Metamorphic Force (Arcade)

Some people believe that he/she has animal spirit within him/herself. Is that mean they can transform into said animal and beat the evil back to darkness where it belongs. That's probably what happen in Konami's Metamorphic Force (1993).  

 Metamorphic Force sounds like another sentai movie. There's Power Ranger with animal theme, right? Judging by the title and that animal engraving, we can tell that the game features animal morphing. Is it better than Sega's Altered Beast? We shall see later but first story time.

 

An once-sealed evil king rises one again to conquer the world. Isn't that cliché in video games? But instead of a castle, he has whole island with dread looking mountain on it. He's definitely on whole new level of evil king/demon lord department.

 

But as natural flow of Yin and Yang, there's force that oppose the evil king. In this case, this goddess (who looks like Athena from Saint Seiya) and the 4 metamorphic guardians. 

 

And they possess reside inside those blokes. At the goddess's behest, they're off to battle the Evil King and his cohorts.

 

They conveniently goes to the island with "flying wisp-y thing" method just like Power Ranger. Metamorphic Force is fighting action or you always call it side-scrolling beat em up. So you know the basic, right? Joystick to move, one button to attack, and another button to jump. You can perform jumping attack by pressing attack while jump, pressing jump button and attack button simultaneously will make your character do special attack that knocking enemies nearby at the cost some of his health, and pressing attack button consecutively will make your character do combo. But there's few extra than that like: you can attack downed enemies and back attack by pressing away + attack button. You don't think Evil king's soldier consist of usual human aren't you? Because the first enemy you got here is lizardman/iguanaman with bright color and yellow swimming trunk. 

 

The game called Metamorphic Force for nothing, you see. Ban (that's the bloke with orange karate-gi) will transform into human-sized Minotaur once he pick the goddess's statue. The animal transformation will allow your character deal more damage, can do diving jump attack and have ability to grab enemy.

 

After beating more lizardman and passing statues that roll sphere at Ban, he encounter the 1st boss: Goatman with scythe. He come out from that sigil with that colorful pastel effect, which gives you idea how frightening he is. [That's mild sarcasm if you don't get it]

 

Luckily there's chest that contain health-replenishing item and the goddess statue. Picking one while your character is already transformed will makes him do screen-clearing attack and being invincible while at it. In Ban's case, he furiously horn any enemy in the screen. We all know bull's horn is more dangerous than goat's. So beating the boss isn't so difficult, even though he can conjures projectile along the line of a plane once in a while. There's no health refill once you finish stage, instead you got some chests (with various contents) after beating the boss.

 

Next stage takes place in volcanic cave where Ban encounters evil friend of Sonic The Hedgehog and beat the hell out of them. Right now he executes his back attack: graceful back kick. The man (or the bull) is truly an artist, martial artist for sure.

Next thing: Ban fights 2 Bebop's copies and he got "Dead Soon!!!" on his head. It's quite similar to Vendetta which is also Konami's side-scrolling beat em up. But unlike Vendetta, character's health in Metamorphic Force is measured by number instead of lines. Also he has animal morph bar like Hudson's Bloody Roar. When it goes down (by enemy's attack), your character will return to human form.

 

But Ban is still kicking (the enemies) on rock plate that traverse this beautiful raging magma river. Konami know that the game isn't difficult, so they make your character's health goes down within period. In other word, the health number also acts as timer which in my opinion is really cruel decision. Although, it goes down by 1 for approximately every 5 secs or so.

 

It's Claude turn's. He's blonde guy who fights using rapier. I suspect he has same lineage with Charlotte from Samurai Shodown series. So most likely he's French.   

 

And he turn into wolf. I don't think French can be associated with the wild canine. Maybe Gallic rooster will be perfect fit as it's France national football team's symbol. I'm not accusing French to be coward or anything. What makes you think so? Anyway, pickup can be obtained by breaking destructible objects. Also that critter with sack sometime throw some and you can "persuade" him to give you more or more frequent by hitting him good. Though he's swift and slick.  

The boss stage is appropriately enough: flaming birdman. Here you can witness how to deal with the boss: stomp him furiously when the opportunity come. It works on stubborn firecamp, so does to this boss. Do note there's small chance when he's on his feet, he will becomes fire tornado and charges at you. So makes him down and stomp him like crazy is my advice.

 

There's bonus stage like Final Fight. But instead destroying thug's sweet car, Claude must destroy head statue of  the evil king. And instead of lead pipe, you can use Goddess statue to initiate full screen attack. Well. If you're the powerful were-animal, you don't need mundane weapon, right? 

 

Following the volcanic cave stage is ice cave stage. It's like retro game tradition of fire and ice stage in sequence! Forget about the falling icicles and those Dumbo's evil clone! It's rare thing in video game that you got reflection in ice stage. Very good, Konami!

Claude fell before a crystal giant that spews bugs. So Max continue the crusade against these pink elephants. You think pink elephants only exist in dream? They will in the seconds. Max's transformation: panther. In fact, i keep imagine him as T'challa (a.k.a Black Panther) all the time. I know that he more resemble a character in Golden Axe 3. Maybe because i very often played Marvel Avenger Alliance in Facebook, back when it's still exist.   

 

But Max fell quite shortly after fighting the mini version of said giant who serves as this stage's boss. So it's up to Ivan (in bear form) to finish the job. Again, my strategy is to put the boss down and repeatedly attack him mercilessly while he's down. No matter how durable a giant crystal is, it can be broken by weight of brown bear which is approximately 600 Kg. Next stage!    

 

Oh look, forest stage! Hope you don't feel annoyed about it. At least, it's not 1st stage. Look there's living tree try to cheer you up! Of course not. He tries to violently poke Ivan in the back. The sneaky git.

 

In this stage, there's sub-boss: 2 goblin cyclops. And i made i good shot of a werebear about to flying DDT one of them. Cheers! They're pretty tough but soon they escape to fight another time. Coward!

After few traveling and beating all the goons, Ban catches up the goblin cyclops. But soon they emerge into ettin cyclop. He can throw you (but you can break free from it by pressing attack+jump button) and interruptible punch you. You know the tip about beating the boss so far: attack him while he's down ? In this case you get extra opportunity to do so, by evading his easily avoidable elbow drop and immediately stomp/punch/claw him before he can get up.

Before the next stage, there's another bonus stage that makes you rush anything on screen: pillars, hedgehogmen, boarmen, etc.    

 

At the start of 5th stage, the evil king via his personal hologram magic, taunts at you. That's on 101 villain things will do. So cliché.  

 

5th stage only pits the player against this she-devil. No evil king's (animal)men here. None at all. The stage got nice faux-3D circular effect on stadium. About the she-devil, she's quite swift and able to repeatedly frankensteiner your character. But again my strategy is still quite same: knock her and attack her while she's doze a bit. 

 

At her dying breath, she calls the evil king. So dramatic. Boo hoo.

 

It's the final stage: the evil king's castle where he keeps many of his minions and has those shooting-laser statues installed. Those head statue's attacks are easily avoidable... 

 

...however flying tiles are his deadliest trap ever. Not even Max's panther reflexes can help him dodge this atrocity. Maybe he's supposed to punch them away?

 

Then the pillars are tumbling down. I don't think you want to sacrifice the integrity of your own castle to do this because they didn't work as you expecting.

 

There's mini-boss: skeleton knight. When your half-animal soldier and demon didn't work well against your foe. You might as well as resort to necromancy. The skel-y can use his shield to block your attack (with small frequency) or spew explosive orb (more frequent when he's about to die). I can't offer you better strategy other than "knock him down and keep attack him while downed" method that -i believe- you're getting tired to read it. There's no display of enemy's health bar, instead dying enemy will flash bright color like what happen to this skeletal foe. As you can expect from Konami that developed many Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games.

If you're longing for elevator scene that's staple in every beat-em-up game. You're in luck! The rock plate where i beat the skeleton, turns out to be an elevator. You can expect lizardman will drop to fight our wereanimal heroes. Also werespiders climb the background wall and soon confront them.

 

This time the head statues are shaped of the evil king's face himself. Little did he know that the laser can harm his lackeys. Can you still feel smug knowing this, huh bastard?

 

Of course, you can't. Now you want to deal with me yourself. Bring it on!

Hey is that milky way? What? You expect me to get hit by that green-energy barrage of yours? Blame yourself to change the setting of our decisive battle into this beautiful outer space! Also to have attack that can be avoided by stepping away.    

 

Through the usual method, he's down but not totally. He has 2nd form. You don't expect the legendary evil king not able to transform, do you?  

 

Thus he become a demonic dragon that can (unsurprisingly) breath jet of flame from his mouth. The usual method feel less effective, now that he has very short recovery time while on the floor. This is going to take longer time.  

 

At a glance, this screenshot looks perfect to portray glorious victory over evil dragon. But in term of gameplay, this is bit embarrassing. Once your hero in transformation state, he will let out damaging surge nearby and the final boss get hit by it then immediately perishes. In my opinion, that's pitiful finishing blow. I was expecting more spectacular way to finish the final boss like jumping kick or combo finish, you know.

 

But you have to fight the evil spirit that once resides within the evil king. It won't mind to share its malevolent flame with your body. It can't get downed so you can't pummel it further in the ground. But you don't need to as it doesn't take lot of punishment to defeat. Soon the game is really over with good guys win.   

 

With the evil king dies, his castle fall apart (as Konami's tradition). The heroes freefall away from it as sun sets in horizon.

 

But the evil king bound to resurrect again in future and the heroes will lie dormant in the mean time etc etc etc. Quite cliché. But again, the good win and i'm done with the game for now. Cm_heavy_gamewon_05.mp3

That's Metamorphic Force (1993). The main question of assessment: Is it better Sega's  turn-into-animal-then-beat-everything-up Altered Beast? I can answer it with "Yes". Even though they're not in same genre of dimension. Also in Altered Beast, player can transform into animal that can fly or shoot energy wave. Then again Metamorphic Force feature much easier yet more satisfying gameplay. Especially it's one of very good side-scrolling beat em up games and i can't turn down that kind of game. The musics are quite good though not memorable. The visual graphic of the sprites are akin to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle  games which are with bright colorful pastel. While the decoration/scenery is absolutely great. That's quite what you expect from Konami. But in term of gameplay MF feels more superior than TMNT especially in boss fights. Yes there's not much gimmick on most of them but at least better than less-to-be interrupted-or-can't-be-outmaneuvered bosses in TMNT. Also the characters have more distinct difference in combat. Further info about that will be told in character's analysis. The difference between human form and wereanimal is neat enough in both visual aspect and gameplay aspect. The bonus stages are quite interesting. The difficulty design is quite shallow, you can finish the game with reasonable amount of credit within an hour or less. My biggest problem: health that's ticking down, the desperation moves that can be hard to execute, and no weapon pickup. The second problem is not so troubling as enemies seldom to surround you because most enemies aren't big-damage soaker. As for the first problem is quite solved by the presence of the pickup-dispenser guy. And he's guaranteed to appear soon after you use a continue to make sure you can transform immediately. Certainly better than waiting to kick/punch blinking cerberus.

In summary, i can heartily recommend you to Metamorphic Force (1993), especially if you're fans of fighting action/side-scrolling beat em up. Or you really like any game that makes you able to pummel hapless enemy on ground. This game's perfect treat for you. As my usual habit, i will analysis the hero's stats. Also to give you more information about their gameplay.

 

Ban's background is red, so that means he's assumed to be player #1. Judging by wearing karate-gi, he's supposed to be legit martial artist but i see his moves are quite rough. So his secondary stats: Dexterity (at 2.5/5). Because of his moves that are lack in finesse and deal decent damage, So his primary stats: Strength (at 3.5/5). Ban transform into a werebull which is the only herbivore among the heroes. So i assume he's vegan. Hey, don't underestimate the prowess of a vegan! Haven't you Shaolin kung-fu movie? While grabbing, Ban can squeeze enemy, toss him overhead (by pressing away + attack button) or flying ram him (by pressing jump button then pressing attack button).  

 

Judging by that cross accessory and that calm expression of him, Claude is upstanding Christian. He is a character with primary stats: Agility (at 3.5/5) because he's the fastest among the heroes but his speed is controllable. While in human form, he gracefully wield rapier that can reaches enemies at ease. So his secondary stats: Dexterity (at 3/5). Strangely enough, due to his long reach of his rapier, he's very good in human form than in werewolf form. Even though, transforming him to be werewolf still grant him extra damage on his attacks. If you want fight enemies the safest way in human form, Claude is perfect choice. Plus while in werewolf form, he has most stylish jump kick and dive kick.

Max is the only one with open mouth, ignoring the chance that he may swallows bugs. He's wearing equipment for manly rugby but also appropriate enough to battle evil creatures. Here's another extreme rare of character that has 2 main stats on equal quality besides Kohaku. Though, i could mis-analyze Max. He deals decent damage also move and attack fast so his main stats: Strength & Agility (at 3.5/5). Like Claude, he can execute grabbed attack his enemy more than 2 before punting him away and he can only throws the enemy backward. Max is quite fit for average character but possesses quite big potential in damaging department. Besides that, i already mention that when he's in werepanther form, it's enough to remind me of Black Panther. He's quite awesome.

 

Ivan is the only one with moustache and beard. While in human form, he's wielding a log as weapon to fight the evil hordes which requires strength. Thus his main stats: Strength (at 4/5). While in werebear form he attacks downed enemy with butt drop (or known as "cannonball") move. He also does that for diving attack and screen clearing attack which he does it more rabidly. While grabbing: he can move along with his enemy; slam his enemy to either left or right; and doing flying DDT (by pressing jump button then pressing attack button). I usually favor Strength character in side-scrolling beat em up especially who's excel at grappling and Ivan is no exception. Plus he wears ushanka (Russian fur hat), like Giant Skeleton who is my favorite giant troop in Clash Royale. Thus he's my most favorite character in MF. As you know that bear is omnivore, so Ivan is probably the most dangerous among the blokes. Moreover, he could be Zangief's sparring partner. Fascinating!