Johnny Bazookatone | Sega Saturn Playthrough | Real hardware
1Johnny Bazookatone is a 2.5D side-scrolling platformer video game developed by Arc Developments and published by Sony Imagesoft for the Sega Saturn in 1996. The game features a rock and roll themed setting and follows the adventures of the titular hero, a guitar-playing musician armed with a powerful bazooka.
The gameplay is focused on exploration and combat, with Johnny navigating through various levels filled with enemies and obstacles. Players can use a variety of weapons and power-ups to defeat enemies and progress through the game, including the titular bazooka, which can fire different types of ammunition.
The game features a unique art style, with detailed 2D character sprites against pre-rendered 3D backgrounds. The game's soundtrack, composed by Tommy Tallarico, features rock and roll-inspired music and sound effects.
Review:
This is very difficult game to begin to play. The controls put you at an instant disadvantage as nothing feels right and you have to have time to understand how the game works. Even simple jumps are very difficult. Things are made worse with horrendous collision detection so you get hit when you are nowhere near the enemy or hazard.
Some of the puzzles in this game are so obscure. You can get lost in a level for ages and in the end, I was properly stuck at multiple times. There was no guide online but fortunately there was another playthrough video. It still wasn’t always obvious what needed to be done.
The first bit I was completely stuck on was in the second section of the first level. I couldn’t get past a locked door. I saw the video and the guy just walked through the door and I had no idea how. By chance I found that there was an opaque key hidden inside a cage that I couldn’t see and I had to vacuum it up and shoot it at the door. It wouldn’t be so bad if vacuuming was necessary before and the key wasn’t completely invisible.
There are plenty of examples like this and the full playthrough took me 5 hours as I kept having to stop to check the guide after being stuck for a while.
Frustration aside, once I get my head around things, I started enjoying the game. The graphics are really nice and cartoony. The music is great – so much so they included a bonus CD of the music. The characters are really well animated and the move set is pretty good once you get used to it. Although there is a pointless power move which takes forever to charge up and you are vulnerable as you are doing so, so it’s always quicker and safer to use the machine gun.
There is also an obscure button to open doors and lifts. You have to press up or down and then the X button which isn’t used at any other point in the game. If I didn’t have the instruction manual, I wouldn’t know that you can open doors.
If this game had a written guide, it would be much better. Fortunately for you, this video now exists so it can help you through.
Fortunately, there are passwords for the 5 levels, which basically means infinite continues.
I definitely enjoyed this game though and if I had this back in the day, I would really enjoy playing it through over and over.
Rating - 7/10
Original game played on PAL Sega Saturn.
Picture split between CRT TV for my own viewing and OSCC scan converter with 2x line doubler, upscaled to HDMI for recording
No cheats
Deaths cut out
Box art from thumbnail is taken from my own collection
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Sega Saturn - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4OPiZauY1B3bdDwUoCsWDRt
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