Gamesylvania

Once in a while, I stumble upon a game I had absolutely no interest in at first, but suddenly find myself completely hooked after giving it a chance to prove itself. The latest title to draw me in is Deep Fighter for the Dreamcast.

The name Deep Fighter really doesn’t have that spark that tells you, “Here lies a great game.” And because I only had the disc, I didn’t have any cover art or screenshots to go on as to what was waiting for me. I figured it was going to be another top down, 2D shooter, but this time with 3D rendered graphics or some other gimmick designed to keep the genre fresh. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. Dumb name aside, the game has you piloting a submarine, exploring the ocean’s floor as you mine Thorium and defend a submerged city from a wild bunch known as “The Shadowkin.” It’s a lot like Wing Commander, but under water.

Right, so, as we get a little more in depth, the plot unfolds over the course of about 20 missions or so. Each mission briefing is presented in the form of gloriously terrible full-motion videos featuring live actors. It’s as awful a you might imagine. No, wait; it’s worse. One of the first people you’ll meet is the admiral, who looks like “Shamwow!” Vince, minus the hooker attack, but sounding like Robin Leach. He announces that recent seismic activity is wreaking havoc on the mining operation and that you’ll have to go out and gather Thorium yourselves. The Thorium, a radioactive, crystalline material, is badly needed so that the engineers can finish a mothership that will carry everyone to safety, far away from the volcano they somehow missed while building this great, underwater city. The next person you’ll meet is Razz, who comes off as a bit of a Debbie Downer with her first line, “Without the mothership we have no future!” She almost sounds like she’s being sarcastic, but later, when Admiral Vince teams you up, she practically jumps out of her seat and demands to be made point guard, establishing her role as teacher’s pet. Don’t worry, though; she’s a lot less annoying in the future. No, no; I’m lying. She gets MUCH more annoying.

After mining Thorazine — I’m sorry, Thorium — the second mission you undertake is to escort a group of female fish to a breeding ground to replenish a stock that recently died off. Yes, seriously. As if picking up junk off the ocean floor wasn’t low enough, now you get to dabble in animal husbandry as you attempt to locate, tranquilize and tow a male fish to the harem. As bizarre as it sounds, let’s just be thankful that’s as far as it goes. Once you’re done pimping out fishes, it’s almost time to start shooting things!

A few members of the ambiguously mysterious Shadowkin show up and start to make trouble. It’s never really clear what these guys want, but I like to think they’re some kind of rival submarine gang that slick their hair back, wear black leather jackets with dungarees and talk tough to hide their emotional sides. Well, most of that would be true, but the Shadowkin don’t have much to say and mostly just try to destroy everything around you. The Shadowkin aren’t misunderstood youths coming to terms with adulthood, they’re just assholes.

The rest of the game involves completing tasks that escalate in danger as the game progresses. Deep Fighter does feature a fair level of diversity, but, of course, diversity usually means one or two escort missions, a fetch quest and getting hopelessly lost in deep, dark caverns. And, yeah, that’s pretty much everything that happens. You also get to fight a giant water bug!

The last thing I really need to harp on are the graphics, which are above average for a Dreamcast game, but suffer from a disturbingly shallow draw distance. Not since Turok on the Nintendo 64 have I seen such a terrible draw distance, but them’s the breaks. In a way, it does make sense since this is all happening in the ocean, and the light diffusion makes for a great effect, but the game also has sunlight/moonlight cycles which means that not only is your visibility severely reduced, but it also gets very dark when the sun’s not out. Was having a sunlight cycle really necessary? I mean, it gets REALLY hard to see down there at night!

Deep Fighter is not a bad game! I was kind of amazed to find reviews from back in the day to be mostly positive. GameSpot, in particular, gave it an 8.1, which I think was a bit high. However, the diversity of the missions, the plot, the premise, the excellent gameplay and setting all had me hooked until the very end. It’s not perfect, but I’ve played much, much worse. So, while there may be plenty of fish in the ocean, don’t let this be the one that got away!

For those of you who read this far, here’s a video of the first mission briefing: