Turrican 2 AGA

I remember playing Turrican 2 on the Amiga and being rather upset that it was just impossible to replicate on the PC which was what I considered "home" at the time.

Then, at a demo party in Aars in Denmark, I was walking around and I spotted some guy who must have been developing this exact piece of software because I saw what was definitely Turrican 2 running on what certainly looked like a PC (they were quite easy to spot). At the time, I was pretty well aware of what you could do with the PC and VGA in assembly language (The Copper demo particularly occupied me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KeMtiYi808), and I knew that remaking this game would be close to impossible.

I stared at his monitor from afar for a good 20 minutes but I didn't have the courage to approach this god-like developer (I must have been 14) so sadly, I never found out where his magical skills came from or whether or not he was a nice guy.

If anyone wonders about the difference between the PC DOS version ported to Amiga and the original Amiga version, it seems like this video shows that (in German, just skip forward and the visuals are self explanatory)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tx_zaQnpgUE

This is a rewrite from scratch of the Turrican 2 PC-DOS version for AGA Amigas. 24bit/256 colours, original music/sounds. All levels plus various things that were missing in the DOS version have been reinstated (missing parallax, animations, waterfall effects, etc.)

Turrican 2 was the best game on the Amiga I played it literally for years.

Amazingly it was also on C64. I’d love to see the source code for that bit of Wizardry.

It's amazing what the Amiga community comes up with - even in 2023. How long is it since the Amiga 1200 came out? 30 years?

Also, there's a ton of conventions and meetups with Amiga fans everywhere in the world. Especially n places like Germany, Ireland, Poland, USA.. maybe others.

I played Turrican II on the Amiga back in the day. I could never reach past the undersea/aquatic world (The second world after the desert one). There was this jump you had to make which was impossible for me to progress further. I thought it was some bug by the game designers: How did they manage to make this jump so difficult for players?

But I loved the game. I liked the premise you were this human in a robotic exoskeleton that was exploring strange planets with exotic ETs and could also turn yourself into a rollerball that could annihilate anything in its path.

The music was epic too. I listened to a Spotify playlist of all the Turrican II music and it instantly brought me back.

This fan remake looks good, but it will never beat the original.

The original Turrican games (Amiga and console versions) have also been released for the Nintendo Switch and the PS4 last year. The C64 versions are not included, unfortunately, due to copyright issues.

This is beautiful!

So I've been trying for the longest time to figure out the name of this game my older brother used to play. The game mechanics are similar to Turrican, kind of, 2D, left to right or bottom to top. It's not futuristic, I think there were jungle themes, maybe the hero used a whip or a hook but not sure. There might have been lots of blood. I keep thinking the name is "Heretic" but that's a different game! Maybe it sounds similar?! Anyone got an idea what I could be thinking of?

Very nice. That brings back Amiga memories (I never played Turrican on DOS).

Turrican 1 on the Commodore 64 is one of the big reasons why I went into software development... am so happy to see this on HN

I played the DOS version but it only had 2 levels. Is there a DOS version with more?

Game Review & Impressions

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Turrican II remains one of my favourite platform games on the Amiga, so I was quite excited when I learned of the project to create an enhanced version for the AGA chipset. Essentially a conversion of the 1994 PC DOS release, the principle developer behind the endeavour is Alastair Murray (AKA Sonic Sloth). Various demos and pre-release versions have been available, but I wanted to wait until the final release before trying it for myself.

The obvious change between this new AGA version and the OCS release is the graphics. It incorporates the art assets from the PC DOS release which, being a VGA title, supported more colours and higher detail. The redesigned player sprite, with it's bulbous helmet and wedge-shaped boots, represents one of the more divisive changes from that version, so it's cool to see Alastair also included an option allowing players to choose between the PC and Amiga versions of the Turrican suit.

Of course, looks aren't everything, so I'm pleased to report that the game plays exactly as I would expect. I don't know how much of the original code was used, or to what degree of re-engineering was required to get this running, but it plays exactly like Turrican II should. I used an A1200 WinUAE config to play this and, aside from a few occasions where the framerate dips when things get really busy, it's pretty much flawless. There are also some quality-of-life improvements, including the ability to look down (reduce the need for blind jumps), sound enhancements and optional control tweaks

Perhaps my favourite addition is the inclusion of new secrets. Each of the platforming levels contains three special crystals, which can only be retrieved by finding hidden drones. The little blighters are invisible and only appear when shot, although they do emit a noise when you're in the vicinity. This is gives seasoned Turrican II players who already know the game inside out another reason to revisit the game and do battle with The Machine and it's space-faring minions.

Overall, Turrican II: AGA Edition is a great release. The strapline for the game over on Alastair's itch.io bills the game as "The best way to play the PC version of Turrican 2 is on the Amiga", and I couldn't agree more!

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Note: Cross-posted from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljzIDjyWhzY. Review not written by me.