Alongside the console bedazzlement of Super Turrican and Mega Turrican, there's plenty of platforming fun to be found, and the 2D visuals are well presented through varied display options. With four games as a showcase of the exploratory level design of early 1990s European-style run-and-gun titles, Turrican Flashback's ex-Factor 5 games had an undeniable x-factor, and the first two Amiga Turrican releases are noteworthy as some of the best 16-bit computer games.
The lack of a separate menu to access Chris Huelsbeck's music is an especially glaring omission. This is mainly evident after more recent retro compilations have offered extras like developer interviews, as well as art museums and development histories. Turrican Flashback is also limited in chronicling the diverse history of the Turrican series, and this is exacerbated by the lack of bonus features – beyond some simple game story text and cheats. The SNES' Super Turrican 2 is especially notable for being absent in this collection. Therefore, it would have been preferable if Turrican Flashback also included the C64 versions of the first two games - or perhaps even Trenz's less well known 1992 NES Super Turrican game - in a similar way to how the Contra Anniversary Collection included two regional Probotector variants. Overall, Turrican Flashback would have benefitted from having more than four games available, as its nearest retro run-and-gun competition is the Contra Anniversary Collection, which has ten games in its line-up. Following their 80% scoring review of Super Turrican, a Super Play Issue 11 interview in September 1993 detailed the eight month development cycle of Super Turrican, with Julian Eggebrecht of Factor 5 explaining that, "The big thing is that you're under much more pressure to turn in an excellent game with Nintendo – when you're working for a good Japanese company, you can't get away with the average European standard of game." It also has a stupendous Stage 1-3 tune, which includes a section that sounds like an awesome Huelsbeck chiptune version of the chorus from Cheap Trick's song Surrender. The 1993 SNES game, Super Turrican, feels the most flamboyant in the collection, as the brightly coloured visuals suit its energetic gameplay, which has extra console-fuelled scaling effects.
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This is well presented in Turrican Flashback with the excellent display options of scanlines and CRT shaders, as well as optional wallpapers and the recreated curved edges of a 4:3 TV screen.
Typically, visual elements like the stark bands of colour depicting sunset skies from orange through to red and pink seem quintessential to the graphics in Amiga action platformers, and it's an art style that creates instant nostalgia for anyone who owned a 16-bit computer. Just one year after the original's release, it's impressive to see the strides Turrican II took in improving the series’ graphical and audio presentation, while using the same Amiga hardware. There's variety throughout, too, for example level 3-1 of the first game has a vertically scrolling shmup section, complete with Huelsbeck's pulsing, jaunty melody to push the player upwards.
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The first Turrican also established the series as challenging platform games, with difficult progression through floaty jumps, blind leaps of faith, falling into instant death pits, hazardous spikes, and cheap hits, although careful players can scour the large levels for 1-ups.
The use of a manoeuvrable flash laser beam, line screen-wipes, as well as rolling into an indestructible wheel nicely complements these gameplay mechanics. The first game released in 1990 and created the single-player Turrican template of run-and-gun action, plentiful power-ups, platforming, eight-way scrolling exploration, secret areas, and hidden optional bosses. From the outset, it's also worth underscoring that the illustrious composer, Chris Huelsbeck, provided the outstanding soundtracks that set the tone for the series.
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For example, in the way that Contra III: The Alien Wars influenced the retro modern release of Blazing Chrome, similarly the Turrican games inspired the 2019 PS4 release of Gunlord X. In hindsight, they've aged more gracefully than many Amiga games and the template for the European-style run-and-gun genre has still been influential. The origins of Turrican as a series, and the first two games in particular, are fascinating as part of the history of the programming skills of Manfred Trenz.
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