Star Trek: The Next Generation: Echoes from the Past for SNES

Image: MobyGames

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Echoes from the Past

Enhanced Berserk meets simplified Wing Commander

Genre: adventure - overhead

Publisher: Spectrum

Year: 1994

System: SNES

Gameplay Score: 1

Gameplay Notes:

Three distinct gaming modes: 1. The bridge 2. Top-down action (the away team) 3. Dogfighting The bridge is surprisingly fun and feels the most Star Trek-y of the three modes. You can use the Conn to choose a destination and engage warp or send and receive hails, go to the Briefing Room to figure out what to do next, check Sensors, Computer, or Engineering to get info, or go to the Transporter Room to transition to the Top-down action sequences. This is where things go downhill. The top-down away team segments are kind of dumb. The controls are hokey and extremely limited. You can only fire in a straight line and enemies weave around and fire back at you. It feels a lot like Berzerk on the Atari 2600. Basically you wander around a maze to find a person or whatever. The dogfighting segments are even worse. You've got phasers and torpedos but you run out quickly and then you've got no offensive capability. Everything happens on a 2D plane so there's no way to out-maneuver your opponent. You just hold left or right and jam on B and Y until you're out of ammo. It's horrible

Level Design Score: 3

Level Design Notes:

I love the mission-based design. You get a hail, chart a course, take care of whatever they need on the planet that called you, and then dogfight badguys who are there. The missions are fairly basic, but the idea is there and it feels like you're in the show.

Theme Score: 4

Theme Notes:

All of the characters are here and a lot of fan service like the look and feel of the deck and the menus which look like the computer displays from the show.

Art Style Score: 3

Art Style Notes:

The deck looks amazing! It's shown from a first-person view and scrolls from station to station. Massive improvement over the boring menu from the Starfleet Academy game. The graphics in the Action sequence are ok. The sprites are small and thin so they're hard to hit, but they look ok. Kind of silly when compared to those on the bridge, but whatever. Unfortunately the graphics in the dogfighting sequence are very bad. You see a top-down view which is as basic as could be and a FPS view that performs alright but there's not much to look at other than the enemy ship.

Audio Score: 2

Audio Notes:

I wish I could rate it higher, but the sounds aren't very good. The music on the deck is the Star Trek theme song, which is nice, but the music in the Action view is so dorky! It sounds completely out of place. Sounds are ok

Overall Score: 39

Review ID: 528