Spinmaster

Coming out three years into the Neo-Geo's life, Spinmaster was Data East's first crack at a game on the hardware. Not straying too far from their roots, Data East played it a little safe for this first outing with a game that plays and looks a lot like their arcade and home hit Joe & Mac. Spinmaster is also one of a handful of side-scrolling action platfomers on the Neo-Geo, but the heavy emphasis on fast combat over precision platforming sets this game apart from the rest of the pack. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to call this a platform action game because of so much focus on combat. Only SNK's Top Hunter, which came out later in 1994, is similar in set up, tempo, and mechanics. Spinmaster was well received by critics of the day, and even in retrospective reviews, despite its very, very short run-time. Sales data is sparse, but one can assume it didn't fair all that well in the arcade as there were no home ports. Lost to obscurity for well over a decade, Spinmaster didn't see a proper console release until 2010 on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console platform.

I need to get this out of the way; I hate the art direction in Spinmaster. These are some of the ugliest drawn character sprites I've ever seen. Despite that, I'm not docking any points for this from the review as the graphics are detailed and colorful, and the world moves with a surprising amount of animation for a sub 100meg Neo-Geo game. Actually, the huge variation in locals and general detail around the world give this game a much needed jolt of cartoon-like visuals that was lacking at the time in the Neo-Geo's library. It's not an ugly game at all, and follows suit with Data East's other platformers like Joe & Mac, but the odd looking character sprites may take some getting used to. 

The general premise of Spinmaster is to save your girl from the Mad Doctor (who has appeared in several other Data East games) while collecting pieces of a map in order to find the ultimate treasure! It's simple arcade fare, but it gets the job done. There are short cut scenes after each level that include a quip of dialog and shows you the piece of the treasure map you just collected. Cut scenes are well designed, and the pixel art on display is just as impressive as the sprite work in the moment to moment gameplay - so long as you can get passed the oddly shaped heads and eyes on the characters. 

As I stated in the introduction, I'm hesitant to call this game a platformer. Sure, there are platforms to jump on, but the focus is not on precision platforming but rather on combat. Spinmaster feels more like Konami's SunsetRiders or SNK's Top Hunter than ADK's Blue's Journey or Magician Lord. This is a side-scrolling, linear beat-em-up with platform elements. Rather than provide the player an intricate obstacle course to overcome, platforms are generally used in the gameworld to give some verticality to the environments. The challenge really only comes in the amount of enemies on screen and the tactics you employ to defeat them. Thankfully, the characters have plenty of ways to overcome the waves of baddies.

Gameplay is simple, but it gives you just enough options so you never feel overwhelmed when things get hairy. The A button fires your weapon, B jumps, and C throws your weapon's (limited) screen clearing attack. You can also aim your weapon in the four cardinal directions, which helps to deal with the verticality I was talking about in the stage design. 

There is no shortage of unique and interesting ways to plough through foes. In addition to being able to bounce on the heads of your enemies, you have a bevy of weapon choices throughout your adventure. Your default weapon is a yo-yo, but you can also pick up ninja stars, a punching glove, fire bombs, regular bombs, and ice crystals as they are dropped by defeated enemies. Bomb style weapons are thrown at an arch, while projectile weapons move linearly. Each weapon type has a special attack you can unleash by holding A for a brief moment to charge up the move. The yo-yo's special attack, for example, spins the weapon around your character for a brief moment hitting all enemies in front of, above, behind, and below your sprite. Additionally, your limited screen clearing attack is also unique to each weapon. In the case of the yo-yo, three rings of yo-yos appear around your character and spin outward across the screen, destroying everything in their path. These screen clearing bombs do massive damage to bosses too, making short work of them if you have a full stock. 

There are a few other items drops, like B icons that refill a stock of your screen clearing attack and the occasional life drop. For each of your three lives per credit, you have three hit points. Enemy sprites have a hurt-box, which means that just touching an enemy will cause damage. 

For an arcade game from the early 90's, Spinmaster is entirely too easy. If you're adept at action games from this era, you should be able to beat the game your first time through in less than six credits. If you're playing with a friend, then you'll blaze through the game in less than 20 minutes. Even on hard difficulty, Spinmaster is one of the least challenging games on the Neo-Geo. Each of the five stages has 2-3 acts to play through, but each act takes less than 5 minutes to complete. Every stage has an end boss with easy to telegraph attack patterns, and if you have a full bomb stock you can make quick work of every boss encounter. 

The end of the game is...random; literally. Once you beat the final boss you get to choose from three different paths to uncover the ultimate treasure. If you choose the correct path you will get the good ending, but choosing the wrong path will end with a comical but less than rewarding climax for your adventure. This little mechanic adds some replayability to the short game, and encourages you to jump back in and beat your best time.

Music and sound effects are...fine. It's nothing mind blowing and you won't be listening to the soundtrack outside of the game. What's there is designed to move the game forward and keep you engaged, and it does a decent job at that. Just don't go in expecting what was coming out of SNK proper at the time.

Spinmaster is a huge amount of fun despite the weird character sprites, super short length, and lack of difficulty. It is a great time with a friend, and players not accustom to the difficulty of most arcade games of this era will enjoy their romp through the colorful stages. It's a quirky, weird, but enjoyable game that fits well in the Data East mold. 

The biggest drawback I can really throw at the game is that due to the short length and lack of difficulty, it is hard to recommend given its price in the current second-hand market. A complete Japanese copy (called Miracle Adventure) sells for $700 or more, while a US release will run you a cool $1000 or so. Oddly enough, the game did not receive a Neo CD release, so your only other Neo-Geo option is on MVS. While it runs less than the AES release, expect to pay a bit more than more common releases on that platform. There are not a lot of great ways to play this game in the modern era either. SNK does not own the rights to Data East Neo-Geo games, so your best bet is emulation at this point. The Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) has a similar game called Dashing Desperados that uses similar sprites but changes up the structure of the game quite a bit.

If you're an aspiring AES collector, Spinmaster is a hard recommendation due to the price and the amount of play you'll get out of it. While I think this is one of the best side-scrolling games on the Neo-Geo, you'd be better off getting a copy of Magician Lord well before this one. At the same time, you should source Spinmaster before Top Hunter or Blue's Journey. They are each good games, but not nearly as polished as this Data East darling. If you're a die-hard Data East fan (I know you exist), Spinmaster is a no-brainer purchase and you'll love every second of it.