Top-down tank games are pretty uncommon. There are only a scant handful around, titles you may not even have heard of such as Assault, Granada, Tank Force, or Guardian Force. It’s a sub-genre that can be remarkably fun but for some reason never really caught on, leaving us with only the occasional title to enjoy.
Way back in 1991, an obscure Game Gear game came out in Japan, Griffin. A fairly limited release in Japan, it features a tank with multiple weapons, some bosses, and a bit of anime style. Copies today sell for outrageous sums, so the vast majority of players, even fans of tank games, have never played it. That’s all about to change thanks to owner Edia and publisher Ratalaika Games, who have finally brought this obscure title to mainstream digital storefronts.
As you might expect, Griffin is a fairly straightforward title. The Game Gear isn’t known for complex, detailed games and Griffin is no exception. You have a life bar on the right side of the screen, a fire button, and a bomb button, much like most shmups. From the pause menu, you can access your main weapon, your sub-weapon, and the special weapon. Your main weapon is a turret based weapon that points wherever your tank does. It’s fairly effective and has three power levels based on the powerups you acquire (two power capsules equals one level up in power). You also have torpedoes (which kind of suck) and a grenade that has a limited vertical range and an explosive force of four squares on screen. Finally, smart bombs do damage to the entire screen with multiple hits on all enemies.
The entirety of Griffin consists of three levels. Two of those levels have a simple helicopter mini-boss and each has an end-stage boss as well. Complete the levels and you’ve beaten the game. Simple, right? Not so much, at least in the original game. Bullets are regular and predictable but some enemies appear abruptly and bosses have heavy fire patterns, making survival challenging. There’s also a second loop to the game to get a complete finish, one which adds a slightly denser fire pattern and a few more enemies.
Suffice it to say that Griffin isn’t an easy game even if it is a simple one and on the Game Gear it would have been frustrating as all hell. On the Switch however, it’s a much easier game. Rewinds allow you to zip back if you make a mistake and learn enemy patterns, and if you really don’t want to try hard, you can activate infinite lives, invincibility, and bombs to really make things ridiculously easy. In fact, the entire game should take you about a half an hour if you turn everything on and just blaze through. Each level you beat provides you with a still image of the girl piloting the tank in various provocative positions, but none of them are very risqué. Two times through the whole thing and you’ll have seen everything and 100%ed the game to boot. There’s really not too much to Griffin in terms of gameplay. Shoot everything that moves, dodge the bullets, and beat the fairly weak bosses that each have only a single form.
There are plenty of special features here though. In addition to quick saves, rewinds and turbo, there are 8 different video filters, aspect ratio and filter options, control mapping, and even frameskipping. A jukebox (for the 5 simple tracks the game has), a gallery with a few images, and a Japanese manual are all included too, along with an achievement screen. That’s a fair amount of additional content for a budget-priced game with budget-priced gameplay.
Sadly, the graphics are rather disappointing in Griffin. This is a Game Gear game after all, but the sprites are simplistic for this style of game and the enemy variety is limited. Even bosses, while huge, have limited weak points, simple bullet patterns, and lack detail in their sprites. Griffin is simply not an impressive looking game. Instead it’s more of a historical artifact and should be considered such. Nothing’s really going to blow you away (pun intended). The sound is even more lacking, with five extremely repetitive tracks that aren’t exactly going to be your favorites, especially by the second loop and limited sound effects that are not particularly immersive.
While Griffin fails in visuals and sound, but has some neat extras, it’s major failing is gameplay design. In addition to the limited enemies, the screen advance system is particularly broken, allowing you to creep your way through levels until enemies materialize in set spots. If you move just right, you can shoot the enemy tanks and turrets while they are still out of range to fire back or you can follow your bullets up the screen and wipe them out that way. You can even use cover and snipe many of the enemy combatants from angles that they simply cannot shoot back from, allowing you to easily make your way through almost every combat with minimal to no damage. Not forcing the player to advance destroys any sense of accomplishment you might get from Griffin, which is a shame because your tank moves extremely well and it would be interesting to be more challenged by the game.
Griffin is a game that is historically interesting but fails to deliver in any meaningful way. Levels and gameplay are limited and flawed, but the concept is decent and the extras make things a bit less onerous overall. For the whopping $6 it costs on the eShop, that’s not outrageous, but you’ll be hard-pressed to get more than a couple hours of enjoyment out of the game and it is best left to tank game enthusiasts and video game historians than the average player. Either way, it’s nice to see preservation is still alive and well on the Switch and as long as you know what you’re getting into, Griffin is worth the low entry price.
This review is based on a digital copy of Griffin provided by the publisher. Griffin is also available for Xbox, PS5, and PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.