Granada on Genesis: A different kind of shooter

The Genesis was an amazing system that for a time, appeared to be the system of the future until the SNES was released and basically blew it out of the water on most fronts. One thing that the Sega Genesis was able to do better than Nintendo was one particular genre: Shooters.

I don't know the hardware reasoning behind this but for some reason or another, the machienery involved in a Genesis was more akin to amazing shooters and that is precisely what the Genesis is best remembered for. Most of these games involved some level of spaceship and you would expect and the side-scrolling and vertical scrolling ones are the most widely referred to games. There were a few games that were considered very different though, and Grenada was one of those games that broke the mold of gaming. In many ways I thought it was (and it) very inventive, especially considering the time-period.

Grenada puts you in charge of a very impractical and fast moving tank of sorts with a not-so-wide range of weaponry. The lack of upgrades doesn't really change how much fun this game was because unlike basically every other shooter at the time, this one had an innovative level design in that the path you take to victory wasn't completely linear.

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The maps for each of the 8 levels were very large (considering it was 30 years ago) and while you had a certain number of objectives per level that you had to overcome, it was largely left up to you how you would handle each of the levels. One of the many benefits of this approach was that this game had wonderful replay value.

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Someone went to great lengths to compile this map since it doesn't appear anywhere in the game but you can get an idea about how huge the levels were. That spot in the bottom right is the "boss" of the level. As you can see it would appear as though you can just rush straight to him but there are a series of doors that can only be opened by defeating the other areas on the level. This gaming mechanism is used on almost all of the levels and I found it fun because it was up to you what order you were going to approach them in, which was rare in a shooter in the 90's.

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I wouldn't say that any of this game was particularly difficult, especially since your tank could take multiple hits via the shield before you were destroyed. Some of the more ridiculous levels involved you driving your tank on the back of a giant aircraft of sorts and you had to destroy all of the engines before the boss would appear. It is not mentioned how you got on the plane, or how it is that you survived when I presume the plane crashed after all the engines were destroyed. Whatever, it was the 90's realism wasn't really a factor.

This guy does a good walkthrough and commentary of the game but if he is actually playing I gotta say, he is pretty terrible at it.

Unlike a lot of the titles that I talk about on here, this game is very worth revisiting although you may wish to turn the sound off because it is extremely "tinny" and dare I say, annoying. The ROM is available a number of places but here is one of them

Grenada is considered one the "50 most underappreciated Genesis games." Despite all this praise and relatively good sales the producers never even attempted a follow up, which is a shame.