ARC Die Hard Arcade (JP Dynamite Deka)

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[AlviEao]

Known as Die Hard Arcade outside Japan, Sega's 1996 arcade title Dynamite Deka was designed by Makoto "UDI" Uchida (responsible for several classic Sega brawlers such as Jūōki (Beast King's Chronicle): Altered Beast, Golden Axe and Alien Storm) and jointly developed by Sega AM1 and Sega Technical Institute. The game was only granted the official Die Hard license by Fox Interactive late in development, hence the Japanese version lacked any official ties to the Die Hard movie. Dynamite Deka was also STI's final contribution before the studio went defunct. I remembered playing both the JP and US arcade versions on several occasions, and it was quite the quarter muncher. The story goes that terrorists have taken over Eternal City, a skyscraper that's an amalgamation of San Francisco and Los Angeles, intent on stealing the vast riches from a vault in the penthouse office, and taking everyone hostage. Perhaps more important than the cash, they’re also kidnapped the President’s daughter. As two police officers, Bruno “Mr. Dynamite” Delinger and Cindy Holiday in the JP version, you must infiltrate the building through its ventilation systems and fight your up to the top to face off against Wolf Hongo, and save the day, as expected. The parallels to Die Hard are obvious, though since the building and characters are different, technically it’s just a parallel situation, with the president’s daughter added in for an extra bit of ludicrous melodrama. In fact, there’s a running gag that the girl has eluded the kidnappers and is hiding right underneath their nose the entire time, but the terrorists are too daft to find her. While Sega had several arcade brawlers under its belt, Dynamite Deka was their first 3D brawler. It still looks very much like a product of its era, complete with low polygon models and blocky textures, but the high resolution and smooth frame rate put it in a better class than most PlayStation games, and is easily up there with Nights as one of the best looking games on the Saturn. The 3D graphics allowed for impressive cinematic cutscenes (albeit goofy), and the camera is always fixed in an overhead angle but swoops upwards and downwards in line with the action for dramatic effect. Your characters' clothes also tear off as you continue; while Bruno and Cindy start out with police gear, they're eventually reduced to torn slacks and jean shorts. It also controls differently from its 2D counterparts, where it feels a bit like Virtua Fighter. You have a punch, kick and jump button, with some combos and grabs depending on button presses. There are no screen-clearing attacks or crowd control special moves, but you have plenty of weapons at your disposal. Enemies can also be arrested similar to NARC, which is slow but removes them from the playing field. Rather than traversing levels in a traditional manner, from left to right, your character simply takes off and moves into the next destination.

In between stages, there's quick-time event cutscenes that were popularized in Sega's own Shenmue, Bayonetta (developed by PlatinumGames) and Ryū ga Gotoku / Yakuza games. Usually you're prompted to hit a certain button in a few seconds; hitting the right button and you'll escape danger, but failing leads to taking extra damage or fighting the missed enemy in question. Either way, you're treated to slow-motion replays applauding your success or bemoaning your failures. Since Dynamite Deka used the Sega Titan Video (ST-V) hardware, the Sega Saturn version is a nearly perfect port. The major downside is that the music is all redbook audio streaming directly from the CD, with brief pauses as it loads each new screen. The soundtrack was composed by Sega mainstay Howard Drossin (Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball, Comix Zone, The Ooze), but the songs are quite limited and become repetitive in the entire game. The Saturn version included an old Sega arcade game Deep Scan, where you drop bombs on the submarines in order to earn more credits in the game. Dynamite Deka was later remade as part of the PS2 Sega Ages 2500 series on April 27, 2006 in Japan, courtesy of Sega of China (who later developed Dynamite Deka EX: Asian Dynamite, a discussion for its own video). Fully titled Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 26: Dynamite Deka, it was a fantastic remake with new modes and extras while also benefiting from enhanced character models, new textures and lightning effects. It's pretty much on the same level as its sequel Dynamite Deka 2: Dynamite Cop. You can also play the game with the original Saturn graphics if you're so inclined. The additional modes are Easy Mode (which doubles health for your characters and weaker enemies; the characters dress up as Golden Axe characters, and there are various references to that game in Stage 3's boss fight), One Hit Kill Mode (where you're dressed as Elvis and one of the characters from Sega's arcade card game Fashionable Witches Love and Berry: Dress Up and Dance!), Arrest Mode (as the samurai Touyama Kagemoto and a girl dressed as Santa, where you're required to arrest every enemy), Deadline Mode (as Segata Sanshiro and a character from the manga / anime Sukeban Deka; you have unlimited health but under a strict time limit), Altered Beast Mode (both players control Wolf Man and Bird Woman; your life constantly drains, so you get life powerups dropped by enemies). The various references include posters of other Sega games by Makoto Uchida like Wing War, Alien Storm, and Alien Front Online. A 3D recreation of a much older Sega coin-op game Periscope replaced the Deep Scan game from the Saturn version. You need to shoot missiles (which were blinking light bulbs) at battleships (which were little plastic models in the original). The PS2 remake was later re-released on the Japanese PlayStation Network (PS3) on October 22, 2012, simply as Dynamite Deka with the Sega Ages 2500 name dropped.