Although the FM Towns port of Bullfrog‘s classic Syndicate is in Japanese, it’s still a great game to play if you know what you’re doing. Of course this is not the right version of Syndicate to play if it’s your first time (unless you can read Japanese), but it is a sharp port with crisp high resolution graphics and responsive controls.

This port is not quite as good as the SVGA MS-DOS original, but it is a close second. Playing it in an emulator like Tsugaru gives you the added benefit of using quicksaves, which are very useful if you want to experiment by trying different things and re-loading.

Syndicate is one of those games that is challenging to play, but easy to get into, once you’ve worked out how to effectively control your team of four assassins. The key is to know how to group your team together and how to switch them quickly from combat-ready, to hiding their weapons. If a policeman sees you with a weapon readied they’ll start shooting at you, so you need to have your weapons hidden when they’re nearby. You also need to be ready to shoot enemies when they find you – before they shoot you – and the best way to do that is to keep an eye on your local area scanner for orange dots (which represent hostiles). Figuring out how to board and drive vehicles – and trains – is a must, as is figuring out how to research new weapons and cybernetic enhancements. Again: this version being in Japanese, it may not be the best version to play to learn how to do that if you only speak English.

The idea behind persuading people to follow you (using a Persuadertron), and recruiting people to bolster your roster of assassins is dark but interesting. The opening cut scene demonstrates just how twisted this process is. It’s basically kidnapping innocent people and then surgically altering them to become augmented killers… The idea that future corporations are so out-of-control that they’re at war with each other is also deeply dystopian.

Overall, this is a great version of Syndicate, and it’s good to see that cult British games like this were at least given a decent release in Japan. As I said earlier: this FM Towns port is probably second only (in terms of presentation and playability) to the MS-DOS original. It’s certainly better than the Amiga version, or any of the other lower-resolution (and slower) ports.

Syndicate for the FM Towns was developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts Victor in 1994.

More: Syndicate on Wikipedia
GOG: Syndicate on GOG.com