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Thursday, October 31, 2024

Obscusion B-Side: Nostradamus (Arcade): Stand Your Ground Till the End, Engage the Enemy, Insert Credit!

Born in December of 1503 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence in the the Kingdom of France, Michel de Nostradame was an astrologer, apothecary, & physician who today is best known more for being an alleged seer who went by the Latinized mononym Nostradamus. While he initially worked shortly in medicine to help deal with outbreaks of the plague, he eventually switched over to the occult & in 1550 published an almanac that sold extremely well for the time. The success of this almanac led to Nostradamus becoming recognized as a "psychic" advisor by the likes of nobility & royalty, even becoming Counselor and Physician-in-Ordinary to Charles IX, though Nostradamus' ability at this on his own was later found by historians to be rather poor. In fact, Nostradamus was afraid that he'd be persecuted by the Inquisition, but since he never practiced magic he was considered fine. What's most associated with Nostradamus, to this very day, is his 1555 publication Les Prophéties, which contained hundreds of poetic quatrains that, in the centuries since his passing in 1566, have often been looked at as prophesizing future events, with most quatrains detailing disasters of some sort. Many people have, in retrospect, tried to associate Nostradamus' almost purposefully vague, randomly ordered, & multi-language-written "predictions" to various people & historical events, like the French Revolution, the rises of both Napoleon & Hitler, the atomic bomb, & 9/11, among others.

Unsurprisingly, this involves either misreading what Nostradamus actually wrote, ignoring his penchant for simply projecting past events into the future, or not taking into consideration his history as an astrologer. However, this makes Nostradamus a great source for fictional & semi-historical stories, including video games!


Existing roughly from 1988 to 1998, though its last games would continue to come out up through 2001, the Japanese company Face was one of many different publishers in video game history that managed to stick around for a while but never truly became notable throughout its lifetime. If you were to look through Face's catalog you'd find mostly forgotten fare, though the quality of said fare was apparently more decent than you'd think from such a no-name company, and arguably Face became most notable during its last few years when it was a supporter of SNK's Neo Geo arcade hardware. Namely, Face was responsible (in some part) for the games Gururin, ZuPaPa! (which was finished in 1994 but not released until SNK bought the rights to it after Face's dissolution & published it as one of its last games before going bankrupt itself in 2001), & Money Puzzle/Idol Exchanger. That last one has easily become Face's most famous release, having since achieved cult classic status & is still played competitively in Japan to this day, most recently making news when a literal high school girl went to EVO Japan this year & absolutely destroyed all her competition in mirror matches. Ironically, it's rumored that Face's most popular game is what killed the company, due to Data East allegedly suing Face over similarities to the Magical Drop series... and apparently won, with Face suffering financially because of it; to be fair, the two games do play extremely similar, with only slight differences. Today, if Hamster's ACA Neo Geo re-release of Money Puzzle Exchanger is any indication (plus Gururin, too), Face's catalog now belongs to Excel, an "electronic device trading company" that's owned by Kaga Electronics, which itself has a history in video games via its now-defunct Naxat Soft/Kaga Create & Taxan subsidiaries; in fact, Kaga's own modern-day web address even uses the Taxan moniker, which is kind of quaint.

So, what does Face have to do with Nostradamus? Simply put, as you can see from the title screen above, in 1993 Face released an arcade shoot-em-up simply titled Nostradamus. In more detail, Face released a game that used Nostradamus' prophecy that "in 1999 and seven months" a "great and terrifying leader would come out of the sky", and in this game's case Face allegedly went with the standard idea for a shooter to represent the "great leader out of the sky": An alien invasion. Beyond that...Face's game really has no connection with Nostradamus outside of the title screen featuring a portrait of the man himself that looks to be based on the portrait that his son Cesar made in 1614, nearly 50 years after his father's death, only with it flipped & Nostradamus himself looking much, much older on the title screen. Still, just the idea of an arcade sci-fi shooter named Nostradamus has always caught my interest, & one thing I have yet to cover for the yearly Halloween piece is a good-ol' alien invasion; also, Nostradamus' prophecies are sometimes utilized in horror productions. Therefore, I want celebrate Halloween this year by going over what is easily the most bizarre thing to ever be associated with the legendary (not really a) seer.

Yes, even more bizarre that that time in the 2010s Marvel Comics had a seemingly-immortal Sir Isaac Newton keep Nostradamus alive in order for him to prophesize events for the Brotherhood of the Shield; at least that one actually involved the man himself directly!

Being a shoot-em-up of the era there really is no actual "plot" to Nostradamus to synopsize, as even the game itself doesn't really establish anything in its attract mode. The Japanese ROM simply states "1999年第7番日の月/The Seventh Month of 1999" before showing what's clearly the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building being blown up by a massive explosion, followed by the title screen with the modified (& aged) portrait of Nostradamus himself & then an automated demo with no music; the English ROM just says "July, 1999,", but the rest is exactly the same. Promotional posters & the like also feature no plot whatsoever, outside of stating that the two playable craft are named the the Code F-32b & Code F-32t (piloted by Dalas & Joanna Berkeley, respectively), and looking up a plot online gives conflicting reports. Some state that Nostradamus' 1999 prediction came true by way of an alien invasion from Saturn & that it's up to two pilots to save the planet from Saturnian conquest, while others bring up Armageddon brought up by humanity itself, but since the game eventually sees the player head out into space to continue the fight I'm going to guess that the "invasion by Saturn" concept might be more plausible. Regardless, it's an arcade shooter so the focus is simply on shooting things that want you dead. To paraphrase the Doom franchise, "Shoot & Explode, Until It Is Done", and both Dalas & Joanna are even in Doomguy/Doom Slayer-esque armor; they share the same last name, but no indication if they're husband & wife, brother & sister, cousins, etc. And, yes, Dalas does indeed look like Hicks from Aliens.

By 1993 it was more or less the standard for arcade shoot-em-ups to be two-button games (plus a joystick for movement, of course), at the very least, one for traditional rapid-fire shooting and/or special charge shots, while the other would unleash a "bomb" of some sort that was limited in use but would usually clear the screen (either fully or a region) of any enemy bullets that were on-screen; good for general emergency use but usually saved for strategic use in high level play. Nostradamus, though, is notable for eschewing that standard, with Face even putting front & center on a promotional poster that "These two don't need a bomb". Instead, this is a single-button shooter, though the way that single button is used is still much in the vein that I mentioned. Tapping the button repeatedly fires your standard rapid-fire shot, and by destroying certain enemies & formations "B" icons get left behind, and accumulating them give you bonus points at the end of each stage, 500 for each B acquired; there are also golden B icons, which simply give more than the standard silver ones. During each stage pods will fly in from the bottom of the screen & disperse two types of items, the first of which is a purple gem that, when retrieved, will power up your ship one level. You can get up to seven of these to max out your power, upon which you'll simply get bonus points for any purple gems until you die, which reduces your power level back to the start. That said, the game immediately gives you a pod & a power up upon death, and pods appear pretty regularly, even during bosses, so a full recovery is entirely possible with enough skill. In terms of how the playable ships/characters differ, Dalas & the F-32b's powered up shot includes some rear-arcing ballistics, while Joanna & the F-32t's powered up shot simply expands the spread of the forward-facing ballistics. Beyond that they play exactly the same, though I've seen some say that Joanna & the F-32t is arguably the better choice, due to it being more focused on shooting ahead; she is only playable via the second player position, however.

As for the other item dispersed by the pod, that plays into what's essentially the main gimmick of Nostradamus, the "Energy Boost Acceleration System", or EBA for short. In the JP ROM it's simply titled the "Railgun System", using the same kanji (超電磁砲/Choudenjihou, or Super Electromagnetic Cannon) as seen in A Certain Scientific Railgun. In this case, the pod disperses a pair of wing-like options that alternate between blue & red until you retrieve it with the color you want; the next time a pod drops options you can either swap color or go for bonus points. Here's where the single-button control scheme comes into play, as while tapping the button fires your standard shot (plus a pair of bonus shots depending on the EBA color; straight for red, semi-homing for blue) holding the button charges up the EBA, which spreads out the options & creates a plasma field between them. While holding down the button you can use this plasma field both to negate basic enemy bullets, though powerful beams & the like aren't affected, & also deal damage; smaller foes will be instantly blown up, while larger foes & bosses will take chip damage, essentially. Upon releasing the button, though, you'll unleash a large attack that's based on the color of your EBA options when you retrieved them. A blue EBA unleashes the "Plasmic Wave", which is a column of energy that goes the entire vertical height of the screen & takes up roughly a third of the horizontal width; like the majority of shooters this game uses tate orientation, instead of yoko, so verticality is the focus. Meanwhile, a red EBA unleashes the "Phoenix Wave", which spreads out like a pair of wings flapping & focuses more on taking up the entire horizontal width, though the wings themselves do look to eventually cover almost the entire screen when fully flapped at max charge. In terms of advantages between EBA "waves", the Plasmic Wave arguably covers more ground & may be best for the general stages, while the Phoenix Wave may possibly be more powerful & best for bosses.

That's really the basic gist for playing Nostradamus across its nine stages, which might sound slightly long for a shooter of the time, but it really isn't. Stages themselves go by pretty fast, taking no more than two minutes or so, before you enter the stage's boss fight, and even with those (which includes the requisite two-part final boss) the game itself shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to play through, if even that. As is standard for the genre the first stage is relatively relaxed & shouldn't be hard to beat without continuing (or even dying) if you have at least some experience with the genre, but things do amp up in difficulty afterwards. As you progress the enemies become more aggressive, either shooting shots at your current position, shooting in some sort of pattern to maneuver around, or even trying to kamikaze you if you don't destroy them quick enough. Meanwhile, bosses all have multiple things to destroy on them, usually weapon emplacements that often include charge lasers or semi-tracking shots, and destroying all of the emplacements on a boss tends to result in a new barrage of shots to deal with, so if you can it's actually maybe more ideal to try to leave one or two emplacements around for as long as possible while damaging the main "core", so as to control what kind of barrage you're currently dealing with. From a general playing experience, Nostradamus is a very solid & enjoyable shooter that still predates the "bullet hell" experience that Toaplan was starting to create with Grind Stormer & Batsugun that very same year, but the playfield here can still get pretty busy with bullets, especially in the later stages.

While I'm no expert on the genre, I'd say that Nostradamus is a shooter that honestly makes for a enjoyable way to ease into the bullet hell that has since become the de facto face of the genre, for good & bad. There's no doubt that it'll destroy newbies as they start to learn it, but even on my first complete playthrough I could see where I messed up (for the most part, at least), and where I could learn from for later playthroughs pretty easily, which is honestly what a good shooter should do for players: Entertain them on the initial playthrough, but entice them to want to learn to get better & play again. To be fair, though, one aspect where Nostradamus might falter for some players is in its scoring mechanics... and by that I mean that there really is much to it. There are no score multipliers to engage with, the lack of a traditional bomb means that the only bonus points to earn are from the B icons you gather throughout each stage, and continuing doesn't reset your current playthrough's score, i.e. death is more of an inconvenience than a score attack ender; each continue does add a single point to your score, mainly to remind you of how much you sucked. Really, the only "true" scoring mechanic in Nostradamus comes in the form of hidden ? blocks that appear throughout stages when shot enough times, which give you instant bonus points when picked up, & accumulate as you pick up more (starting at 2,000 & maxing out at 40,000), but will disappear after a few seconds; there is also the rare hidden "FULL" block that can power you up to max instantly. In that sense, mastering Nostradamus from a scoring perspective is really more about learning where the ? blocks are & figuring out the right route to get as many of them as possible to chain together 40,000-point instant bonuses over & over, without having the enemy & their shots get in your way.

If you look online about Nostradamus you'll often see it cited as a bit of a Raiden clone, as Seibu Kaihatsu's iconic 1990 shooter was an immensely popular title & influenced the direction many other shooters would take moving forward; coincidentally, Raiden II came out the same year as Nostradamus. From a visual sense you can definitely see that, though this game actually does the inverse of its seeming influence when it comes to stages, as while most of Raiden's stages take place on Earth before heading out to space (only the last three stages are in space), Nostradamus only spends three stages on Earth before the rest of the game is in space. To be fair, this does result in a bit of repetition, as Stages 4 & 6 both take place in outer space as you see planets & moons go by in the distance, Stages 5 & 7 both take place on planet surfaces, & Stages 8 & 9 are both technological enemy bases, but at the same time this does actually give the entire campaign a real sense of progression & visual storytelling. The first three stages see you tackle enemy forces in the sea, air, & over a decimated Tokyo, ending with Stage 3's boss being fought over the crater left behind from the attract mode's explosion. Stage 4 then sees you head off into space & reach Mars, which is where Stage 5 takes place, before returning to space in Stage 6 to make your way through the asteroid belt to reach Saturn for Stage 7 & then a final assault against the enemy for the last two stages. This all climaxes with the battle against the final boss... with the end credits scroll happening over footage of the final boss' remains being shot out towards the Earth like a missile, with the final impact flashing back to the title screen image of Nostradamus himself; "The End", indeed.

In terms of the audio, Nostradamus honestly sounds a like it uses something similar to the Sega Genesis' FM synth chip, so fans of that system's sound (especially when it's actually used well) will find a lot to like here. The actual compositions themselves by Mica Nozawa (Mushihime-sama: Bug Panic, much of Minato Giken's output) & Atsuko Iwanaga (a.k.a. Matsudaira Ako) are quite well done & give the game about as much of a moody vibe as the tech can handle, while still delivering the usual intense feel that shooter scores of the time had, though some songs (like the last three stages) aim for more mood that intensity. Overall, while I think it'd be fair to say that Nostradamus might sound a little older than it's actual vintage, as it does admittedly sound more like something from the mid-to-late 80s than the early 90s, the very good usage of the sound tech results in a solid score that works well with the game, overall.


To be fair, a game like Nostradamus can be a bit tough to fairly judge mainly because of its obscurity, and in this case it can affect the playing experience. While there is English documentation for stuff like its JAMMA connection or its DIP switch settings, showing that it did likely see some sort of release internationally, I think it's fair to say that it wasn't exactly a readily available arcade machine back in the day, as actual PCBs for the game go on sale extremely rarely, and whenever they do it's always for obscene prices, due to its scarcity. Therefore I have to rely on emulation for playing a game like this, and my knowledge of how to properly use something like MAME is more or less non-existent. For example, I played this using Retro-Bit's Super Retrocade plug-&-play device, as it allows you to plug in an SD card & play compatible games off of it easily, but its compatibility with arcade games can be tricky; essentially, don't try anything from the late 90s & beyond, as it'll either not work at all, or run poorly. As for Nostradamus, the game itself ran mostly fine, though the music would sometimes break up ever-so-slightly & sometimes visuals like enemy bullets wouldn't flicker fast enough, though I'd argue that most of my deaths were still my own fault. To this day there has not been any sort of official re-release for Nostradamus, even via Hamster's Arcade Archives, and that's really true for Face's entire catalog, with the only exceptions being GururinMoney Puzzle Exchanger (technically ZuPaPa! as well, but that's wholly owned by SNK now).

And that is a bit sad, because Nostradamus is honestly a rather good shooter, on the whole. While it's single-button, no-bombs gameplay does take a little bit to get used to it also essentially forces the player to get better at bullet dodging, enemy baiting via strategic movement, & mastery of the EBA mechanic for when you need to help protect yourself. As I said, it is a bit of middle ground between older shooters & the later bullet hell craze, and while the scoring mechanics are a bit simple that also kind of makes it a game that's maybe a bit more welcoming for players to master. With Hamster continuing to release old arcade games on modern hardware on a weekly basis, one can only hope that they'll start working with Excel again sometime in the future so that more of Face's catalog can be given a second chance at being readily available to play, & if that happens I feel Nostradamus would be the perfect game to start with.

Happy Halloween!

Game © 1993 Face (now Excel?)

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