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Critic Reviews (5), Contributor Reviews (1) This is a top down vertically scrolling shooter, in which you start off as a motorbike. You are quite vulnerable to attack at first, but power ups come in the form of a Sega van which you have to dock with. The first time you dock you get double fire, the second time gives you a rocket, the third gives a rear force field and the fourth invulnerablility. By destroying cars and bikes that appear on your way, you can collect A-F letters. Collecting A through to D allows you change into a sportscar which is less vulnerable to attack, but not as nimble. Collect all the letters in order to be able to transform into a high tech plane. This is the final stage of one of the five missions. Only the high tech plane can guide you to your destination in which your main target is hiding. There is also time limit in which you have to complete the mission. It is advisable to transform into the high tech plane as fast as it is possible. Picking up flags gives you bonus points with 10,000 points gaining you an extra life. Legacy has yet to review this game.
Review Summary
Overall Action Fighter is a case of the imitator being better than the source material, largely due to the Master System's more powerful hardware. It does lose marks for terrible music, sensitive controls and overall lack of originality. But don't let Action Fighter fool you, it's worthy of your collection.
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Review Summary
Action fighter is a definite must-have for all fans of top-down shooters, I recommend strongly that if there is any SMS fans out there that don’t have a copy of this game that they pick one up, despite the dodgy packaging (which is of a motorcycle rear-view mirror and not a magnifying glass which people seem to think it is!) the game will keep you entertained for hours, and is just great fun!
Review Summary
Take away the monotony and devious difficulty, and there’s a shell of a decent game in Action Fighter. But seriously, friends, Action Fighter is really hard. Given the amount of action the game levies at you, you’re in a constant state of anxiety and readiness. It’s good to be somewhat tense while playing a shmup, but the ridiculously long levels leave you feeling exhausted by the end. My recommendation: play with one of these codes, beat the game, then if you still have more fight left in ya, come back and try the game without a code. You’ll see whether or not that hair on your chest is legit.
Action Fighter is loosely based on the 1986 Sega Arcade Game.
Although the arcade game and Master System version share several gameplay elements, the Master System version makes some significant design changes. Both versions have a mix of Spy Hunter style road sections and airborne shoot em up sections. The transformable vehicle idea is unique to the Master System design. In the arcade game, the road sections end at way-points (either a garage or a hangar) where you will leave your current vehicle to get into the next one. The arcade design also features branching pathways where the path you choose will determine which vehicle you get to use during the next stage of the game. The Master System design is completely linear with gameplay split into 5 distinct missions. Action Fighter was also converted to several other European home computer systems by Core Design in 1989 and published by Firebird Software, these versions were clearly based on the Master System title rather than the Arcade game. 
Each mission of Action Fighter for the Master System is split into two or more parts, with a mix of ground sections and aerial sections.
You take control of Action Fighter, which is a futuristic transformable vehicle. You begin the game on the ground as a motorbike, which is armed with a forward firing machine gun with unlimited ammo. Look out for the van, which has a SEGA logo on the roof, drive (carefully) up to the back of the van (much like Spy Hunter) to upgrade your machine gun. To complete the road section you need to stay on the course whilst avoiding or shooting the other traffic and collect tokens, which are marked with the letters A-F. Collecting the tokens bolts on additional parts to your vehicle; after collecting 'D' you transform into a car, and then shortly after collecting 'F' your car will stop momentarily for jet engines to be attached, and then you take off for the airborne part of the mission. Immediately after take-off you will encounter more enemies, which are much more aggressive than the enemies found in the road section. You will be attacked by both ground and airborne enemies. You are equipped with forward firing rockets to take out the other airborne enemies and bombs to hit the ground based targets. Much like Xevious, a reticule appears at a fixed distance in front of your vehicle to show you where your bombs will land. Power-ups are also available in the air sections, look out for small tokens which have the letter P on them; there are different coloured 'P' tokens which can increase the speed of your vehicle, firepower, etc. Each mission starts off against a timer. During the first part of each mission you effectively have infinite lives until the timer reaches zero, after that further collisions will reduce your stock of lives; again, this mechanic is very similar to Spy Hunter. Additional lives can be earned for reaching certain score thresholds. Each mission culminates in a boss fight. Each boss fight has you facing a group of enemies, with each enemy in the group needing to be hit multiple times. Except for the second boss, you will be fighting the bosses as the jet so you will need to use your bombs when faced with sea or ground based targets, or rockets for other airborne enemies. Air to ground combat is usually the most difficult type of fight because of the need to hit your enemies from a fixed (and fairly close) distance. 
Graphically the Master System version does not follow the look or design of the arcade game, however the graphics are good for the system with fast and smooth scrolling. There are quite a few different enemy types and the ground and air based sections each have their own distinct look and design. However, later on in the game the backgrounds reuse the same elements over and over, and the enemies repeat, so once you've got through the first two missions you will have seen most of what the game has to offer.
I wasn't very impressed with the music, there are two main tunes in the game, one for each of the ground sections and another for each of the air sections, and then there is another short tune for each mission's final shootout. Sound effects are limited to basic shooting noises and explosions. The controls are simple and work well, with one caveat. The D-pad moves your vehicle. Each vehicle mode has a slightly different feel; the motorbike is the most maneuverable, but vulnerable to collisions with other vehicles. Once transformed into the car the steering is slightly slower, but you are a bit stronger and can withstand collisions with the other vehicles. Pressing both action buttons together whilst on the road allows you to transform from the car back to the motorbike, but I didn't find much use for it. The jet-car is initially the least maneuverable of the three vehicle modes, but can be powered up to move more quickly. The action buttons shoot, and also bomb (air section only). You can hold the action buttons for continuous fire, however the rate of fire is way too slow. I'd strongly recommend using a rapid fire unit or a rapid fire enabled joypad for this game. I found the game quite challenging at first, although after some practice I was usually getting through the ground sections without too much trouble. However, I still struggled during the air sections Generally the challenge is fair, although in the flying stages there are sections with clouds in the foreground so some enemies and their shots can be hidden from your sight, which can lead to some annoying deaths. 
Final Thoughts
This is a challenging game, but I return to it occasionally to see how far I can get in the game. I'd definitely recommend using a rapid-fire joypad.
This review including the images used in it was submitted to Legacy by David Bush we sincerely thank him for his contribution Legacy will accept 5 contributor reviews for every game in the database (well every game ever released) even if it's not in the database yet. We know 5 seems a little short but we don't want the overly popular games getting 100 reviews if lesser games get almost none. we hope the 5 review cap will help spread reviews around a little... Or just make you go post a review for the popular game somewhere else but please consider sharing review love for some of your other favourite or even less favourite games.
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Latest Additions - Legacy Images (30) A, Classic, Addictive arcade Puzzle game with 32 levels. The object of the game is to change the current colour of the screen by bouncing on each square and without throwing yourself off the edge or falling down a hole. You must also be aware of the guardians. Legacy images
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Legacy Review A, Classic, Addictive arcade Puzzle game with 32 levels. The object of the game is to change the current colour of the screen by bouncing on each square and without throwing yourself off the edge or falling down a hole. You must also be aware of the guardians.
The day my dad brought the game home in 1986 and loaded into his Spectrum +2 was the day I knew I was going to be a gamer for the rest of my life.
Pac Man had already given me love of video games,as bad as I was at it in my very early years while my dad held me up in front of the arcade machines every summer. But Pippo was different it was at home and I could play it as often as I liked, or at least as often as my dad would let me loose on the Spectrum and as long as I could wait for the games tape to load. Pippo became the first game I was determined to beat no matter how many attempts or how long it took me to get good enough. Now over 30 years later I’m writing it’s review, I've played many thousands of games since I first sat watching this game load all those years ago but Pippo will always hold a special place in my gaming heart perhaps only second to the mighty Pac Man himself.
With all that ramble over on with the actual review, you’ll take on the role of the titular character Pippo which is a very basic Q-Bert style puzzle game by today’s standards.
The controls are solid using either keyboard which has full customization, I always preferred the Q (up) A (down) O (left) P (right) control system. Joysticks are also supported. The games load time (assuming you’re doing it the proper way and not on an emulator) is reasonably quick for the era. Once everything is all loaded your ready to take on the 8 levels each with 4 stages for a total of 32. Every level features a 7x5 grid (35 squares) and much like the aforementioned Q Bert released 4 years prior you need to colour (color for my North American friends) these squares so they match the little colour indicator on the bottom right of the screen. As you might expect things start off fairly easily, all you have to do is move (bounce) onto a square and it's colour will change to the target colour you desire. As you progress through the game new mechanics are added with each level from having to change each square twice to get your desired result colour and then stepping on them the third time changing a target colour back again. The game doesn't play nearly as difficult as the game it took inspirational ideas from in part because of the grid format and the fair abundance of extra lives on offer. For experienced Pippo players all 32 stages can be completed in under an hour. But the game continues to replay the final level once all 32 stages are beaten so you can continue to rack up as high a score as possible. This by modern standards will perhaps not sound all that appealing but it was a format most of the popular games had during the era.
This image will be replaced with a review video once they've been re-recorded.
With the game sounding so easy what is there to try and take some of those lives away from you and add to the challenge? Most of the Stages have between 1 and 4 hole squares in the level you can fall screaming to your death down should you have a slip on the joy stick or a wrong button press. All sides of every level also have the same risk without any walls to keep you from death should you jump off. The holes on the levels also serve the purpose of making your journey around the grid less straightforward and give the enemies an extra helping hand in cornering you from all sides. The enemies themselves aren’t the brightest you’ll find in a game even for the era, too often they move away from you even when you are sat right on the next square almost begging them to kill you. Enemies come in a number of strange and random forms from bouncing balls to space helmets, Boots to Scissors, numbers, dollar signs (despite being an English game) and more. The most troublesome of them all is a UFO that spawns from the center in various levels and appears as part of a 5 ship armada late in the game. I'm actually not certain the UFO really behaves any differently to any of the other enemies in a stage but it has always appeared to be more determined and kill happy than any of the others during my 30 plus years with the game. In addition to the spawning UFO up to 3 more things also spawn from the center of each stage, All 4 appear on the first level the first is a face that changes the colour of the squares it lands on generally speaking it wrecks everything so it’s often a good strategy to jump on it as quick as possible. The second item (I’ve debated this for 30 years with various people) I think looks like a microphone . Collecting it will turn every other thing on screen into a spring that can then be collected for more points & temporarily take enemies out of the game. The third item is a mini version of Pippo that adds as an extra life just beware that if you turn it into a spring then collect it you won’t get the life. The final appearance on level 1 is the UFO. How many of the 4 spawn and he order they pawn in varies by stage but all of the 32 stages have at last one center square spawn and none of the enemies will move onto that center square until after all everything has arrived. Graphically the game is standard enough for the system & the era. A few levels are a little bright at times and there are a few levels where the target colour and those before them are too similar making them more difficult to view. The music / sound effects are nothing special but they serve their purpose well enough and have never adversely affected me in my 30 years of playing the game.
Final Thoughts
Pippo was a major catalyst in my video gaming life. By modern day standards it's probably little more than an easier Q Bert style clone with a slightly different look and style. But it's very unfair to review or compare games with those released years or decades later. The fact I have played the game for 30 years is a credit to its longevity those looking for some quick retro puzzle fun could do much worse than this.
A review copy of the game was purchased by Video Game Legacy and reviewed in accordance with our review policy We don't currently have any critic reviews to share if you know of any (in print or digital form) please get in touch via the contributor page and let us know where to find them. Legacy is all about opinions regardless how similar or different they are to our own. It doesn't matter if your view is in the 1% of general consensus or 99% contribute your own review and have your own say. |
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