 SEGA DRUNK Target Earth for Sega Genesis is the first game in the Assault Suit series, you might remember a few weeks ago I took a look at the second game, Cybernator for Super Nintendo, but the first game, also known as Assault Suit Lenos, is also good, albeit in a totally different way. It's a run and gun made by Messiah for the Genesis released in March of 1990, but just as Cybernator leans into the Super Nintendo hardware, Target Earth leans into the Genesis Strength. Your mech sprite is smaller, and everything is faster obviously, must be that blast processing man. But you start out on the planet's surface jumping around in low G, then you're flying in space, then you're falling from the sky, then you're on another planet's surface, and so on. It follows a similar structure to Cybernator, where you've got dialogue popping in from your commanding officer telling you about his fantasy football team or whatever, but really the story here is actually kinda neat. You fight an invading cyborg army hell-bent on revenge, but revenge for what? You eventually find out, and it's a nice touch you don't usually see added to games like this. But yeah, obviously the meat and potatoes of this game is gonna be, you know, shooting stuff. You get one health meter that regenerates on its own, and two continues to get through eight levels with no battery save or passwords, and that's pretty daunting because this game is hard. It's gotta be one of the hardest Genesis games out there. The aim still rotates around like in other 2D mech games, meaning you have to hold up or down and wait for your weapon to come around, but you can only rotate it in a few set directions, so instead of trying to aim, you're better off just jumping around and spraying bullet around and hope you hit something while praying that you don't take much damage. And that is a lot easier said than done. Sure, your life does automatically regenerate slowly, but still, this game is an absolute war of attrition. The first level tasks you with stopping an invading warship while enemies zip around you, and really, sometimes it ends up as a matter of just outlasting your enemy and hoping you have more life than them at the end. But you do get plenty of power-ups to help you out, you start each level with a series of weapons to choose from, and they can range from missiles, grenade launchers, lasers, you know all the usual stuff you see in run and gun games, but there's 14 different weapons you can eventually get, the further you progress into the game, and right away, the game gives you three, just press the C button to switch between them, and in addition, there's also items like shields, armor, and a jetpack that allows your mech to float for a bit. You also have little helper dudes fighting alongside you, but sadly they're not nearly as strong as your mech is, but they do help out, especially in the 0G sections, which is really cool. Like I said, the first level starts where you're defending your base against a huge warship, but despite your best efforts, you still have to evacuate and protect all the inhabitants as they escape. Then the next level has you flying around, able to fire in all directions. Level 4 brings you down onto a planet's surface to destroy an enemy power reactor. Then finally, you're able to launch a full-scale attack of your own. The back and forth here between you and enemy forces is well done, definitely uncommon for a game made in 1990, and despite the difficulty, I wanted to keep playing this one just to see what the next mission would be, and sure enough, right when you're about to go on the offensive, it's a surprise enemy attack and you're back on your heels. That's pretty cool. So yeah, I think Target Earth is a pretty dang good game. I like the structure and the 0G levels are always fun, but you really need to be into a challenge to enjoy it. If I had to make a list of the hardest Genesis games, this would definitely be on there, so I think your mileage might vary a bit. But hey, I still had fun with this one. Target Earth is available on Nintendo Switch Online, and that'll never not be weird to say about a Sega Genesis game, so play it there if you can and see if it's up your alley. All right, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.