Red Alarm (Virtual Boy)

The Virtual Boy released right around the time that 3D models were starting to become the main focus in video game design, but while home consoles had the strength to display these early 3D games, the Virtual Boy had a bit of an uphill battle. It was not only meant to be a portable console with all the processing components in the headset, but even after other compromises like limiting the visuals to red and black, its graphical strength couldn’t compete. As a result, even Nintendo’s first-party titles often placed 2D characters and objects on limited 3D planes, but Red Alarm found a way to create true 3D models and environments by going back to a trick that helped games like Battlezone leap ahead in representing the third dimension: wireframes. Only drawing the edges of an object to give the impression of its shape and not even coloring in the spaces between those lines allows for an object to minimize its processing footprint, meaning the space shooter Red Alarm might be the only game for the system that truly features 3D objects moving in a 3D space that you can view through the system’s stereoscopic 3D.

Red Alarm takes place in the distant future where humanity created the means to end war but ultimately ended up making a new adversary in the process. The Killer Operating System program was created as a tool of conflict to help during a terrible 70 year long World War, its ability to adapt turning it into the KAOS system that helped finally bring that war to an end. Humanity was so united by the resolution of the conflict they joined together into a Commonwealth of Earth that sought to rid itself of all their weapons, even shutting down KAOS, but KAOS had only pretended to be deactivated, cultivating its own weapons of war before seeking to wipe out humanity in retaliation for trying to turn it off. Only a small fighter craft called a Tech-Wing remained from Earth’s old weaponry, and you as the player end up piloting it to enter KAOS and destroy it from within. If you start the game without reading the manual though, you won’t know any of this, Red Alarm preferring to throw you into the action for six levels of 3D space shooting.

Of immediate and important note are the wireframe visuals, something that at first can take a bit to get used to. All of the environment around you is essentially see-through, this sometimes working to your advantage as you can see enemies behind turns or waiting on the other side of barriers and at other times it can certainly cause confusion if you don’t properly see the outlines that tell you something ahead is solid. Red Alarm can’t make objects at a certain distance visible either meaning enemies and parts of the environment will pop in, but during regular levels this won’t be an issue. When you’re flying through the five regular stages of Red Alarm, you can almost treat it as a rail shooter. Keep flying forward and fighting the dangers in your path and the levels will usually do a good job of indicating coming turns, although when things get a bit more maze-like near the end it can be rough determining which direction to fly.

However, despite the inherent limits of the game’s wireframe look, Red Alarm does set apart its stages and enemies quite well. You can expect a sort of science fiction technological base to match the idea you’re entering the KAOS program of course, but there’s one level that feels like a subterranean cave with pillars of lava while another is a long channel where you can fly through or above water, managing to make both halves of that specific level important because up above bird-like foes will launch homing rockets if left alone while the water is filled with tiny cannons ready to bombard you if ignored. Enemy variety is also well done, some basic foes like walkers reappearing but many stages have distinct foes like large hands with eyes in their palm that will snap shut to protect their weak point. You can actually fly in every direction in Red Alarm, the Tech-Wing Fighter able to reverse, pitch up and down, and turn to the sides, but there isn’t often a strong motivation to go backwards unless you missed a useful item. There are enemies that can exploit you ignoring them though, those hands for example chasing you in a way that could feel unfair if not for the fact you can still technically turn and fight them or simply evade them as you can also increase flight speed if you want to barrel ahead. You do have a limited amount of fuel in a stage, this more of a masked time limit that discourages you from slowing down for such things, but it mostly only comes under pressure if you struggle during mini-boss or boss battles where you are no longer pressing forward and instead need to defeat a large enemy to continue onward.

The Tech-Wing Fighter is definitely not the most maneuverable craft unfortunately, and while this isn’t strained much in the main levels, it definitely appears in the boss fights. Normal levels are often like hallways, guiding you forward as you shoot down enemies in your path along the way to survive. You have a shield that can take ten hits safely before you perish and some enemies can drop shield replenishing pick-ups, but regular baddies are positioned with how you approach them in mind. In the wide open freedom of boss arenas where you and your foes can move in every direction, it can be a bit difficult to even track down the big boss let alone contend with the attack they’re launching. However, the Virtual Boy controller actually has two directional pads, and while one handles normal flight, the other is used for instant dodging. Press up, left, right, or down on the right D-Pad and your craft will instantly zip in that direction, the Tech-Wing still facing forward so you can keep opening fire on your target. This dodge ends up being one of the best elements of Red Alarm, it giving you the ability to rapidly flit around while under fire, and while it can’t make up for your craft’s wide turns, you can at least avoid incoming attacks as you try to hunt down bosses. The dodge is consistently useful and key to actually responding to incoming fire, although boss arena design can still have issues like Stage 5 where the game takes the usual trick of having the boss accompanied by smaller foes and decides to pile a bunch near the entrance where you can’t see them until they’re likely shooting at you from behind. You can change the camera angle between a few different options, but none really seem to address that Stage 5’s boss battle uses a cheap trick to try and kill you and one that is likely to be the tripping point that ends many a Red Alarm run where all six stages must be completed in order and with only a few lives to do so.

Your spacecraft in Red Alarm does have a useful edge when it comes to combat besides its incredible rapid dodging options. Your standard lasers are decently strong front-firing weapons, but you also have an infinite supply of homing missiles that will latch onto most any target. The homing indicator is already a nice tool for helping to indicate where enemies are, ensuring they don’t disappear into the mess of lines that might arise. Enemy shots are often made of wireframes too, sometimes looking like little diamonds or long lasers, but you can differentiate them as well by the lack of lock-on while they can still have enough substance for you to quickly dodge as needed. The homing missiles don’t pack as much of a punch as your lasers, but they can still wipe out smaller foes quickly which means the game isn’t afraid to sometimes fill a room with danger. You can upgrade your missiles to fire more at once, but one thing keeps your weapon mix in check so it’s not overly powerful. You can’t fire lasers and missiles at the same time, the missiles only locking on when you’ve let up on the attack button. After you fire, you can hold down the button for continued lasers, but often it’s fairly smart to keep letting up to get new lock-ons. Homing missiles thus let you hit many more enemies, but the focused fire of your lasers is quicker and deadlier, something very important during bosses who would be far too slow to wear down with only missile salvos. Bosses and mini-bosses don’t often concoct the most creative fights, often the ones that somehow involve them controlling space like firing down a tight hallway do feel more substantial, but many lean on putting out a lot of little enemies or attacks that make them the weaker part of an otherwise solid space shooting experience.

THE VERDICT: Red Alarm’s wireframe graphics can get a little messy at times, but for the most part it handles its 3D movement with smart design and helpful tools like the homing system. Boss battles do struggle due to being too open, but regular levels provide a good amount of interesting enemies to shoot down in this sci-fi shoot ’em up whose dodging system and two weapons carry it well enough through its six varied stages.

And so, I give Red Alarm for Virtual Boy…

An OKAY rating. The game’s weak boss fights definitely tried to show off full 3D movement with their wider and more open arenas but ended up being the roughest part of the game for trying to reach outside of what the designers were capable of. You just can’t see important things from far enough away and the boss battles end up involving a lot of little enemies pestering you from behind as you’re trying to manage your turning as a result, but mini-bosses and a few foes like the final boss actually tap into the smarter approach of actually being stationary targets that require you to focus on your dodging abilities instead of your weak turning. Red Alarm still produces a handful of effective regular stages by not pushing you outside of what it can more effectively pull off in them, the corridors you fly through able to provide a good mix of baddies and environmental concerns with some like the water level feeling rather imaginative to boot. The homing missile is a smart way to make this game work despite some shortcomings but also ends up doing a fair bit of fighting for you, a more maneuverable craft or more conditional homing perhaps the key to making battles feel more involved.

Considering the technical limitations it had working against it, Red Alarm came out pretty alright, even more so when you realize it was a launch title for the system and developed not by Nintendo’s own people who would understand the hardware better. T&E Soft put in a valiant effort to make its idea work despite the Virtual Boy’s limits, but it still had more things like the boss battles it should have tried to figure out before Red Alarm hit the market.