This here is a mediocre game based on a timeless classic by Nippon Animation and Hayao Miyazaki, but I thought it would be a fun gesture to put up some Conan content as the anime series was recently released in HD and English (officially) for the first time in more than 40 years (late 2021). "Mirai Shounen Conan" (or "Future Boy Conan" / "Conan: The Boy In Future") started way back in 1978 and was a post-apocalyptic sci-fi anime adventure which took place in the not-so-distant future (in this case, 2008) where much of mankind has gone extinct due to a large-scale war fought with ultra-magnetic weaponry which ravaged the land and even disrupted Earth's axis, making survival extremely difficult. Due to many deaths and the current planet suffering fertility rates, humanity continued to decline until 2010 when Conan was one of the few children born since the cataclysm, offering new hope for the world.
Of course, not everyone was thrilled with this news; the power-hungry nation of Industria led by an evil dictator, Lepka, seeks to bring the remnants of humanity under his control by force and will eliminate all who stand in his way. This includes his old colleague, Dr. Lao, who sided with Industria's High Council before defecting after hearing of his evil schemes... he was Industria's leading scientist and took his top-secret plans of an orbiting solar-powered station which can better mankind or further ruin. Conan gets wrapped up in all of this when he turns eleven years of age as he inadvertently comes across Dr. Lao's granddaughter, Lana, where they begin a grand adventure where he becomes an ally to many and an enemy of Lepka and Industria. Of course, Conan and Lana are not normal, since Conan was born after the disaster and has super-human abilities as a result of adapting to his new environment and Lana is a child of an advanced civilization and has also developed special powers including a form of telepathy so she can communicate important information in secret.
The show tells a classic tale of a boy trying to save a girl and, subsequently, the world during its twenty-six episodes and a few video games were made in its honor. Riot / Telenet Japan would release the first game for the PC Engine as one of the early "Super CD-ROM" titles in 1992 with another title getting released in 1995 for the 3DO (of all systems, it is a digital library compendium that is also rare) and a third game being released for the PS2 in 2005 with several pachi titles released over the years as well. Of course, I couldn't talk about this franchise without mentioning its original inspiration; Alexander Key's 1970 novel "The Incredible Tide" served as the basis for a significant portion of Conan and the original author was also the main reason that the series had so much difficulty getting exposure in the U.S. as he hated it and his estate even threatened to sue various distributors if they attempted to release it here, so of course the games weren't a possibility either.
The game is a action platformer that lasts about 90 minutes or so and briefly covers different events from the show. As for why this game is a Super CD and not a regular CD or HuCard is beyond me as there is very little spoken dialogue, only a few basic cutscenes (the openings are nice though), and the graphics are pretty mediocre besides the few instances of cool parallax scrolling (with water and such). The game's soundtrack pulls a bit from the source material but also has some pretty cool arrangements and it serves as the highlight of the game. The gameplay consists of Conan running and jumping while kicking 99% of his adversaries (and collision detection is a little spotty) with his only power-up being spears he can throw, but power-ups in general are fairly scarce. While Conan can't be easily killed by enemies, there are plenty of tricky insta-death pits around halfway through the game which are exacerbated by his partially physics-based momentum movement, and recovery pick-ups only restore a paltry sum of health.
If you do manage to clear a level near the verge of death, you will recover up to half your health. There is one point halfway through the game where you can farm 1-Ups, but it's risky as well. The game has a few Easter eggs such as adjustable options and hidden characters, but that's about it. The game only has a few bosses and all the boss battles are very underwhelming (especially the final boss who can be kicked off screen almost instantly), but I've played worse... still, most PC Engine (HuCard) and CD platformers are better. Try the likes of "Bonk", "Aoi Blink", "Chiki Chiki Boys", "Bakushou Yoshimoto Shingeki" and more if you want cool platformers. This is a video of the game in action going over several facets of the game. Enjoy.
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