Developer: Advance Communication Company Publisher: Bandai Release: 04/90 Genre: Action
I was never fond of Dynowarz. That is pretty harsh but I figure I might as well get that out of the way. On paper it has everything a kid should absolutely love. It has robots, dinosaurs, and robotic dinosaurs beating the shit out of each other. How do you mess that up? By being bland and uninteresting, that’s how. Like the cartoon Dinosaucers Dynowarz somehow takes an awesome concept and ruins it with flat execution. It is not an outright bad game, it is just boring.
The Spondylus Solar System is a man-made environment overseen by the central computers. One by one however each computer has been affected by an unknown virus, cutting off life support and allowing mechanized dinosaurs known as Robosaurs to roam freely. Professor Proteus, creator of both Spondylus and the Robosaurs deduces that his former protégé is behind the attack and dons a battle suit and sets out to stop his former student.
Each level in Dynowarz is split in two. Initially you begin in Cybosaurus, battling your way to the computer compound of each planet. In this half the game closely resembles Godzilla: Monster of Monsters. Or at least a poor man’s version of it. Cybosaurus battles all manner of robotic dinosaur as well as smaller turrets and life forms. Like Godzilla your (relatively) large size makes you an easy target, making it hard to dodge enemy fire. In most cases it is simply better to avoid combat, as most weapons have awful range.
Speaking of weapons there are four separate weapons to equip. Each can power up three times and the game is very generous with items. Personally I have issues with all of them. Each weapon has an extremely narrow radius and most have stupid quirks. The rocket fist functions like a boomerang but is weak and leaves you vulnerable as it returns. Bombs fire in an arc; if an enemy is close you are screwed. The beam is so thin it is practically useless. The fireball is the only decent weapon, especially at max level. But for such a cool concept this is disappointing.
Defeating each dinosaur boss allows access to each level’s AIC. Here the professor hops out of his mech to destroy each computer personally. These segments focus on platforming as you make your way to the life support computer and destroy it. Combat is minimal and in general these areas are short. The platforming is typical of the genre aside from the professor priming for each jump. Once destroyed you make your way back to move on to the next planet.
That is Dynowarz in a nutshell. What ultimately kills Dynowarz is its repetition. Although you travel to seven planets you still face the same three or four enemies repeatedly. Their attacks never change to present new challenges either. Even the bosses become standard enemies but that does not make it fun, just tedious. This is as minimalist as it gets.
Outside of your mech is not very exciting either. In fact it is even worse! All seven AIC areas share the exact same graphics, just rearranged. Entire rooms are recycled wholesale, making it worse. Each computer is exactly the same with the only change being the layout of the room. You could accuse Blaster Master of the same thing in its Jason sections. But at least those were longer, introduced new enemies and more importantly varied the tile sets. And it had cool bosses battles. You will not find any of that here.
Probably the game’s only saving grace is that it is easy. Your life bar is extraordinarily long and health power-ups are plentiful. You even have a barrier that depletes in place of your health at first. These two make you all but invincible. The only time I ever died was in the dodgy platforming segments. You purposely have to go out of your way to die. In addition there are passwords and unlimited continues. At least Bandai were accommodating in making sure the game is over mercifully quickly.
In Closing
When it is all said and done Dynowarz is strictly an average game. It is boring, repetitive, and offers nothing you won’t find in other action games. Seek your dinosaur bashing thrills elsewhere.
