Life Force is confusing. Not the game itself, but the origin of this weird mini-spin-off from the Gradius series. Actually, it's a refinement of Salamander which is a spin-off from Gradius and generated quite a few ports. Each port is seemingly designed and built different from all the others; each port subtly different from each other in everything from strategy to powerups. I might do a comprehensive Life Force/Salamander/Gradius article one of these days, but for now I want to focus on a specific version of Life Force, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) version.
Why single this port out? Well to be honest, because it was the one I grew up playing. I'm only going to touch on the Famicom version because it's a bit different than it's American sibling in certain subtle ways. Still, I think it's important to understand where Life Force for the NES came from using some very broad strokes.
As mentioned before, Life Force is a spin-off from the Gradius series -- which first found life as a 1985 Arcade release. Some credit Gradius as a refinement to a 1981 release called Scramble which I don't personally buy except that both games came from the same company so yeah, I'm sure there's some influence.
The original Gradius is an interesting game, a bit rough around the edges, but sets the groundwork for the rest of the series (and all of the spin-offs over the years) with a pretty specific set of immediately recognizable power ups (speed, ripple lasers, ghost "options", etc.) and a unique system for earning those powerups. You play through a short stage where you have both a chance to earn powerups as well as get softened up a bit before facing a recurring boss. An entire play through takes under 15 minutes if you can handle the brutal difficulty.
Key to the Gradius experience is a clever powerup system. Along the bottom of the screen is a "Power meter" that functions a bit like a real-time in-game store. As you play, certain enemies or collections of enemies drop a powerup token. Each token you collect advances the bar one step. When it lands on a power up you want, you hit the power up button to "buy" it.
It's a unique and elegant system that gives the series a surprising amount of strategy. Do I hold onto my tokens to buy a better powerup or get something I can use now? It also makes dying absolutely devastating until you can buy your way back to power. But before long you're filling the screen with death and it's so satisfying.
A year later, when Salamander hit the Arcades in Japan, Konami tossed the power meter for direct item pickup and added alternating horizontal and vertical levels and more variety to the game (echoed later in Axelay). In addition, they polished the formula, tightenedd up the gameplay and level design and gave it a more consistent theme musically and added more bosses. It seemed a great sequel to Gradius in every way. After some tweaks, Life Force hit the arcades in the West, then tweaked a bit more hit the Arcades in Japan (again?) then finally started getting ported everywhere. The pollination between the games was very tight at this point and was ripe to give birth to the NES classic. Yet, something just didn't seem quite right.
At the time, replicating the arcade experience at home was the mantra, and several other ports of Life Force tried their darnedest to keep the experience intact. However, for the NES port, Konami made an interesting decision. Make a home console port themed around Salamander/Life Force, with options, alternating horizontal and vertical levels awesome music and all that, but deviate from the strict Life Force experience and give it the strategy of the power meter. This combination clicked.
These changes turned the 15 minute arcade game into a 30 minute home game with lots of strategy, replayability and challenge. Toss in two-player support and you've just made a hit.
In fact, the two player aspect of the home game are some of the best parts. Levels are cleverly crafted to work well as both a single player game, with choices as to where to fight, and a two player game, with loads of separate play areas to fight and power up in. In addition, levels are also full of incredible variety. Where most shmups might use a single background per level, Life Force casts your ship through open space, narrow corridors, blasting through regenerating barriers dodging giant fangs and more. Finally, levels are longer than Gradius' too short design, but never exhaust the player or bore them. Life Force hits the perfect ratios of level length/power ups/boss fights. It's almost impossible that this is an 8-bit game, and then it's almost impossible that this is a fairly early NES game. It's no doubt due to the visionary direction of Shigeharu Umezaki -- who was also responsible for the NES/Famicom version of Contra, the Castlevania series and Blades of Steel.
To give you an idea how great the music in Life Force is, I think it's useful to look at what it turns into when freed from the constraints of the NES's restrictive sound system.
As sublime piano music
As rock anthem guitars
Or explosive metal
Or my favorite, a fully realized dramatic movie theme
There's hundreds of remixes of the music, testament to the quality of the ideas Ms. Higashino put into her work. It's not her magnum opus, but it's video game music of the highest possible quality.
Even after all these years, Life Force still plays like an incredibly modern game. A modern player would feel at home, with it's mature power-up system, great music and reasonable challenge. It's not one of those bullet hell shooters all the kids play these days, but there's nothing here a modern player wouldn't "get". No awkward design choices that flag it as a primitive experiment in game design. Life Force, it's a game that wants to be played, do it.
