Statement The First: Vectorman is kind of awesome on the surface.
Released late in the lifespan of the Sega Genesis — 1995, to be precise — it's a run-and-gun platformer that looks great. Pre-rendered 3D models are used for a lot of the game's graphics and your protagonist is a being made from a bunch of spheres. Perhaps a bit goofy when described as such, but it looks good when you're playing and watching the really smooth flow to its motions.
With a simplistic plot involving the robots in charge of cleaning a futuristic Earth's excessive pollution getting corrupted and needing terminated by your non-afflicted machine, as well as a lot of stages to shoot and jump your way through, this is a game that's easy to pick up and play. No convoluted story with lots of twists and turns and no lengthy dialogue scenes to scroll through — just action, action and more action!
Most levels play in a pretty similar way. Vectorman will traverse stages under a time limit, blasting enemy machines while also shooting monitors to get various power-ups, score multipliers, checkpoints and other bonuses. A decent number of these levels will conclude with a boss fight, but all of them will be pretty action-packed, which makes it quite convenient that your character has a life meter instead of perishing on the first collision with an enemy or bullet.
While some of those power-ups take the form of improved fire for your blaster, others allow Vectorman to change his shape temporarily, granting him improved movement or the ability to burst through walls in order to reach seemingly inaccessible monitors. Those alternate forms also come into play in a handful of stages that are boss-only levels best described as gimmick fights.
For example, the second level of the game has you in the form of a train. You'll be chugging along tracks while shooting at (and dodging the attacks of) a giant robot's hands. Initially, these stages can be a bit jarring, since they're completely different from the average one, but variety is the spice of life, isn't it? At least that's what I kept telling myself…
Credit: Blue Sky Software/SEGA
Credit: Blue Sky Software/SEGAStatement The Second: Vectorman is kind of a slog.
All of those run-and-gun levels blend together. While they might have different background graphics, they're quite repetitive due to often-similar designs and a small assortment of enemies. You can only blast annoying flying insects, long arm-like machines and the like so many times before the desire for a bit of additional variety surges to the forefront of your mind.
Most of that variety comes from boss fights, whether we're talking those offbeat boss-only stages or the ones found at the end of several of those run-and-gun levels. The very first stage culminates with a battle with a massive plane that looks really nice for the time period. A memorable late-game encounter takes place in three consecutive rooms where blueprints form into robotic creations you must destroy. There was a fair amount of creativity in these confrontations that tends to be lacking in the treks to reach them.
Then again, the sad thing is that those boss-only levels — you know, the ones that notably differ from the rest — aren't really that fun simply because they come off as more experimental concepts than anything else. The second level where you're a train fighting the big robot? After a side-scrolling level where I was running around and shooting stuff, it took a fair number of deaths before I was able to figure out just what I was supposed to do and get good enough to pull it off. Those levels reminded me of a gaming version of Monty Python's Flying Circus where you'd be getting into a funny skit, the words "And now for something completely different" appear and you're whisked away to something that couldn't be more dissimilar if it tried.
Well, except for how I love that TV show and my feelings for this game are decidedly different...
Credit: Blue Sky Software/SEGA
Credit: Blue Sky Software/SEGAStatement The Third: Vectorman is kind of a frustrating annoyance.
First off, the time limits for many of the game's levels are just way too strict. After completing a stage, you'll get bonuses based on how many monitors you shot and how many collectibles you snagged. My numbers there were the definition of mediocrity simply because every time I tried to do much more than attempt to get to the end as quickly as possible, I risked running out of time and losing a life.
These levels can be sizable, containing side paths and hidden goodies — some of which can even extend your allotment of time. According to the game's instruction manual, there are satellites and shield generators for those objects that can be destroyed to grant access to bonus levels. And there I was, afraid to spend too much time doing anything or seeking out secrets because I only had a few minutes to complete most levels. Going off the beaten path and not being fortunate enough to find a time-extending power-up equates to wasting precious time and losing a life.
Those tight limits can extend to those boss-only levels, as well. It took me forever to get past one where you'll be spinning around a room from a top-down perspective and shooting at a turret that's only vulnerable through a constantly-moving hole in the wall around it while miniature tornados endeavor to ensure lining up a few shots isn't an easy feat. By itself, he battle was kind of tricky, but not overly brutal; however, with only 40 seconds on the clock, it became a nightmarish ordeal where I suffered death after death due to either running out of time or blundering into attacks because I was rushing through things and getting sloppy.
Statement The Final: Vectorman is kind of a letdown.
It's a very attractive game for its era and there is a certain amount of enjoyment that can be gained from running through levels and shooting the crap out of its mechanical monsters, but the overall experience is marred by repetitive levels that often are plagued by time limits oppressive enough to discourage exploration or anything other than getting to the end without wasting a single precious second. With a few improvements, this game could have been a "can't miss" Genesis offering, but instead, it's not much more than a really pretty curiosity that's best admired from a distance.
