Super Air Zonk: Rockabilly Paradise (TurboDuo) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of TTI's 1993 shoot 'em up for the TurboDuo, Super Air Zonk: Rockabilly Paradise.
Played through on the "hardness normal" setting. Whatever that might mean.
Air Zonk came at the tail-end of the Turbo's viable shelf-life in America, but it was an amazing shooter that make one helluva show of the machine's abilities. Developer Red/Naxat (known for Bonk, the Summer Carnival series, the Crush pinball games, Spriggan, Tengai Makyou and tons more) took their attitude-laden 90s mascot, added sunglasses, weaponized nipples, and a few important tweaks to the standard shooter formula, and drew everything together to create one of the best shmups of the 16-bit era, however unnoticed it went by everyone.
(By the way, as much as I loved GamePro magazine, I still resent their critcism of Air Zonk - especially of its soundtrack. Just thought I'd mention that.)
Super Air Zonk: Rockabilly Paradise is the sole follow-up to one of the Turbo's best shooters, and I remember holding incredibly high expectations for it.
Oops.
This Super CD2-based sequel was shorter, easier, and far less notable that its brilliant forebearer. Too bad development duties were handed off elsewhere - bringing in new blood didn't do Super Air Zonk any favors.
Super Air Zonk lost a fair amount in the localization, too - the game, like so many other Turbo games, had the bare minimum translated to make it playable. The rest of the content, like multiple vocal tracks, was outright axed as a result.
Beyond that, the game feels hollow compared to the original. You no longer get to choose your partner for each stage, the enemies and bosses are largely forgettable, the music (though fairly good) feels hugely uninspired compared to the unbelievable chiptunes in the first game, and there's very little challenge to be found throughout. It follows the basic template set by Air Zonk, but it strips it back so far that it no longer feels like the same game.
Though there are a few standouts (like the bird fan), most of sprites are lacking any real personality. Lots of robotic stuff still shoots stuff at you, but none of it is very interesting. Neither are your companions. I admit that I loved the poo bombs, and the enka-singing Elvis impersonator, but most of your buddies are worth little more than a bit of added bit of firepower. The boss with literal shit-for-brains was also pretty hysterical. I just wish that there were a few more memorable moments - most of it is pretty dull.
The quality of the graphics is also a significant come down from Air Zonk. Where did all the parallax scrolling go? How about the clever background animations?
After the sheer brilliance of the first game, this one is leaves me feeling like something big was missing. Whereas Air Zonk is one of my all time favorite games, I can't bring myself to really enjoy this one at all, and that sucks.
It might be one of the most absurdly expensive US releases for the system, but don't sweat it too much. You aren't missing too much.
If you'd like to see my recording of Air Zonk, you can find it here: • Air Zonk (TurboGrafx-1...
*This video is a replacement of my original 240p recording. Make sure to watch it at 60fps!
Recorded from the Wii Virtual Console version.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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