Developer: SNK Publisher: SNK Release: 09/89 Genre: Beat em up
I’ve never really given it much thought but SNK really seemed to love military action games in the 80s. It should not be that surprising considering that particular decade was rife with stuff like the Rambo series, Commando, Platoon, and who knows how many more. The games were many but they did a good job of varying them despite the singular themes. In most video games you are a lone soldier out to stop an invading army and rescue prisoners of war. P.O.W. puts you in the shoes of said prisoner as he escapes captivity. The distinction is minor as it still ends up being one man against the world like every game of that era. That does not stop P.O.W.: Prisoners of War from being a cool little gem and a pretty good port of the arcade game minus a few warts.
As a brawler P.O.W. was not the most complex game in the world. The arcade cabinet had three buttons for punch, kick, and jump. Aside from the basic moves you also had a mean head butt and a back attack to create space. The NES controller has two buttons and so loses the jump button. Unfortunately it means the controls had to be retooled and something was lost in the process. You perform a jump kick by pressing punch and kick since you can no longer jump. The head butt is gone and the back attack is performed randomly. It’s workable but not the greatest. It is interesting to note that unlike most beat em you cannot throw enemies and its absence is palpable.
The basic structure is nearly identical to the coin op however SNK saw fit to add plenty of exclusive content. Each level has plenty of side rooms where you can fight to gain power-ups such as brass knuckles to double your attack power, armor for protection and a health refill. It sort of evens out the high difficulty although the game is still cruel. The most substantial addition are boss battles to go along with the slightly different story. In the arcade you only fought against an attack chopper during the conclusion. Here you face each of the leaders of GOON as well as the previously mentioned helicopter and an assault carrier. The last two in particular are pretty cool since you’ll need to pick up dropped grenades to damage them. These additions are extremely cool and make up for some of the game’s failings.
Five stages does not sound like much but P.O.W. is surprisingly long, mostly for the wrong reasons. On top of that this is a particularly challenging beast. Each level is about the size of two stages from any other beat em up if you can believe it. The one thing you have to keep in mind with P.O.W. is that the game is relentless despite the slightly slower pace. As soon as you finish off a group of three enemies 2 or 3 more groups are waiting in the wings. If the average level in say Double Dragon has 15-20 thugs Prisoner of War is skirting closer to 50.
As you can imagine it’s incredibly tedious, especially considering they take so long to die. This is the main reason the game is so long. Your movements are slow and there are an incredible number of cheap hits. I have not even mentioned the exploding grenades and lasers that spell instant death. This is a tough one that will take more time than your average brawler to complete. And not in a good way.
Like most of SNK’s NES games Prisoners of War looks great. Obviously it cannot match its big brother but they have done a particularly excellent job of adapting retaining its look. The sprites are larger than in most similar games and even with three or four on screen it never slows down. Most of the level additions keep the same tone in terms of art and even the new bosses look great. The soundtrack is similarly excellent; the music is all new specific to this version and a bit more energetic than its arcade counterpart but still fits the game’s tone if you can believe it.
In Closing
Despite my faults with it I really like P.O.W. Double Dragon 2 and River City Ransom are still my favorite beat em ups for the system but Prisoners of War is a not far behind. Definitely worth tracking down and another notch in SNK’s belt in terms of their NES arcade conversions.
