Cloud Master

[anagrama]

Evening all!
Would you please put a warm hand together and welcome the inaugural SMS.com forum Game of the Week, as chosen by myself (drumroll please...) ...... CLOUD MASTER!

I can't remember when I first bought this some time ago ago, but I rediscovered it last year when I had a craving for Master System shooters, and it's been a semi-regular visitor to my cart slot ever since.
I didn't know it had been an arcade game before I ran a search today, but apparantly it was: www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=C&game_id=7355 (anyone played it?), aswell as having a PC Engine port. Anyway, for the uninitiated it's a horizontally-scrolling shooter that offers a stiff challenge but seems somewhat under-appreciated.
Your initial impressions may not be the greatest, since the first level is rather washed-out graphically (the later levels are much better) and like many horizontal shooters, it's a bit sluggish at first, but this is all forgiven once you play a few for a minutes. A couple of speed-ups solve the slow responses, and although it still never reaches the frantic pace of Power Strike or Astro Warrior, it instead offers a more laid-back and thoughtful variety of frenzied beastie-killing.
Like most shooters, I find it's best played with a Megadrive Arcade Power Stick, or at least a rapid-fire pad, but it's still all too easy to lose a careless life to a stray bullet

I've been busy moving house this weekend, and haven't had much chance to play anything, but I fitted in a quick half-hour earlier on and got as far as the end of the second level, with a high-score of 257100 (default settings, no continues). I should certainly be able to improve on that over the coming week...

So there you go.... Anyone else familiar with this one? What do you think of it? Has anyone actually beaten it? I'll be the first to congratulate you if you have...

Go play, kids.....

[ian]

good choice. this game is quite unappreciated.
during my early sms years i did actually own this game and found it quite enjoyable but it was just too difficult for me back then, which put me off it slightly.

i'll give it a go and see what score i can come up with.

EDIT
this game is as hard as i remember. managed to get up to level 3. once i lost a life along with all my power-ups i couldn't get anywhere. using no continues i managed a score of 360400.

[Stevenma]

Played it a few times and I find it hard. I've never passed the first level. What impressed me about it was the fact that the game and the sound are heavily influenced by japanese culture.

[Sinistral]

havent played muhc of this one, i will devote a few hours of free time to it over this week!

[Stan]

I love this game, great pick. Everything is put together very well. It was also released for Famicom I believe. I've made it to Kappa, the second boss, but he always destroys me. Excellent game, and a nice spin on the whole "shooter" genre. It's not so much fast paced as it is complex, there's stuff everywhere sometimes and you really have to pay attention to stay alive. I like the giant in-between old man of the clouds shtick, too.

[dezanuebe]

i will also give it a try and give my feedback later this week!! good luck everybody!!

[Matias]

Cloud Master...i played again recently and it´s a mess!!!, i couldn´t pass level 1... , i need to practice a little more...

[RetroReserve]

Ahh, Cloud Master.
Many fond memories of this title as it was the third Master System game I bought.
Very hard but I always kept going back to it. From what I can remember the furthest I ever got was level 3 but I shall play it again this week to see if I can get further.
I will post my score later in the week.

[psychofox]

Havent played this game in years! Had a quick go on it last night but my daughter had me up all nite! a lot harder than i remember. Not gonna stop till I at least finish this first level!!

[Matias]

I think many of us lost his abbilities from childhood...we are old...

[Stan]

The first level is rough. Be careful of the chicken boss, because the thingies it fires sometimes rebound. Not very easy either.

[Sim]

I'm happy to announce i've completed the damn gameYIPPEEE !!!!Jesus christ talk about a tough game boy am i glad to get that one out the way.I think all together i've been on it roughly 4 hrs today,i'd never even touched the game before today,luckily i was off work with not much else to do and was determined to finish it.When i first put it on my first impressions were 'this sort of reminds me of parodious' and'who ever invented this has a wild imagination'.I think gameplay wise it's brilliant with the obvious flaw of it being to difficult,boy does it get frantic in places but to it's credit no slowdown just plenty of dodging involved,the big problem is dying then losing all your power ups you've gained which can be cruel especially if you die on a boss and get sent back to the middle of the level without much chance of killing the mid level boss let alone reaching and killing the end of level boss.I think these factors stop it from being a total classic,i loved the music and backgrounds maybe an energy bar could have made it so much better.I don't think i'd ever go back to it now having completed it,theres just to much stress i can't remember how many times i shouted out 'for rubber duck sake' or 'blinking hell '.When you do manage to do level 5 it automatically starts at level 1 again so i carried on and didn't notice any difference till i got to the boss that big bird out of sesame street and got killed by his projectiles which came back from behind me like a boomerang.I did the game without using a continue and built up 8 lives,I did die a few times in level 3-4 but got through 5 unscathed with decent power ups,if i did die on level 5 i think it would have been curtains you're just not fast enough to dodge and kill everything,the best weapon i found was the 2 balls that roll along the ground killing them annoying monkeys and tigers. Anyway i've said enough,overall not bad just to frustrating my final score was 0847600 but it could have been more if had patience and carried on and gone through the whole game again but i'm not that stupid it would have turned me bald or grey!!!!

[Matias]

Congratulations Sim...i see that you didn´t lost your game habbilites...

[anagrama]

Wow, congrats Sim! I salute your nimble trigger-fingers!

I read in the manual that it restarts again after level 5 (apparantly harder than the first time around).
It wasn't clear if this is a continual loop or if it's a Ghouls'N'Ghosts-esque run-through-twice-to-get-the-proper-ending.

I still haven't had a chance for another good crack at it yet, I've been busy sorting & rearranging all my stuff after moving, and am out at a gig tonight.
I'll make sure I can fit a few hours in before next Sunday tho'....

[Sim]

Cheers Matias, Anagrama.
Yes i was wondering if it went on indefinately or not,i had another go today (i woke up with the urge to play it again it's quite addictive)and got all the way to the level 5 boss without being killed then he killed me so i just shouted out a swear word,threw the pad on the floor and gave up.There's a print error in the instructions, the level 4 boss in the ins. is actually level 5 boss and level 4 boss is really a dragon.I wonder if this game celebrates the chinese new year,what with the different enemies,The year of the-Dragon-Monkey-Tiger,or even Panda bear??maybe not to sure about the year of the panda bear.I'm going on holiday now so i'm going to miss the next 2 games of the week not to mention big brother and lads army on t.v.