Seicross ・ セクロス
Developed by: Nichibutsu
Published by: Nichibutsu (JP), FCI (NA)
Released in: JP (1986), NA (1988)
The plot of Seicross is a simple one: the Petras (the blue bean-shaped boobah looking guys seen above) and the Basrah (scooter grandmas) are at all-out war. The Petras are peace loving pacifists, and get curb stomped so hard that they all go into hiding at the first sign of trouble. The ones that didn’t flee are captured as P.O.W.’s – and this is where YOU come in! The game’s manual can’t seem to decide whether or not it’s the player character or the bike he rides that’s called “Gilgitt Petras”, but either way it’s one of the worst names in recorded history, and he’s the guy that the player needs to guide to absolute victory. Or to save the prisoners. Or something. Either way, the flyer for the arcade version boldly claims that this is all “based on a TRUE STORY! … It really happened in the year 2342!” so it was considerate of them to give us a few centuries to prepare for all of this geriatric space madness.
Seicross is a horizontal shoot ’em up with a few tricks up its sleeve. The aforementioned granny scooters in space fly at you fast and furious as you navigate your way around endless obstacles and enemies. The bike comes equipped with laser ammo to blast away baddies with (as all self-respecting space bikes in the year 2342 do), but you can also be a rude dude and shove the scooter riding enemies into obstacles to send them to their fiery doom. Doing it this way is way more entertaining than your standard shootan action, and adds a layer of strategy to an otherwise simplistic game; you can shove them, but they can shove you too, so you need to decide whether or not to err on the side of caution, or to ramp up the chaos and shove the shit outta everyone in sight. In addition to saving any Petras you slam your bike into along the way, you also have to collect energy capsules to keep the bike going. This is much less trouble than it sounds though, as the game is kind enough to hand them out like they’re candy. I appreciate that small mercy, as a sparse fuel supply might have driven this experience right down into the pits of hell.
While simplistic, the graphics do a great job conveying an interesting aesthetic; the planet’s ground is made up of a neon green grid, and the enemies are a bizarre mixture of humanoids, futuristic bullet-shooting structures, dinosaurs, and plenty of other things that look like they shambled their way out of the primordial ooze. It’s an interesting blend of a pulpy early 80’s take on sci-fi, as well as prehistoric elements smashed into one unique package. The music is pretty decent as well, with some dramatic and complicated compositions on display for a game that originally came out in 1986.
Even though Seicross was based off of an arcade game, the difficulty is more manageable than other NES games with a similar lineage. Level six is the roughest by a large space margin, with the sudden brutal difficulty spike being tough to stomach in spots…but it’s the only part of Seicross I’d say was especially tricky. The game has no “real” ending to speak of, and instead starts to loop in strange and unpredictable ways once you clear the sixth level; the player is warped back to level 5, and then a loop of levels 5, 6, and occasionally 4 carries on endlessly. The identity of the madman who decided that remains a mystery.
Let’s close on a weird fact about Seicross: on the Japanese side of the internet, the game’s title has become commonly used slang for sex. That’s because the way the title is written (セクロス, pronounced sekurosu) is only one character off of the word for sex (セックス, sekkusu.) That made it all but impossible to find in-depth info on Seicross on Japanese sites besides this factoid. Plenty of weird doujinshi though.
All in all, Seicross is a neat little game; a fun shooter with some weird visuals and catchy tunes, all wrapped up in a futuristic sci-fi bow. Don’t forget to start building your future bikes now – there’s only 319 years, 10 months and six days to go until the true story of Seicross is set to begin!
Final score:
NESJunk 