Varth - Operation Thunderstorm
Arcade - Capcom - 1992

Re-reviewed by Malc

Yes, I know I reviewed this years ago, but looking back I didn't do Varth justice. Glossing over all nuances of gameplay, I proceeded to blather on inanely and give it a 6/10. A while ago I acquired a pcb of it and have a whole different opinion now.

After extensive play - Varth proves itself to be among Capcom's finest shootemups. Not the best - but for 1992 surprisingly packed with action and secrets and extremely long - 30 levels in all, taking a good hour to complete at least. Level structure is quite unusual too - most levels don't have bosses - instead bosses sometimes have their own levels all to themselves. It's quite common to race through 4 normal levels to then be confronted with a gigantic boss taking 7 or 8 minutes to kill.

Varth goes against the grain of the arcade style 3-minute play - resulting in extended, frantic and sometimes overwhelmingly physically tiring sessions. I'm pretty sure that the game gets harder the better you play, or the more powered you are... so if you get in the zone you're in for a long hard fight with the only breathers being between levels.

With so much going on, it has been mooted that Varth is a sort of proto-Gigawing with possibly some Takumi members having worked on it... the players ships have some similarity but apart from that and the amount of action onscreen I don't really see it. Maybe someone can sit through to the end credits and check the names!

Getting into the zone in Varth is something thats quite easy to do once you understand how it works. And its only once you are in the zone you really begin to appreciate it - otherwise it's possible you might become a little bored by it. I've found myself playing up to level 23 on a credit - totally melded with the joystick and lost in the gameworld and coming away from the machine after such a run is a mental shock back into reality.

The only real problem with the game is the excessive slowdown. Capcom are really pushing the capabilities of the CPS1 system here with silly amounts of sprites, explosions and bullets onscreen and the game can start to crawl. Even at the quietest moments it never seems to run totally smoothly either - I find it quite clunky. Other capcom games such as LED Storm and Strider have a similar chunky, rough feel.

They might play a little chunky, but the resolution is pretty high. Using a much higher res than say, Data East's arcade games, Varth's graphics are pinsharp with a high colour palette. Beautifully drawn and coloured backgrounds are standard, which some interesting effects such as lightning and rain, sandstorms and fuzzy clouds adding to this beauty. The 30 levels (I've seen 23 so far) are not massively different from each other graphically, as each level continues on from the last - but it will take you through clouds, caves, seascapes, deserts and volcanoes. Don't expect R-type style organic lairs or deep space or anything. (oooh, maybe that's what the levels I haven't seen are like!)

Unusually for a vertical shooter, you can interact a bit with the backgrounds. Capcom's 1941 - in many ways a very similar game to Varth, let you spin your plane against the rock walls, which was a lovely touch. Varth takes this a little further by having lethal electric grids to be shot away as well as having to navigate channels and tunnels - usually filled with lots of small planes in these tight spaces, and some secrets.

Secrets? - Lots and lots of little secrets lie around the levels, including flags, tiny blue racecars, the wee guy from Sidearms and Ryu! Finding Ryu results in a shout of "Hadoken!!" and he'll throw lots more secret icons at you if you shoot him more. Some hard to destroy little floating enemies also give you increasing points if you can shoot them all - each level has lots of potentially hidden secret items - I know I have found a lot but on every play I discover more.

I've never thought of Capcom's sound effects and music as their strongpoints. Mostly it's to do with their instrument sounds, raw and without subtlety, usually blaring horns or organ noises like an early Casio keyboard. Maybe it's just me that has this problem. The actual composition is really good though, fitting each level perfectly, with boss battles obvious by the music choice, even before the boss has rolled onscreen.

2 player mode is pretty standard, but with an extra feature that if you position your planes above each other you get a special rotating quad Pod protection - this means 2 players can both double their defenses during difficult boss fights whilst throwing everything they have to hack away at bosses' weak spots.

And talking about hacking away, don't be afraid to use your bombs regularly. You have a max stock of 3 (I think), and quite often get a Bomb pickup from certain enemies. As well as this, your bomb stock is replenished as a small meter grows - and handily - the more you waggle the joystick about, the quicker this meter rises. If you waggle like a loony, you can get a new bomb every 10 seconds. It's probably time to talk about the Weapons, the core of every shooting game! (Well, it is - imagine a shmup without bullets). After much soul-searching and newfound enjoyment of Varth, I have to now give it 8/10.

Weapons

The only option you get before starting the game is your pod choice. Drastically altering how you play the game, your Pod choice is crucial. Previously I'd always plunked for the Fixed pods, believing them to offer the best protection - having them stuck in front of the plane at all time, I knew I wouldn't get hit from the front. Apart from lasers and firey blasts though.

But something happens to the difficulty of the game - it ramps up hugely in a way I can't quite explain - that does NOT happen if you use Smart Pods. Even before I found this out, I'd begun to get good at using Smart Pods and reaching levels I'd only dreamt of before.

Smart Pods try and react to the bullets coming in, and I'd say they manage to stop a very large proportion of them smashing into your ship. They offer all round protection, but are NOT guaranteed to catch every bullet. I don't even consider playing the game with fixed Pods anymore, it seems a lazy way to play by hiding behind that frontal barrier, and not actually dodging that much - Instead you are actively trying to catch the bullets.

Have fun experimenting with them and their various nuances, I've had interesting and heated arguments with MikeB over Pod choice alone. The real expert however, does not use Pods. When you start the game you have no Pods at all, it's only by picking up the Pod icons do they appear. NOT picking up your pods results in a large Podless Clear Bonus at the end of the levels.

So ok, that's Pods then? Nope - there's more. As well as two main behaviour types, they come in 3 different flavours as well, gathered by shooting either a certain type of helicopter or rows of red planes. There's Homing, Missile and Napalm which do pretty much as you would expect - and are a bit unpowered at their first strength. Gathering more icons of the same type upgrade your pods until they become really effective. I like homing best, with lots of little red homing ships flying about - reminding me a lot of Raiden Fighter's Slave ships. Plus a very strange thing has happened to me a couple of times... sometimes rainbow coloured rings appear and temporarily attach themselves to your pods, giving them super strength for a few seconds. Lovely!

Finally, we're done with Pods. Normal weapon types are also available in 3 different flavours, being Machine Gun, Spread, and Laser. The Machine Gun has a limited autofire capability, and is probably my favourite. Depending on which normal weapon you have picked up, your bomb type also changes too. Collecting POW icons will raise your normal shot type as well.

Now, let me take you through the first 15 levels of Varth. That's only half the game! Compared to some modern 5 level shmups that's got to be value for money!

Varth never got any home conversions as far as I know, but plays very nicely in Mame. Once again, for the connoisseur, only the pcb is really recommended... it pops up every so often on Ebay and isn't that hard or expensive to get. Part of the reason I'm now rating this higher than originally is that I'm now playing it the way it was supposed to be - hunched over a cab with a joystick to wrench.

Beware difficulty settings though. Capcom's cps1 games have some quite confusing dip settings, defaulting to easiest difficulty if all set to OFF. I think also the default difficulty in mame is set to easiest as well. Normal difficulty for this game should be 4, however, I like it set to 2 difficulty, as I'm not that good at it on 4. I like to zone in for a while, and you get a bigger chance to do that on difficulty 2.

• Varth Hi-score forum page

Have I missed anything important, or screwed up? Email me please! - Bye - Malc