Today we're going to take a gander at what lies at the bottom of the barrel. Amongst the sticky muck is a nearly 35-year-old tragedy best left forgotten. I call D-Force a tragedy not just because it's the worst shmup on the Super Nintendo, but because it can't attain the lofty distinction of worst shmup on a 16-bit platform. Sorry, but that title belongs to Curse, the Mega Drive exclusive abomination. It might not even be the second worst out there. One of you fine folks out there has played XDR: X-Dazedly-Ray, right? Don't answer, because the tears in your eyes say it all.
Why was the world graced with the second (or third) worst shmup on a 16-bit entertainment system anyway? The blame starts with Saddam Hussein and his invasion of Kuwait on August 2nd, 1990. This led to the United States forming a coalition with 42 other countries to launch Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The War in the Persian Gulf ended in less than a year but still provided game publishers an entire generation's worth of ideas for potential video games. Asmik was one such publisher that acted on it, commissioning Cream (that's the developer's name) to make D-Force. In Japan it's referred to as Dimension Force, which makes more sense once you know the full context of the game, but dropping the "imension" probably saved Asmik a couple bucks on the western release. Anyway, the goal is to pilot an Apache Helicopter and destroy an Evil Middle Eastern Dictator's plans of world d- actually never mind. The whole mission goes sideways and pear-shaped by the time you reach stage 2.
Your mission to stop a... bunch of bad things from happening (???) takes place over the course of 7 vertically scrolling stages. You'll realize things are unwell the second the action starts. While the Apache you're in control of seems to move smoothly enough, everything else from enemies to projectiles runs at a poor framerate. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say bullets move at 20 frames per second, dropping down to 15 FPS or less when there are more than 10 onscreen. That's total insanity for a shmup, a genre where contact with even the smallest projectile usually results in immediate death. This is honestly reason enough to drop the game entirely. Maybe it isn't unplayable, but it's most certainly not fun. The only reason you'd want to continue is if you're me and in the midst of reviewing this piece of junk.
If you're willing to put up with the awful framerate and questionable hitboxes, then you're greeted with Stage 2. D-Force has a gimmick where three stages utilize the Super Nintendo's Mode 7 capabilities, so your Apache can raise or lower its altitude with a button press. Conceptually, there's something of value here, but unsurprisingly the implementation feels like it was abandoned during the alpha stages of development. In the second stage, you can fly in the sky to shoot down huge birds or fly closer to the ground and destroy some dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs, huh... Yeah, this is exactly why I said Dimension Force was the more sensible name. If you were expecting anything cool from a shoot-out with dinosaurs, then take in the sight directly above this paragraph. That's as exciting as it gets. The boss is a T-Rex, which doesn't seem to do anything besides swipe with its tail. This STG has terrible difficulty balancing. Every other stage is so wrapped up in its gimmick that it doesn't produce anything worth a challenge.
Then again, it's not like D-Force is capable of creating a fair challenge. Most of your deaths are going to come from questionable hitboxes, the wonky framerate, enemies bumping into you from offscreen, and some bizarre attempts at creating a thrilling mid-boss or boss. To better explain what I mean, look at the mid-boss just below this paragraph. The two tanks here don't have a lot of hit-points, but if you're not in the precise spot when the fight starts, then you'll get clipped by the surprisingly frequent bullet-spreads or forward-mounted cannons. In any other shmup, evading their patterns wouldn't be a big problem. However, when this one can't even deliver on the basic fundamentals of the genre, then you have every reason to feel unconfident about surviving what should be fairly simple attacks.
Then you reach stage 4 and it's in Ancient Greece or something. There are statues spitting fireballs up above, and statues firing arrows down below. I think I saw some catapults too, but none of it matters. This is another one of those nothing stages that exist solely to prop up the gimmick. The one added feature that contains any significance is the inclusion of walls. It's something new to crash into. Thanks. At this point, I'll settle for whatever's handed to me. The boss is a cross between Cerberus and a displacer beast, or... I don't care. Whatever it is, it doesn't put up a fight. Next stage!
What can be considered the second half of D-Force has the player contending with aliens. Stage 5 is the requisite ice stage, with what sounds like the theme from E.T. playing on loop. Yes, I'm talking about the Steven Spielberg E.T. This is the point when despair creeps in, followed by intense waves of hopelessness. It's maddening. Truly maddening. Adding to the pain is a boss-fight that takes exponentially longer than any other in the game. Stage 6 was a much-needed laugh. Since you can't see what's above you, pressing the altitude-adjust button at the wrong time might lead to this:
Isn't that hilarious?! You hit a button and BOOM! instant inexplicable death. Fabtastic! Oops. I think I accidentally tried to combine fantastic and fabulous. Dammit. How is this game not over yet? I've already suffered enough. Mercifully, all that remains is the final stage. The only catch is that it's a boss-rush. Oh, and it features tiny ships that attack from eight directions at once. You've seen and hated them in other games, and you'll hate them here too.
Looking back at the irredeemable mess I've just experienced; there is only one conclusion. I was wrong. Curse is not the worst 16-bit shmup ever. It's D-Force by a few light years. It's simple math, really. On average, Curse takes between 15 and 20 minutes to complete, D-Force takes 35 to 40. That's more than twice the punishment! Curse also had some sweet box-art that'd look great on any shelf. D-Force's boxart is... I don't know! I don't care! I'm done! I don't want to see, hear, or think about this atrocious nightmare any longer!
Goodbye!
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