Seirei Senshi Spriggan (PC Engine)

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a spaceship was stirring, ’cause I blew them all up.

Okay, so I’m no poet. That’s not going to stop me from savoring one of my cherished holiday traditions: Compilemas! This is when I get to give myself the present of a “new” title from my favorite developer of 8 and 16-bit shooting games, Compile.

This year, I’ve chosen Seirei Senshi Spriggan (“Elemental Warrior Spriggan”), a 1991 Japan-exclusive release for the PC Engine CD-ROM. Fans of the better known Genesis classic MUSHA will be right at home here, since Spriggan is effectively a follow-up. In fact, it’s the second in a loose trilogy that kicked off in 1990 with MUSHA and concluded with 1992’s Robo Aleste for the Sega CD. All three feature similar vertical scrolling gameplay in which the player controls a flying humanoid robot styled after a suit of samurai armor. Those common elements aside, each entry has its own way of handling weapons and other power-ups, not to mention its own distinct setting and characters.

In contrast to the far future sci-fi of MUSHA, Spriggan takes place in a medieval fantasy world of magic and monsters. Its two stars, Jega (male) and Rikart (female), pilot their Elemental Armor on a mission to defend their peaceful home nation of Sisfel from the Buraizubara Empire and its power-mad king. That’s about all I can tell you about the story, unfortunately, as the voiced cutscenes are all in Japanese. I have the distinct impression I’m not missing much, however. “Heroes good, villains bad” looks to be the gist of it.

With six stages in the main campaign plus an additional standalone one reserved for the game’s high-score challenge (aka Caravan) mode, Spriggan is of fairly average length. A full playthough will take you roughly forty minutes, assuming you don’t game over along the way. That’s slightly longer than MUSHA, yet far short of hour-long Compile marathons like Blazing Lazers and Space Megaforce.

A majority of the levels here are creative and wonderful to behold. The opening area in particular, a crystal city in the clouds, creates a stunning first impression that instantly sets the high fantasy Spriggan apart from its peers. This pattern continues as you scale rushing waterfalls, brave an organic cavern teeming with all manner of giant vermin, and assault an enemy castle protruding from an active lava flow. These concepts are splendid and the pixel art does them full justice. This may be the overall best looking shooter I’ve seen to date on the system. Pity the finale has you venturing to outer space, where you blast through a painfully generic starfield and space station that could have been transposed directly from Super Star Soldier. I’m reminded of my last year’s Christmas present, Gun-Nac, another otherwise excellent Compile shoot-’em-up that chucked its strong art design out the window at the last minute to no apparent benefit. Bah, humbug!

Of course, a quality set of stages is still nothing without a cool arsenal to light them up with. This is where Spriggan really comes into its own and becomes the stuff of legend. True to its name, your Elemental Armor harnesses the power of the four classical elements: Air, earth, fire, and water, represented by green, yellow, red, and blue orbs, respectively. Levels are positively packed with these orbs, meaning that your puny default pea shooter will almost never see sustained use. In general, green produces wide energy waves, yellow grants a spread shot, red means fireballs, and blue creates a revolving shield around your craft that can block enemy projectiles. You can carry up to three orbs at a time. The more you have on you, the stronger their cumulative effect.

Now here’s where things get interesting! You’re free to mix and match the four colors any way you please. This results in all sorts of wild elemental combinations, most of which are flashy and devastating in the extreme. My go-to setups include blue/red (a flaming shield with a forward spread shot) and blue/green (massive slow-moving energy waves that ravage a huge portion of the battlefield as they travel). Do yourself a favor and avoid the blue/green/yellow homing attack, though. It’s far too weak to keep pace with the enemy formations flooding the screen.

Weapons in Spriggan are both completely overpowered and completely fun as hell. I honestly can’t name another shooter where I spend so much of the runtime feeling like some vengeful deity, ruthlessly smiting everything in my path. Even if I happen to mess up and die, fresh orbs are so frequent that I can usually get back up to full steam in mere seconds. Oh, and did I mention that you can sacrifice an orb at any time, in which case it functions as a typical screen-nuking super bomb? Yes, not only is your main gun uncommonly strong, you can also toss out a steady stream of bombs with reckless abandon. It’s enough to make the energy shield pickup, something that would be a priceless lifeline in most other game of this kind, seem trivial. I feel bad for these bad guys!

Spriggan’s union of godlike firepower and unlimited continues can make for a rather easy ride. Veterans will have no trouble blazing through it on the Normal or Hard settings. Definitely dial it up to Super Hard or the aptly named Unbelievable if you want any real chance of getting your ass handed to you. While some would single this out as a fault, I’m inclined to see it as a strength. Compile shooters on their default difficulty are the best way I know to ease new players into the genre. On top of that, they’re ideal for experienced ones to kick back and relax with on those occasions when a serious challenge feels too much like work.

If there’s one aspect of Spriggan I’d change, it’s the music. Not that it’s poor per se. It’s the same flavor of lightweight synthesizer-driven pop rock common to a lot of early CD games and that’s fine. Problem is, I can’t help comparing it to the blistering speed metal masterpiece that is Toshiaki Sakoda’s MUSHA soundtrack. Next to that, it’s just feeble. It’s a shame Compile missed their opportunity to continue mining that same rich metal vein, with real guitars and drums picking up where the Genesis sound chip left off.

Unadventurous tunes notwithstanding, Seirei Senshi Spriggan is a must-play. It’s well-paced, controls perfectly, and ranks among the most visually appealing of all PC Engine releases. Best of all, its spectacular mix-and-match power-up scheme makes for an unparalleled rush. If the main thing you want out of a shooter is to be an unstoppable force with all the powers of the elements at your beck and call, you simply cannot do better.

Until next year, shooting game fans, Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good fight!