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Turrican Anthology Vol. I & II Dubbelrecension

Turrican Anthology Vol. I & II are collections of a total of eight games. Volume one contains Turrican, Turrican II, Super Turrican and its Director’s Cut version as well as a bonus in the form of Mega Turrican Score Attack. Volume two contains Turrican 3, Mega Turrican and its Director’s Cut, Super Turrican 2 and Super Turrican Score Attack. In other words, the first and biggest problem with these collections is the packaging. With such a confusing mix and the division into two separate packages – each yours for around SEK 360 – the publishers leave DOWN and Strictly Limited Games much else to be desired.

One more time

The whole scheme behind Turrican Anthology is set up for confusion. After all, it’s not long since we got Turrican Flashback Collection (1½ years ago, to be precise). It is also a package that gives significantly more for the money as it looks right now. Not only that Turrican Anthology costs a pretty hefty sum for both volumes – Turrican Flashback Collection is in this now 40% sale on the Nintendo eShop. This definitely makes one wonder why developers and publishers even bothered with the template. But here, after all, there are a couple of differences, and they will of course have their time under the magnifying glass.

Anthology vs. Flashback

Turrican Anthology is in most ways a more competent version of its predecessor. Unlike Flashback, where the undersigned was involved in a number of crashes and bugs for several games, this anthology is a real step up in quality assurance right from the start. The only thing I’ve come across after a couple of hours with each title is a color bug in Turrican 3, where most of the sprites became greyscale. I have not been able to reproduce this bug.

Turrican Anthology otherwise applies a similar presentation to the Flashback collection, with one key word: more of everything. Each game, just like the previous collection, contains its own menu of choices in control, video, audio and gameplay. The controls are explained thoroughly and have some of the best options I’ve seen in a remaster. And well it is, because the controls of the original (limited to a joystick plus one or two buttons!) would never have been accepted by today’s gamers.

Turrican Anthology: scanned manual with control instructions.Turrican Anthology: scanned manual with control instructions.

A lovely detail is that all titles now have several of their original manuals scanned in at high quality. It might not feel so special for younger target groups, but for the older generation of gamers, this is worth its weight in gold. That the developers on Ratalaika Games went to the trouble means quite a lot and clearly increases the value of Turrican Anthology-the volumes. As a pure bonus, you also don’t have to make your own maps for the tracks anymore; both game collections fill one in for you during gameplay. A press of the right stick brings up this welcome quality feature (this is what games are bad at talking about). You can also delete all filled areas if you want to start over with a new bullet.

Otherwise, the video settings are almost identical to the original, and just like I said then, it’s among the best flat screen filter emulations I’ve ever tested. In the audio settings, however, things get really interesting.

Turricanska stumped

All games in both volumes have, in addition to their original sound, a remastered soundtrack that has been produced with love and flair in a professional, modern studio. Not only that – some of the games also have their own CD soundtrack. The source of the CD audio is somewhat uncertain to me, but it appears to be a CD version produced during the games development in the 90s. Regardless, there are three different soundtracks for most of these games, and they all sound distinct. A jukebox mode in each separate title allows you to listen to some of them as you like. For some reason, however, your choice is limited to Original or Studio Remaster (thus leaving out the older CD remaster). It’s shady.

Turrican Soundtrack Anthology Vol. 2 by Chris HuelsbeckTurrican Soundtrack Anthology Vol. 2 by Chris Huelsbeck

That the music forms a central part of Turrican is no coincidence. As regular readers and game music connoisseurs know, the music is composed by Chris Hülsbeck himself. Hearing (almost) every song in three different renditions is a favor that almost justifies the outrageous total for these packages. It’s almost like one considers pre-ordering the giant box set of seven vinyl records which can be pre-booked on the Strictly Limited Games website. But only almost.

Not quite there, but hard to say no to

It is a terrible disappointment that Turrican Anthology was not released as a single volume. At least in my opinion, it would have looked better with a price tag of 699 kroner for the entire collection, although that is still how you need smelling salt. Turrican Anthology however, contains (albeit together) the definitive versions of all games in Turricanseries, plus two scoring games that are actually more interesting than they seem. It is a carefully put together package. Maybe the job of manual scanning, music mastering and all the new controls and features was actually so expensive that the price tag is a necessary evil. However, that doesn’t mean that you as a player have to like it.

Just like in the review of Turrican Flashback so I must point out that the Turrican series has not really aged with full dignity. However, I find that my return visit has been more rewarding than I first thought. Gameplay and game design may be of varying quality, but overall feels significantly better than last time. This is especially true for Super Turrican and Mega Turrican, which according to this writer are the absolute tops of the series. There is also a list of nice achievements/trophies (completely in-game on the Switch version) that make the return visit a little extra fun.


Otherwise, my wish from the Flashback review remains: A collection with the less good versions of Turrican-the games that have come through the years would be really interesting. An unholy mix of Game Boy, TurboGrafx-16 and various home computers. But perhaps it is now most of all time for a new game in the series. After three collected volumes of the series’ past, it is not without reason that a sequel is at the top of the wish list now.

Turrican Anthology Vol. I & II was released on July 29, 2022 on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. They cost approximately SEK 360 per volume on the respective digital marketplace. Physical editions are available for purchase through Strictly Limited Games. This review is made possible thanks to review codes for the Switch versions.

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