Thunder Kid II: Null Mission

When I reviewed the original Thunder Kid back in March, I concluded that it was a throwback shoot ‘em up that barely had enough depth or style to keep itself afloat for its all-too-brief runtime. Here we are, just three months later, and the Thunder Kid sequel has finally come to consoles, bringing all of its old school action and excitement back for round two. That’s great for the die-hard fans of the first game, but as somebody who was already a little iffy on the Thunder Kid to begin with, I wondered if there would be enough new and original here to justify this silly shooter becoming a full-on franchise. Who knows, maybe developer Renegade Sector Games will flesh out the world and create an epic action game with a wide-variety of weapons, vastly improved level designs and incredible bosses your eyes won’t be able to believe? Nah, Thunder Kid II: Null Mission is a carbon copy of the first game and I’m probably just going to copy/paste everything I said three months ago. Enjoy my review.

It's the far-flung future and, after the war between the United States and Canada, a rogue AI led a robot uprising that ended up taking control of North America. Thankfully, a cybernetically-enhanced champion of justice named Thunder Kid was there to single-handedly stop the Robot Emperor dead in his tracks. Now the Thunder Kid has been called back into action after the evil Robot Emperor returned and kidnapped all of the humans. I hate it when that happens.

At first glance, Turbo Kid looks like one of those weird 3D stages you saw in early Contra games. You run through narrow hallways shooting down robots that are right in front of you. The gimmick here is that you can't turn your body or control the camera like most 3D games. I mean, you can certainly walk left or right, but it's more of a side-step than anything. The fixed camera angle makes this look and feel like the kind of 3D game we got from developers testing the waters after years of making 2D platformers.

One of the main reasons why I ultimately recommended the original Thunder Kid is because we don’t get a lot of shoot ‘em ups that look or feel like this. It reminds me of old school third-person action games like 3D World Runner and the G.I. Joe arcade game, while still remaining unique and fun. It certainly borrows elements from other games, but I couldn't think of any other 3D shooters that played like Thunder Kid II. Except for the original, of course. There's a nice mix of platforming, dodging and shoot 'em up action, all with a pinch of exploration baked into every level.

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That's a great recipe for an action game, but the shallowness ultimately weighs down Thunder Kid II. While I like the idea of playing a character who is only shooting straight forward, I feel like the developers could have given our hero a few extra moves, especially since this is a sequel. It would have been nice to be able to roll out of trouble or perform a proper side-step maneuver. Also, for a shooter, there's surprisingly little in the form of firepower. We get one gun and no upgrades. The only item on the battlefield is a health pick-up, which may be helpful, but isn't as much fun as a flame thrower or spread shot.

It also doesn’t help that the level designs in this sequel mostly mimic what you saw in the original. To be fair, I was impressed with the aerial armada stage, which saw us jumping onto different boats in the middle of the ocean. That doesn’t feel like anything we saw in the original game, but the rest of the stages sure do. We go through a base, a swamp, a factory and a volcano, none of which seems out of step with the city, forest and desert levels we saw in the first game.

It’s also worth mentioning that the boss fights continue to underdeliver. In fact, they don’t even bother using a different room for these fights. Hell, I could use footage from the original game and you would have no clue I duped you. Maybe I did. You’ll never know.

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The point is, these boss battles aren’t much fun. They also have a tendency of being incredibly cheap, full of shots that are hard to dodge. This is where a roll move and power-ups would have come in handy. I was still able to complete the incredibly short game, but some of the later bosses fall into the trap of being too frustrating yet not memorable in any way.

Of course, the real problem with this game is that it’s not doing anything new. This game looks, plays and sounds exactly like the Thunder Kid game I reviewed three months ago, yet it’s being sold as a brand-new adventure. With no new moves, weapons, abilities or anything else to set it apart, Thunder Kid II ends up being a completely unnecessary retread of the original, a game that barely had enough action to fill up one game, let alone two. Anybody hoping for a bigger, better and more epic sequel will feel cheated and maybe even a little insulted by Thunder Kid II: Null Mission.