Stargoose Warrior

Sometimes you don't know where the game ends and where the animation begins. Stargoose Warrior from the late eighties gives you exactly that feeling — lots of colors, flawless sprites, but underneath quite confused logic and rules that you guess rather than understand.

It's an action game where you control a rubber ducky in an environment full of monsters that you get rid of with weapons and special attacks. Setting? Sci-fi or fantasy — that's not exactly clear. What matters most is that you've got plenty of colors on the screen, fast sprites and animations that surprise even themselves. The goal is as old as games come: get through levels, defeat all enemies, enjoy the ride.

You play it with the keyboard, movement and attack run with a certain sluggishness that will start to annoy you about halfway through the first level. Hit detection is hazy — sometimes an enemy hits you from obviously far away, sometimes you pull off a combo that goes through three characters. The mechanics aren't complicated, but they're unpredictable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it feels like the game is playing by its own rules. Attack combos are minimal, weapon switching exists, but which one you should be better with is a matter of chance.

In 1989, this game was a notable attempt — the graphics are genuinely nice, the sounds are clear, and the character animations are smooth. It's not Donkey Kong or Ninja Gaiden, but for the dawn of the nineties, it was decent. The problem is that the mechanics don't live up to the graphics — the game plays monotonously and a frustrating cycle of trying, failing, and repeating means you'll quickly leave it alone.

Today it appeals more to collectors and retro enthusiasts who want to see how games played in this era — like a textbook of game evolution, not entertainment. You'll find plenty of MS-DOS emulators online where you can play it without issues. Just expect to trade historical knowledge for actual fun.