Game Review: Molecule Man (MSX, Mastertronic)

Molecule Man had started life on the ZX Spectrum, where its large isometric maze had found favour with some reviewers. The MSX conversion, handled by Simon Freeman, was released not long after the Spectrum one, hence the original packaging style being used. Sadly, there is no loading screen which means you are just staring at a blank screen saying that Molecule Man is loading. Good job my trusty Sony TCM-818 tape deck is reliable, and I could hear all the loading noises fine on my original MSX.  The game does at least load reasonably quickly, but with a minimal title screen.

As Molecule Man, you must survive. You are placed in the middle of a large maze with radiation reducing your chances to survive, as does the time limit, which counts down from 3300 units. You also can come across coins where you can use them to buy radiation pills (to extend your life) or bombs, which when activated can destroy parts of the scenery making other parts of the game more accessible.  There are sixteen circuits to collect which makes the teleporter active, so you can make your exit. You just need to find them first.

Cursor or Cursing?

Although you can play Molecule Man on the joystick on the MSX, you are actually better off on the keyboard. There are a number of keys needed to be pressed for certain actions, such as B to buy something from a machine with your coins, Shift to fire a bomb once collected, as well as the space bar (fire on joystick) to pick up any coins or circuits along the way. Because the cursor keys on the MSX keyboard is used for movement, certainly on my Toshiba HX-10 this did mean that the large cursor keys there meant I had some nicely laid out controls – and not resorting to QAOP like a lot of ZX Spectrum ports appeared to do. That is one sensible design decision I agree with. Up goes up left, right goes up right, down goes down right and left goes down left, when looking at the screen isometrically.

The moment you start the game, the radiation pills reduce very quickly, and unless you can find a coin and use that to buy some extra pills (with each purchase resulting in 20 extra pills) it will not be long before you die. Going right from the start screen reaps the rewards here, and after that, it is a decision you will need to make on whether to top up the pills or to buy a bomb, so you can destroy some of the scenery as you need. Annoyingly as with the other versions, you do not automatically collect the coin – you have to pick it up. And that does mean you slow down your progress, especially in a time limited game where energy runs out fast.

Survival of the Fittest

Once you have got some coins, the cubes are where you purchase your items. These are indicated with a display of what they have, either pills or bombs, which are clearly marked. Unlike some of the versions, these are nicely presented and it is easy to spot which is which when in the heat of the action. It is somewhat noticeable though that when a screen is drawn with a lot of detail, the action does slow down as it tries to calculate where Molecule Man is compared to the scenery and ensures you cannot go past the parts you are not allowed to. This can lead to some frustration as the energy runs out just as quickly no matter what screen you are on.

The radiation pills reduce at a significant rate, and a tweak of the gameplay so that they do not reduce as quickly would give you chance to explore more and work out a route instead of having to rush and to try to be pixel perfect, especially as you need to face the cube directly when purchasing pills or bombs. The circuit parts are well hidden in the game too and you do need to progress quite some way to locate the first one – and that can prove to be time consuming whilst you, yet again, die from a lack of radiation pills.

Molecular

The bottom of the display is clear and uncluttered, and shows the status nicely enough. It shows you the number of bombs and radiation pills left on the left-hand side, and the number of coins as well as circuits collected on the right-hand side. The bottom shows the timer remaining, with a ticking sound as this counts down. That may put you off, but at least you know that it is a race against time. There are also some neat touches as some of the background scenery characters have little faces, and the single colour used against a black backdrop does mean no colour clash – but not sure if a hardware sprite was used here anyway, which would have been a sensible option, and maybe provided some more colour.

One other fault worth mentioning is that it seems a single press of the direction moves you one block at a time, and if you are pressing the direction on the joystick or keyboard, it can sometimes be easy to overshoot where you want to stop. It can take some getting used to in order to be able to position yourself correctly, especially when you have to line yourself up for a cube to pick up the all-important radiation pills, and once you do, you will find you can at least progress a little further.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Molecule Man are the same as the Spectrum version, for the most part. Molecule Man himself does have a little animated walk and also seems to have a little wink in the eye during the walk too. The backdrops are well drawn with it clear as to what you can and cannot go past, and does feel less cluttered with it a little easier to spot which paths to take and which are clear. There are just some minimal sound effects for picking up items, purchasing a coin or bomb, or using the bomb to get a little further. There is also a sad sound when Molecule Man dies as the screen shows multiple colours during this point too.

Final Thoughts

Molecule Man in its own right would have the potential to be a good game. Unfortunately, despite having some sensible MSX based enhancements such as using the cursor keys for movement, the main faults of the gameplay still remain. It is far too easy to die very quickly without having to constantly trace your steps, and the need to keep collecting pills means that the game soon becomes tedious rather than the challenging isometric arcade adventure that it could be. Thankfully, Head Over Heels would get a release on MSX, and with other formats, it is the isometric adventure to own. My advice is to save up for that instead.

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