Cannon Dancer – Osman – Review

Cannon Dancer returns… While you’d be forgiven for not knowing the details, Cannon Dancer (bizarrely known as “Osman” in the US), was originally released in the mid-90’s by a team including ex-capcom staff, with the initial aim to create an unofficial sequel to one of Capcom’s best known arcade hits, Strider.

When you load up Cannon Dancer, you’re greeted with the option between the original “Cannon Dancer” and “Osman” the US port, which with translated text at least makes a little more sense to Western gamers.
It’s fair to say things are a little confusing with a bizarre Cyberpunk mixed with an Arabian setting and the overall storyline doesn’t help much either, with a single over-arching world-government threatened by the almighty Abdullah the Slaver. Up step’s our hero Kirin, a top-class mercenary who’s one man against the world as Abdullah, the government and other mercenaries all want him dead.

There are a few options to play as well as zoom level and a CRT filter for the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio, as well as various enhancements which allow you invulnerable jumps and attacks or extra credits and cheats such as complete invincibility, it’s simple enough to work through the main game with so many shortcuts, but you’ll miss out on achievements by doing so.

Challenge mode keeps things a little more traditional, allowing you to choose 2 enhancements, such as 4 extra credits and avoiding damage while jumping which was the combination, I found most enjoyable.

On to the actual gameplay and anyone who’s played Strider or a similar side-scrolling slasher will know what to expect, it’s a little faster than titles like Golden Axe or Double Dragon, but not as fluent as those two either.
You have a basic attack which works well enough, but you’ll make use of the special attack (Y) which covers a large area of the screen and is great for when things start to get quite busy.
There’s plenty of platforming on hand with the ability to cling to walls and overhangs to access new areas.
It’s definitely fun and playable, but for newcomers looking for the best games of yesteryear, there’s certainly other games I’d list above Cannon Dancer / Osman.

There’s a steady challenge with most players likely to spend a few hours to get to grips with gameplay and figure out what enhancements work best, but before the 2 hours mark, you’re likely to have completed the game and earned a large portion of the achievements. The remaining achievements I’d missed out on were all based on “Suplex’ing” set opponents, I’d managed a few by chance, but I couldn’t work out a reliable button command to make it happen, but with that knowledge it’d be easy enough to fully complete the game and all achievements before the two-hour mark.

This obviously draws the overall value into the equation, but things get worse with the alleged £24.99 price-tag.

I’ve played many, many games costing half that price, which have last dozens of hours, even retro classics like Double Dragon, Golden Axe, Outrun, are generally far, far cheaper. Looking at the £24.99 price tag, and the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is the only similar title, but that features 12 games, from 4 major areas of the franchise (SF1, SF2, SF3 and SF Alpha) and for Cannon Dancer – Osman to be anywhere near as desirable it’d need to be adding at least 3-4 more games of equal or better value, so the mix of only two games (with nothing much more than a translation to differentiate them) it’s unfortunate that Cannon Dancer steps on it’s own toes.

Cannon Dancer is a decent arcade port of a pretty good game, but awful value, making it only desirable to the most hardcore arcade enthusiasts with money to burn.

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