What will RIDER be like? Restore the creases and zippers of those gloves faithfully? Also, restore the texture of RIDER’s shiny metal helmet that has suffered from mud stains and battle damage?
It’s a pity that many Japanese manufacturers have not caught up with technological development. For example, Kamen Rider can be reduced to models such as WII, but even if it is released on PS3 and PS4, the picture quality is not much better! Pretty much the same quality as the PS2 HD version….
Mod quality of PS4’s Kamen Rider
In 2017, a game “Shadow City” appeared. The game was the first game after Kujo Kazuma, the producer of the “Zetei City” series, left Irem to form Granzella. It is the spiritual sequel to “Ultimate City”. In the game, players need to escape with all their strength from monsters, giant robots, etc. in famous tokusatsu and science fiction works in the battle scenes in the building.
This work allows us to see how far ULTRAMAN has evolved on the PS4 console graphics. Although Granzella is not a big manufacturer, its performance is better than that of Kamen Rider games on PS4! ULTRAMAN’s leather case has been made, the silver color has been made, and the dirt is also there. Moreover, in some destructible cities, there are still people fleeing in distress. I think for a small and medium-sized factory, it has done its homework!
Later, there were some sketch games such as “GigaBash”, and ULTRMAN was added to the DLC, although it is also very good from a module perspective! However, the overall visual performance of the game is actually not that outstanding, and the module is wasted! It doesn’t show the charm of ULTRAMAN.
From the perspective of the game, it is actually difficult to pay close attention to the more detailed the modules are.
I wonder if BANPRESTO will launch the “Ultraman Fighting Evolution” series on a new platform in my lifetime? Showcasing the ULTRMAN of the next-generation console?