Desert Breaker is a 1992 overhead Run-and-Gun arcade shooter made by Sega, and the company's equivalent to Commando (Capcom).
Set in the futuristic year of 2012, high-tech machinery have been developed and made available in the battlefield. A terrorist group of unknown origin managed to get their hands on the latest batch of millitary technology and are mass-producing it in their base, and it's up to you to stop them.
The game allows up to three players at once, as well as a special "Side-Step" move which helps you instantly dodge projectile attacks, useful for getting yourself out of a fix when caught in a literal maze of enemy attacks (which will happen - a lot).
Round 1: Break Through into Enemy Territory Beyond the Border:
- Acid Attack: The Acid launcher, which turn enemy mooks into human-shaped piles of blue gelatine before melting into a puddle.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Basically the game's side-step feature, which breaks you out of any Bullet Hell situation. Go on, name another Run-and-Gun action game that grants you this option if you can...
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: The game's transcript seems to have some... problems."This operation is confidential. There Force only one cover bombing per zone if allowed. Carefully choose it. Over."
- Close-Range Combatant:
- In the first stage, you can hijack an enemy Chicken Walker-type mech whose sole attack turns out to be... a dinky, borderline worthless Battering Ram that covers roughly five steps forward, in a single direction. Hardcore Gaming 101 actually considers it a Power Up Letdown note and advises players against collecting it, unless they're simply curious and testing out the game's mechanics.
- Some enemy mooks solely uses machete and knives as their attacks, even with the availability of firearms.
- Continuous Decompression: The level with you raiding the enemy's transport plane have you blowing up the plane's back hatch to force your way in, followed by plenty of enemy soldiers and Hamachidoris inside the transport getting sucked out the hole you just made to their dooms. You can take potshots at enemies, but most of the time you'll be trying to enter without colliding with stuff dropping out.
- Convenient Escape Boat: While infiltrating the terrorist riverside base, you conveniently find a few weaponized patrol boats docked on the waterfront, which you immediately hijack. Cue the river chase portion of the game.
- Damage Sponge: Most of the bosses have entire layers of healthbars, but the Koumaru hovercraft boss in the desert takes the cake. You'll need to penetrate it's external shell (both the left and right side), and then it's central cannon, and then the turrets on the left and right, each of them with their own health bars, before you can target it's center. While the hovercraft's attacks are mostly standard and can be avoided thanks to your Flash Step, you're still in for one tedious fight.
- Dangerously Loaded Cargo: One of the stages sees you infiltrating an enemy bomber plane by blowing up a hatch, and the interiors subjected to Continuous Decompression, where the poorly-secured cargo starts sliding out. You spend most of the stage avoiding falling crates, containers, and occasionally falling mooks and hamachidoris while making your way to the plane's front.
- David Versus Goliath: Like every good arcade action games out there, you'll be battling humungous enemy vehicles while on foot. Taking on tanks and helicopters are one thing, but fighting a military plane about to take off by running alongside it on an airstrip, destroying all it's side defenses, and climbing atop it's wings to take the whole plane down really pushes this trope to it's limits...
- Fire-Breathing Weapon:
- The flamethrower weapon can incinerate enemy soldiers and turn entire rows of mooks into a Man on Fire with ease.
- The Enchidori, red flamethrower tanks that can deal larger damage on you when scoring a hit.
- Flash Step: One distinctive feature which makes this game stand out from other arcade Run-and-Gun(s), where there's a button that allows you to side-step across within an instant to dodge projectiles. You're granted a moment of Mercy Invincibility while sliding for good measure and damage any enemies in your way.
- Mirror Boss: The second stage's mercenary boss is practically a clone of your player character, albeit one clad entirely in black. Your sprite sizes are rougly the same, and the mercenary uses a Spread Shot not unlike yours besides having a similar Flash Step to dodge your bullets.
- More Dakka: Getting upgrades to your weapons will increase it's firing speed and expand their range, especially evident with the Spread Shot. Which allows you to kill more enemies.
- Outside Ride: The stage where you infiltrate the enemy's transport plane have a section where you fend off mooks while on the plane's wings. You'll lose a life if you fall, obviously.
- Rope Bridge: Early in the second stage, you cross a rope bridge over a ravine with a river below, only for an helicopter to destroy the bridge and send you falling. You suffer no penalty though, thanks to Soft Water.
- Smart Bomb: A power-up you can use for inflicting damage on all enemies within a radius around yourself, it's size and impact depending on the medals you've collected.
- Soft Water: Twice in the second stage have your character going through steep falls down two different ravines, some hundred of meters deep... only to land in water. You then get back upon your feet and continues kicking ass, as if nothing else happened.
- Spider Tank: The Hamachidori, a four-legged spiderlike vehicle constantly deployed by the enemy forces, with three extendable barbs on their front that deals quite some damage.
- Spread Shot: The Spread Machine-gun turns your bullets green and expands it into an arc of at least five bullets each shot. And can be continuously upgraded to eight, and then a dozen, until you're unleashing a nonstop Bullet Hell on the enemy forces.
- Sentry Gun: Turret guns are a recurring installation in the terrorist base, firing at you from a fixed position.
- Tank Goodness: Tanks are a recurring enemy, serving as Giant Mook foes which can absorb plenty of hits before going down. They appear mostly one at a time, flanked by lower-level mooks, though the third stage have you facing two simultaneously.
- Zerg Rush: The lowest-tier enemy mooks will attempt overwhelming you through numbers. It usually doesn't work.
