Developer: Riot Publisher: Telenet Japan Released: February 7, 1992 Genre: Action
The PC Engine CD has an extensive library rife with great games that were never localized. Now let’s be clear, a good many of them are shooters but there are just as many RPGs and the occasional side scrolling action game as well. Browning at first glance seems like the ideal import. It has only a few lines of Japanese text and all of its dialogue is voiced in English. It also looks like a kick ass action game like Cybernator. But a few minutes is all it takes to realize it is an absolutely miserable title with few redeeming qualities. Stay away from this game.
Don’t be fooled by the cool screenshots. This is a miserable experience you will regret.
As far as first impressions go Browning does a good job. It is clear the graphics are where all the money went. The extensive intro and between level interstitials look very cool. In game every level features at multiple layers of parallax scrolling which is very rare on the system. The ground line scrolls as you walk a la Street Fighter 2 and the effect is cool in motion. The sprites are very large and while the animation is average they at least look impressive. Add in the occasional foreground object and you have a graphical showpiece for the hardware. Hell even the soundtrack is pretty good, as brief as it is.
Once you pick up the controller the game completely falls apart. The controls are incredibly sluggish and their arrangement is stupid. You can dash by double tapping and thankfully do not take damage from direct collisions with enemies. But to turn around you have to double tap as well. This is very slow and unwieldy. Your mech can fly by double tapping jump. But to stay airborne you have to keep tapping which is stupid. The temperature gauge controls flight and will overheat through excessive use. There is little reason to do so however. For some god forsaken reason you cannot turn around while in flight; you have to drop, turn, and then fly again. It’s a cumbersome setup that makes an already frustrating game that much worse.
If you are expecting a large range of weapons to blaze through enemies I am sorry to disappoint. There are no items whatsoever in Browning. No health power-ups, weapons, nothing. Your shields will recharge slowly if you are not hit. The problem is enemies respawn infinitely. At most you can get one or two bars back but that does little to help. A lack of secondary weapons or items is not an immediate indictment so long as the game takes that into account. But the problem is Browning desperately needs something to make it interesting.
Browning plays like where they spent all their time on the graphics and realized they needed a game to go with it. The gameplay is incredibly pedestrian. You can only fire in a straight line which presents all kinds of problems gameplay wise. Enemies are incredibly mobile and your stiff mech can’t keep up. Cheap hits abound and on top of that the hit detection is terrible. There are about five enemies total if you can believe it. Mercifully every level is short. But that does not mean it is simple. You have a strict time limit and even if you run past fodder enemies by stage three there is barely enough time for the bosses. The last level is so tight that even with cheating I had seconds to spare. Chances are cheating is the only way to see this to its conclusion.
The difficulty curve in Browning is insane. Stage one is the only level that takes it easy on the player. By stage two all of the game’s myriad issues are on full display and it becomes frustrating. For instance, the lack of secondary weapons and a straightforward attack make airborne enemies a nightmare. From this point on they are everywhere and spawn infinitely. Every level after has two or more bosses and the clock leaves little room for mistakes. It feels like there was no attempt at balancing the game which, considering the rest of the package is not surprising. Like I said before I used codes just to see how it ends and it was not worth it. The sad thing is it would only have taken two or three additions to make Browning tolerable.
In Closing
Browning is a terrible game all around. Its good production values cannot hide the fact that the controls are awful and the gameplay is stiff as the robots you fight. I feel sorry for anyone who was duped into buying this one back in the day. You got left with a turkey.
