Battletech - In-depth Written Amiga Review With Pics

Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception

Amiga, 1989 (Original DOS 1988)

Infocom/Westwood Associates

$49.95

*My video review for Battletech
*Friend Gaming Jay's playthrough of sequel
*Large world map created by me
*Next article
*Previous article
*Alphabetical list of writings
*This game best played in NTSC mode with 4:3 aspect ratio (USA Game)

There was something about Battletech that really sucked me in as a kid. It's a licensed game, but I knew nothing of the Battletech universe at the time, nor have I learned much since. My father was a big fantasy and science fiction reader, so perhaps he was already a fan when he got this game. Thinking back on my early impressions from back in the day, I think I just liked the absolute freedom of the whole thing; the non-linear nature. And of course playing in those awesome futuristic 'Mechs. 

Battletech is amongst the rare science fiction RPGs. Computer nerds often perceive themselves as having more in common with the (possible) future than they do with the past. So why does it seem to be a rule that role playing games of all sorts are confined to a medieval/fantasy realm? It was only on rare occasions that an RPG would venture into science fiction elements, but when they did I tended to remember their stories quite fondly.

^We start the game as the "unskilled" Jason, dabble in the stock market and explore the Citadel

This was actually the first RPG I ever really put any time into on my own. Of course I had already been watching my father play them, and I had tinkered with Might and Magic II, as well as Death Knights of Krynn myself. But it would be several more years before I really knew what I was doing with those games. Battletech managed to impart on a kid the freedom of non-linear gameplay in a slow and methodical manner that sucked me into the greatness of this genre and had me spending a great amount of time with the game. Most Western RPGs would throw you into the world with little in-game introduction and let you have at it. Little stopped you from walking where you had no business being and getting yourself slaughtered in the first five minutes of the game. 

It could have easily had the effect of turning off those who had no experience with these types of games. Despite being a top selling category of games for a long time in the computer world, western RPGs are not only overlooked these days, many "fans" of the genre know only the Japanese style of role playing games which came to the consoles. I tend to enjoy many JRPGs, but often feel perplexed and sorry for the fans of that style who show no interest in the original western style. Perhaps Battletech would be a perfect game for those just now giving RPGs a chance. I can certainly vouch for that thought, as my love for this game as a kid I find pivotal to my love for other RPGs.

^Have you studied for your test? Training to become a Mechwarrior!

Battletech does start you off like most other CRPGs in having no introduction to start (though the manual is rich and recommended). You're free to wander around town and enter various buildings to talk to others, but the town itself is walled off from departure at this stage. The beginning of the game acts like a tutorial and in-game is presented as the student training. As a kid this gave me the freedom of exploring the large city, reading what others had to say (thus understanding who I was in-game), but not having to experience the frustration of dying a million times before I could understand how the game operated. While it may be a linear start to help those unfamiliar with the genre, I feel for the experienced players it is but a simple and enjoyable detour to the same road most CRPGs ride on.
^Disturbing dreams, more training

All of your training missions start with a "test" in naming various 'mech parts. It's a clever in-game copy protection method that forces you to look at the manual if you want to do anything more than talk to people in town. Forced to glance at the manual, I couldn't help but read a little more of it from time to time. It helped needing to look at it so much, for little me could only master games with trial and error, maybe some reflexes, but not brains. I spent quite a bit of time in the first section "Citadel" area, reading quite a bit from the rich and detailed manual. I failed the training missions over and over again... Until I didn't. 

It felt great as a kid slowly learning the game by failing, but not getting a game over because of it. It was not uncommon for other games to boot you out of the game entirely when you died, requiring a complete restart. But because of the games guise of training in the beginning, you're simply encouraged to do better on your next try. I would actually recommend people intentionally fail every mission at least once, as some of your characters stats can only be improved in the limited amount of training missions available. Unfortunately you're not exactly rewarded for being good at the game at this juncture. It does make for needed extra time if you're wanting to maximize your current economic situation, however. 
^Don't neglect other forms of education and think about arming yourself, this requires cash

Several towns in this world contain a "Comstar Station", a stock market exchange. At seemingly random intervals during your training you will receive a small allowance. It will likely never amount to enough to purchase anything but the most basic equipment, unless you try your hand at the market. There are three stocks available to choose from, each with their pros and cons. I find Defiance Industries to be the most stable stock, seemingly always going up in value, although not by much. Nashsan Diversified is a medium risk, medium gain stock. When it's doing well it should continue to do well for awhile, but does have the chance of losing quite a bit on its down turns. Baker Pharmaceuticals provides the biggest risk and gain. You can double your money, you can lose it all. Save scumming would be the only way to take advantage of this stock. 

With money gained from the market you'll find several things to spend it on. The most useful things to buy at this point in the game is more advanced education provided in several locations. Train in the use of arms or apprentice at the Mechit-Lube. You can also buy some better weapons or armor if you can afford them,  but there is no hand to hand combat until your training comes to an end. It's not an absolute must to mingle in the market, as you will later make money through combat with people and 'Mechs. While much slower to wealth than stock market trading, I have certainly used the combat only method in the past to (eventual) success.
^Our home destroyed, we are now on our own

After you've completed around seven missions or so, there will be a random chance for your next mission to contain a big event. You may wish to reload at this point if Jason's skills are not yet excellent in gunnery and piloting, for this will be your last chance at mastering those skills. When this mission occurs Jason will remark on how something doesn't seem right here, and eventually figures out that the Citadel is being attacked. With no chance of stopping the event yourself, the complex will be destroyed, and most likely your 'Mech along with it.

It was quite a crushing blow as a kid playing and having my home here completely destroyed. We're now alone, on foot, in a mighty large world. During the story you'll read remarks about the Star Port, and if you had the manual on hand you'd have a map with the rough location of the Star Port on it. But this is the point when the game enters true non-linear territory. You can use the clues to head to the Star Port and consult your map, or you can wander around the entire world where you can first visit other towns before eventually running into the Star Port on your own. 

^The Star Port, a friend, on foot combat

The Star Port is the largest city in the game, and there's much to do and buy here. With enough money, you may wish to buy an upgraded terrain mapper, which will fill in a wider area of your automap, buy a medical kit, further train in various skills, or upgrade your 'Mech (when you get one). While you're safe from enemy 'Mech's here, the area can be extraordinarily dangerous with many random encounters on foot. So if you haven't armed and armored yourself already, you'll need to do so now. Money can be made here from combat with enemies, the stock market, or a match in the combat arena. You can use your own 'Mech or rent one for a fee.
^The large world map I stitched together (download)

Exploring the Star Port you'll come across a gathering of Kuritans, where you'll meet one of your father's friends. You'll learn it is your mission to gather as many of the Crescent Hawks as you can, attempt to find out what happened to your father, find a large 'Mech cache, and get off the planet. Finding the Crescent Hawks will take up the bulk of the game. They are scattered about in random locations across the world, so you'll be needing to explore quite heavily. The game world of Battletech is massive. I stitched together a single picture map made up of over 30 pictures myself. It's big. Most of the world is full of nothingness, forests, trees, perhaps even some nuclear fallout based on some red terrain that I've never quite figured out. 

It's important that you pace yourself when exploring this games massive world. It could very well get quite annoying when you're trying to fill out the games automap only to be continually interrupted by combat. I've pondered it before with the Gold Box games; Anyone that thinks there's too much random combat in those games, those people are simply not mapping the game. Those games are designed thinking that you're going to be hand mapping them. If you're penciling in where you're moving to on the map, then the random encounters are not going to bother you as much as when you're looking off to the side and you know exactly where you need to go. That's when it all starts to tick you off. That's when games start to feel a bit too short.

So don't rush the game. Don't cheat and look up a completed map so you know exactly where those towns are at. You might think it would be less frustrating to head straight for the city, but you couldn't be more incorrect. Fill out that auto map in small sections. Eventually you will come across a town. See if it offers anything unique, see if anyone is hiding out there, fix up your Mechs, and then save the game and quit. Pick it up again later. Rinse and repeat. Doing it like this causes less frustration, not more.

^Our very own 'Mech, betrayal, meeting a new party member, excellent story

It's the story in this one that really grabs you. It stuck with me as a kid and has never left me since. It was published by the text adventure masters, Infocom. It was actually designed by Westwood Associates, legendary in their own rights, but not quite at the time. I always take note of the companies publishing VS designing, but I always look at it as a joint effort. It bothers me when people dismiss one or the other. Some people only care about who publishes a game, others only care about who designed it, they both matter. Nobody is going to tell me Infocom did not have a hand in this game. In the end it is the publisher that puts the seal of approval on it all, getting the game out there. Some publishers might care more, some might care less, all of them are responsible for the games they decide to publish.

^Story designed to get your heart pumping

This games story has Infocom written all over it. This is a role playing game that is written like a text adventure. As with most CRPGs, the story only comes at certain points, but there are more of those points, it's very well written, and there's always quite a bit to read. With a Mech in hand, and perhaps a few more members, we can make our way back to our fallen home. In the barracks of the Citadel lies a disk player, with a message from our father. If we're reading this, he says he must be dead. At one point going to a jail to breakout a Crescent Hawk, another guy we took along for this journey turns out to be a double agent. He kills us all. Hope you saved! We might break into the house of a small town mayor, only to have him come home while we're there! That scene had my heart beating as a kid, and it even managed to elevate it coming back to it now.

^Pimping our rides, a flurry of 'Mechs, returning home

You'll be experiencing a lot of combat in this game. While it can generally be fled from at a high rate if you're not in the mood to fight, you will experience your fair share of combat. At times it can be quite enjoyable. In terms of the entire history of RPGs, this game deserves mention amongst the best combat systems. The rules of Battletech were implemented well, in a heavily tactical way. Most RPGs have never cared about positioning, favoring a simple roll of the dice whenever you hit the attack button. Finally terrain in an RPG has true benefits or consequences. Being out in the open will cause considerable more damage to your 'Mech. You might want to hide in the forest, but your movement will be slowed down tremendously there.

This would be a good time to use your 'Mech's jump jets, if equipped. You and your enemies have many separate sections that can get damaged. An entire arm might be blown away, any guns attached along with it. The use of lasers along with a lot of movement might cause your 'Mech to overheat and temporarily shut down for a turn, precious time taken away from fighting the enemy. If you happen to see a nearby water source, hop on in, it'll cool your 'Mech down. When combat has concluded, there is a chance you can salvage an attacking 'Mech and put it to use on your side. At various locations in the world you can perform various upgrades to your 'Mech arsenal, adding guns or armor. Each weapon can be targeted on any enemy target you'd like, causing you to develop strategies for your particular situation.

Is the system perfect? No. There are several different model 'Mechs, but there are really only two looks to all of them. There's a lot of random encounters, both in your 'Mechs as well as on foot. While the combat system is put together in a great way, it's still repetitive. Other RPGs could get quite repetitive themselves,but at least they had a wealth of monsters with different abilities and graphics. In Battletech you're just dealing with the Locusts, Wasps, and Stingers for the most part. There are no named enemies or boss battles, no truly unique battles in the entire game. So again the key is pacing. Engage in combat when you're feeling a change of pace, flee if it's starting to get on your nerves. Once you find one of the world's towns, have fun seeing what you can find there, but that would be a great time to save and come back to it all later so that the gameplay will remain enjoyable. ^Meeting a crazy old inventor, entering the cache

I ended up coming to a great realization with this game near its end. The first section of the game you're a kid in school, training. Then your kicked into the real world in a big way. It's a massive place where not everybody likes you. Putting together a team of friends, you then figure out your purpose. You find the hidden cache, but it's not over yet. You're going to be spending a whole lot of time in the final section of the game. On foot you are now in a massive maze, locked doors everywhere. Each locked door needs a correct keycode for the colors red, green, and blue. You get those codes by going to the many computers scattered about the maze.

We are now in a puzzle game, seeing a bit more of that adventure element in this final section. There are many doors to get through, along with a few objectives. We have to turn on the power for the transmitter, find the cache of parts, and figure out the password to activate the transmitter. Doing these things require opening up more and more doors which require going back and forth from many different computers to get those keycodes. 

^Opening doors, turning on systems, finding clues

I ended up coming back to the game in my emulation days, the early 2000's, complete with a walkthrough in my hand. I ended up hating the final section of the game at the time. Looking into other's opinions online, there were many others who agreed with that. Even if they had liked the game, they were not necessarily fond of the final area here. Having just beaten the game for the first time with no walkthrough, I've utterly changed my mind about this final area.

Due to the nature of the final sections door opening mechanics, it honestly makes for awful walkthrough reading. You need 3 cards for every door, so the walkthrough might be telling you to go to the southwest area where you previously had found yellow card #20, or something similar. Watching a video playthrough is not going to make it any easier for you. In the video they go here, and then all the way back to that other corner of the map, only to go to the middle at that point, and then back to that other door. No matter what this area is going to require some short term memorization on your part, even if you're following a walkthrough. Following a walkthrough you're also extremely tempted to do everything in one go. This is not a simple scene at the end of a game, this is an entire section/act of the game. Completing an area like this in one big session by using a walkthrough, just so you can get to the ending as quickly as possible is going to cause you frustration.

Ignore the temptation and do it all yourself. Knowing that you are all you've got to figure this game out will cause you tackle the game differently. This section is all trial and error. It's you running from one area to the next and then back to a door, only to find out you're still missing one or two of the cards you need. The solution is to only open one or two doors at a time, then come back to it later. As you slowly get those doors open, the computers you used before will no longer be needed (it tells you), some new ones might be accessible, but you start to get a feel for which computers probably have the codes you're looking for, and you'll feel accomplished. I finished the game completely on my own, and I have new found respect for that final area. It now feels like a change the game needed at that point. Going from town to town, searching for members to join our band, good combat but not a wealth of variety there... Here necessitates a complete change in the games style and our thinking along with it. Don't cheat. You just end up cheating yourself from a great experience, and much worse you end up cheating the game from a good reputation. 

^Activating the HyperPulse Generator, finishing the game

I never got to the end as a kid. I found where the secret cache area was, but I couldn't figure out how to get inside of it. The game wouldn't let me go in, despite having gone everywhere I could go, and having seen everyone I could see. I think the problem was that I had never trained up my characters to their max skill sets, which you can only do by attending seminars in the towns. You've got to have someone with the highest skill in medicine and tech in order to get a cranky old inventor to give you the time of day. But I was so close to finishing it all when I was quite young. It gives me a great smile to think of how far I got in a game that was so enjoyable to me back then. 

Does a kid nearly getting to the end of a CRPG at a young age make the game easy? I don't think anyone feeling that knows the kind of games I was able to beat back then. They didn't call them "NES Hard" for no reason. You need only inspire a kid with a game he enjoys playing to give him the determination to go as far as he absolutely can. I'll never forget the times I spent wandering around this incredibly vast world as a kid. Fighting futuristic machines was incredibly fun, and a lot of the story had my heart pounding. I would place it on the easier end of CRPGs, but any CRPG is much harder than a JRPG as well as many other genres. I didn't even need to finish it as a kid for it to have stuck with me. If you're a CRPG vet, I think you'll get a lot of charm out of this one, even if you do find it easy and finish it quick. Who cares if it's short? It'll be the perfect amount of short then. If you've never played a CRPG in your life? Ya know, this could very well be a fantastic game to wet your appetite with. Battletech is a game I heartily recommend. 

I hope everyone will check out My video review for Battletech; As is often the case, while I'm still reviewing the game either in the written or video form, I often choose to come at it from different angles for each one. They are both completely unique to each other, tremendous amounts of time go into each one. In the video you'll be seeing many things you didn't see here, like me reading through several pages of the manual, and looking at several reviews from when the game was new.

It was the first game to show that you could put the Battletech universe into a video game. It spawned a direct, although quite different sequel. These games paved the way for the very well known Mechwarrior franchise to come later. But those games are mostly about pure first person combat. Fun in their own right, but seriously lacking in story, which the original two games had in abundance. If you're wanting a look at the sequel, my Friend Gaming Jay has a complete playthrough of it you might want to take a look at. He loves that game just as much as I love this one.

Other RPGs I've written about:

Pool of Radiance

Eye of the Beholder

Might and Magic III (video review only)

*Next article
*Previous article
*Alphabetical list of writings