#624 Heaven's Gate (ARC) Bosses (1/3): Geezer gameplay.

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AdmiralMcFish - Bosses and Hidden Characters

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Published on March 26, 2017 1:42:25 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oMIblp-mhA

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Tekken 2 (1995)

Duration: 5:50

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A playthrough of the potential final boss Geezer/Marshall Applewhite in Atlus' Heaven's Gate.

And the winner for the most unfortunately titled game, goes to...

So here's Heaven's Gate, obscure little 3D fighting game title made by Atlus of all people. It's obscure probably it shares its name with a suicidal UFO doomsday cult, who 20 years ago committed mass suicide in the belief that Earth was about to be "recycled" by God, and that by killing themselves their spirits would reach a spaceship at the time following the comet Hale-Bopp. No, I'm not making this shit up. This was a real thing.

I mention this of course because, if you google Heaven's Gate, the first thing which comes up is information about the cult. It would explain why no one talks about this game, considering it was made in 1996 and the cult offed themselves in 1997.

Heaven's Gate has an interesting mechanic, whereby it had two potential final bosses, and they seem to appear as random. What's more, they are time-released into the game and share the same character slot, despite playing very differently. In the PS1 port of the game, which I will cover too, they both got their own character slots.

Heaven's Gate is a pretty standard 3D fighting game, if such a thing exists. A much of basic combos and special moves reliant on multiple-direction inputs, very similar in that way to the Virtua Fighter series. There's also a bit of a air juggle system in place, and the ability to ring out opponents. It has two unique elements however. One is the ceiling feature. Some arenas in the game have ceilings, which an opponent can be knocked into as a result of a combo or move, usually for extra damage. The second is the inclusion of a super meter, a non-typical addition in a 3D game. When full, the character can go into a powered up state temporarily, increasing their damage and allowing them to unleash a super move or two. The two final bosses, Geezer and Unknown, both have an area of attack super move. In a game without projectiles. Yeah, game developers were dickish in the 90s.

In terms of gameplay, I really didn't notice anything too interesting about Geezer. In fact, he rather pales in comparison to Unknown in terms of fighting ability, and in general he is the preferred boss to fight from what I've seen. His design isn't half-bad, but...I don't think there's any denying that it's pretty similar to Devil in Tekken 2. What is it with Japanese games and purple devils? I'll need to look into that sometime. One interesting thing he does have, however, is that he can't be ringed out. Oh yeah, you thought that was invented for Night Terror in SoulCalibur III? Think again. There always seems to be some kind of precursor to the well-known instance of an aspect in fighting games, it's quite fascinating.

On the whole, Geezer really isn't very interesting. He's slow and rather cumbersome to fight with, his combos and moves limited, and he's just not that interesting beyond his design. I don't know how much Atlus knew about the whole cult thing, though they must have had some knowledge as it would explain why the final boss is the fucking devil.

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