Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. I have yet to elaborate on Rare and their importance to the NES on these articles, especially in the 80’s. They would align with plenty of companies, including the notorious LJN and Acclaim, and would release tons of games for the console. Some being good, like R.C Pro Am and Wizards and Warriors. And others being pretty darn terrible, like Friday the 13th and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure (Protip: The game is in no way, shape, or form, excellent). Well, this week we hop aboard one of Rare’s more unique games on the NES. But does it sink or swim?
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1989
PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Nintendo/Rare
GENRE: Racer/Vehicular Combat.
Rare’s history with Nintendo is one of that is long, and legendary. Aligning with the company since pretty much the inception of the NES (Their first game being Slalom in 1987) they would go on to make 40 titles on the NES alone. But one of the first big hits for them was R.C Pro Am, which would be a top seller for the console. Nintendo was pleased with the success, and would soon have Rare develop a few other games, including one with an engine similar to R.C Pro Am. That game being a little title called Cobra Triangle.
COVER STORY
This cover is actually one of my personal favorites for the NES. It’s very well drawn, and sells the important things about the game right up front. You see your boat, along with some of the perils and items you’ll encounter throughout the game, including the ever intimidating giant sea serpent. It all makes for another epic NES box from a time where the cover art really mattered just as much as the gameplay itself.
GAMEPLAY
Cobra Triangle is a one player boat race/combat game. You control a boat that has to play and survive through eight different events, each with their own unique challenge and difficulty. You’ll have to play through 25 levels and bonus stages, and with the game’s notorious difficulty, it is indeed a daunting task to take on. You move your boat by holding the B button, and turn it with the left and right buttons on the D-Pad. You also have a gun you can fire with the A button. You start with what is a rather slow boat, and weak gun, but can upgrade your boat similar to that of Gradius.
At the bottom of the screen is your menu, which tells you everything from how many lives you have, the score earned, the health you have remaining, remaining time, and how fast you’re going. But above most of that is a menu with five options. “Turbo” “Fire” “Speed” “Missile” and “Force”. These are your abilities that can be upgraded through the game. To do so, you need to collect item pods found in certain stages. These pods have the numbers 1 or 2 on them, and represent where exactly your selector will land on. Once it’s on one of the upgrades you want, press Select to choose it.
The abilities are as follows. “Turbo” is an added speed boost, and raises how far the speedometer can go. “Fire” will upgrade how strong your basic gunfire can be. “Speed” is another boost to your overall speed. “Missile” adds extra fire power in the form of powerful missiles that will fire when you press A. And “Force” adds a powerful shield for a short period of times. Most of these are extremely valuable, and are definitely needed at full upgrade as early as possible if you hope to achieve in winning this game.
You start the game with three lives, and can earn more along the way with extra lives found in certain levels. You have a health bar at the bottom, which can be a godsend in some of the tougher stages of the game. However, one big downside is that you will have only two continues, with no chance of earning more. That’s not so bad in a practice sense, but can be wickedly frustrating once you get to a level that can be of massive annoyance later on.
Speaking of the levels, there are eight to play through. Seven being official stages, and one being a bonus level. All of which will repeat ad nauseum through the game. Let’s break them down and separate the best ones from the worst.
The first event is “Race to the Finish”, which is pretty much just that. You don’t have to worry about being in first place, just beating the clock, and surviving with health and lives to spare. This level has the pods you need for weapon upgrading. You have rival boats to deal with that will steal your pods, but you can fire at them to gain them back. There will be forks in the road, which will take you to a different finish line, which will also affect the order of the levels you’ll play, and I also believe the difficulty somewhat as well. You also have to worry about turrets and sharks that can nip away your health very quickly. These ones can be pretty easy to get the hang of and really don’t require too much worry about frustration.
“Collect the Pods” is sort of a bonus level by design. You jump off ramps, and collect the pods needed for weapon upgrading. Simple as that. Though the further you go, the more things that will pop up, including mystery items. These will either be extra pods, extra lives, or will be instant damagers, or worst yet, remove all items in that particular row. As the game progresses, you’ll have to deal with flying bombs and electrical fields. But for what it is, it’s pretty simple to get the hang of as well.
The challenge really starts with “Dispose of the Mines”. It’s a race against the clock as you have to take the mines from one area to another. The only thing standing in your way are rival boats that will try to take the mine from you, and place it back in its initial spot. This can be extremely tricky, but not impossible. I find that the best strategy, especially early on, is to sway your boat back and forth as you make it to the drop off, making it tougher for the rival boat to touch you and steal the mine. As the stages progress, you’ll have more mines and more boats to deal with. This can be a tricky one, but it’s far from the most annoying level.
“Shoot the Targets” is your bonus level of the game. the boat moves on its own, as you have to spin it around, and fire at the targets that are on land for points. You can also find missile pods that will add extra fire power and hit more targets. In the end though, this one is really just a way to build your hight score, so unless you care about that, this one really doesn’t matter in the long run.
Now we get to the tough ones. “Reach the Finish” can be a royal pain. You have to race up river with the current pushing you back, and plenty of obstacles to dodge. Logs that will smash into you, planes that shoot from above, and turrets in corners. A later level even has icebergs that pop in and out of the water. But the most annoying to deal with are easily the whirlpools. If you get hit by just one, it will send your boat spinning backwards, and usually into land, which will lead to a quick death. While that is problem enough, a big issue with them is the size of the whirlpools, and the narrowness of the area at times making it sometimes nearly impossible to avoid. these are easily some of my least favorite levels of the game. But not my very least. We’re almost at that one.
In “Guard the People”, you play defender boat as you have to guard a bunch of helpless swimmers from being captured by enemy boats, as you wait for the time to run out. You have to be quick and shoot down every boat that comes your way. That can be the most tricky to do when you have three or four boats at a time, and each simultaneously snatching up victims. If that wasn’t bad enough, another problem to deal with are the UFOs that will fire missiles that can freeze you in place, making it all the more easier for ships to escape with victims in tow. Lose all the victims, and it’s an instant death. This one is definitely one of the harder games to get the hang of. But one positive to the level is that it’s not required to have all of the victims to progress. Just one remaining victim still counts as a completed level.
And then comes what is simply the bane in this game’s existence, “Jump the Waterfall”. The premise is to successfully hit every ramp in order to jump over each waterfall to get to the finish. Sounds simple enough on paper, but boy oh boy is it difficult in execution. After the first jump, things begin to pick up as you now have to dodge moving whirlpools, and hit moving ramps. This requires getting the hang of your speed, and having perfect timing to master, and that can be an utter pain to get the hang of. To say dying a lot in this level is a given would be a massive understatement. It’s a total pain, and easily my least favorite of all the levels. Thankfully though, you only deal with it twice.
And finally the last level to deal with are the boss battles, where you’ll face off with giant sea monsters, each with their own devious tricks and abilities to conquer. There’s two giant sea serpents, a giant enemy crab (I’ll spare you the “massive damage” joke), a giant squid, and the final boss, a giant shark. They can be tricky to defeat, but I find them to be the most fun levels in the game.
The controls in the game are very well handled. You shouldn’t have too much trouble getting the hang of moving your boat, or causing damage with your weapons. I also find that the hit detection in the game is also very well handled. Rare really made a very well oiled game from start to finish.
But if there is one thing that Rare certainly did quite well, it was making sure that this game was insanely hard. The challenge gets furious really quick in the game, and victory is almost impossible to achieve, especially with the more trickier levels in the game. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Battletoads, which is easily the hardest game on the NES, I would almost be tempted to give that dubious honor to Cobra Triangle. That’s how truly tough this game is. But despite the insane challenge, it is still a really fun game.
GRAPHICS
Cobra Triangle boasts some really solid graphics, and delivers well on them. The levels are all well designed, and never really feel too flat or boring, but the best example of just how well the graphics are is definitely in the boss fights. Each boss is pretty well detailed, and quite intimidating. This game is definitely one of Rare’s best looking games on the NES.
MUSIC
Cobra Triangle boasts a solid soundtrack with tons of catchy, memorable, and epic songs composed by David Wise. Wise would be the maestro behind most of the great Rare soundtracks on the NES, and most importantly the man behind the Donkey Kong Country soundtracks on the Super Nintendo. And since I personally find DKC2 to be the closest thing to musical bliss on the SNES (even more so than the Square games, if you can believe that) I think that says volumes about just how great his work was. And Cobra Triangle is certainly no exception. There are definitely songs here like the title screen, boss battle music, and mine disposal levels, that deserve a lot more respect than they get. So, give them a listen and see for yourself what I mean.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Cobra Triangle is a great NES game with perfect control, solid graphics, and excellent sound. The only major downside for some can be its infuriating challenge, and some annoying stages like the waterfall jump. However, despite those annoyance, this game cane be fairly addictive, and is definitely one you’ll still find yourself playing despite its wicked difficulty. If you want a hard game to play, or are just looking for something different from your average NES game, give this one a pick up. Cobra Triangle certainly isn’t square.
RATING: Thumbs Up