Rolling Thunder 3 Game Sample - Genesis/MD
0Original Air Date: May 29th, 2009
What will forever remain the oddball of the series, Rolling Thunder 3 is shaken, not stirred. This game takes some steps forward and some steps back from the second, but is ultimately a good game, so that's not what is strange here. What's strange is that this game was ONLY released in North America from my understanding... no PAL or NTSC-J copies for miles. Was Rolling Thunder not very popular elsewhere, or did Namco think this game was a big gamble or something? I dunno, but this is one of those few games (of Japanese origin) that folks in the U.S. can be like "tee hee hee" and laugh with glee, well, if you're into this series anyway.
Rolling Thunder 3 doesn't grab my interest in the same fashion as the second game and while Namco removed some of the best elements from RT2 like the two player mode, I can see their heart was in the right place as they fixed other notable annoyances and expanded the options available to you. In this game, you play as Jay, another Rolling Thunder operative, who is out to stop Dread, the second in command of Geldra. Albatross and Leila are busy taking care of Gimdo, but both Gimdo and Dread are powerful enough individually to cause problems, so it's important that they both be neutralized. Dread still has a healthy supply of Maskers for you to battle, so Jay won't get bored going after #2.
You have a lot of optional weapons you can choose in this game now such as a Bazooka, Cannon, numerous grenades and more. You can also fight with a knife if you choose not to take an optional weapon or run out of bullets or shoot at an angle (WOOT!). Enemies need a little more effort when they kill you in this game as you start with more health and even should you die, you start right back where you were instead of having to do the whole level over again. You also have more variety in the level designs and can do stuff like ride a motorcycle on the highway and fight more thoughtful bosses. You can also play the game on a second quest and get a slightly extended ending.
The music is still good, though the visuals haven't really improved much (better use of colors, cutscenes with some animation). Also, people may be disappointed that you can't play with a female by default, although you can with a code. The sad part though is that she doesn't have cutscenes or change the story in any way. To her credit, her outfit is skimpier than Leila's clothes. Even the funny password system is gone and replaced with the norm. Enjoy.
Note: If anyone at Namco ever reads this, consider this; Instead of hashing a lot of the same old classics like Pac-Man over and over again, why not bring back this great series or at least put it in one of those dang fabled collection sets. Putting RT2 and possibly RT1 on the Wii Virtual Console isn't good enough. Just a thought...