Review: The Visiting of Turjah
Score:
72%
Yes it's another vertical shooter, a genre that demands solid controls, a smooth gradient curve, the ability to keep everything legible, and to put a lot of graphics on the screen while not having any frame rate issues in terms of stuttering or slowing down of the action. The Visiting of Turjah might not have the speed, but she's got it where it counts.
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What makes Turjah stand out for me is that it's actually quite a slow game. Your craft takes time to move around the screen, the enemy craft are set in their ways and will progress on their course with only the occasional burst of speed to try and catch you out, while incoming fire will progress down the screen at such a steady marching rate that Lord Kitchener would be proud of their discipline.
This gives the game a lot of class. I think the developers knew that they could never manage to compete in the arcade levels on raw speed, so they've gone for a "thinking man's" shooter instead. That's a smart decision. It takes time to move anywhere on the screen, and your path needs to be carefully thought out to avoid the bullets and enemies on screen... and get into a solid firing position.
Touch anything and it's not an instant kill - there is some forgiveness - but a loss in shield power. Which will eventually wear down and boom, there's your death and you need to use another of your three lives to continue.
Forget about alternative control systems, you have one solitary option here, which is dragging your finger over the touchscreen. Your craft will follow those moves, but it will take some time. The initial temptation to slam you craft around with super-fast finger movements stops quite quickly as you realise you need a little bit more grace to fly the craft. This is where it takes some thought.
Because all the other expectations are delivered. There are the very slow and basic enemy craft that lob bullets down the screen, the slightly faster ones with the same bullets, but in a darker colour, more spinning blades of death, and then the end of level monsters with tiny weak points that spend most of the time hidden away. You know the drill.
And yes, upgradeable weapons, powered by pick-ups that you need to fly into. Thankfully, the weapons are mostly on auto-fire, the only choice you have is the smart bomb, which deals damage to anything on the screen. Just double tap to fire off one of those beasties, if you have one in reserve!
Turjah is unashamedly retro. Apart from the speed issue, everything here could be lifted from the fast paced classics of the 1980's and 90's. Ridiculous designs of enemy craft, far too many weapons, crazily powered weapons on your own ship that have a limited angle of fire, a stupid sounding name and a threadbare plot to cover "kill everything and don't die", it's all here.
If you like your action a touch cerebral, as well as requiring quick reactions, then Turjah is going to be a good fit for you. It might be a touch slow for the younger generation, but if you want to relive your youth and still make those pixel perfect escapes from incoming fire, here's your game!
-- Ewan Spence, Sept 2011.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at