"People will hate you, Steve, if you're too sting-ee."
Last Alert (Known as Red Alert in Japan) is a 1989 shooting game by Telenet Japan released for the Turbo CD, infamous for its English voice acting.
On Nov 20, 1988, Guy Kazama, the Commando of America's Special Mission Unit, leads a mission to rescue hostages in South America at the request of Chairman Steve Lloyd, leader of Lloyd's Government. Much to their horror, Guy's squad is betrayed by the Lloyd Regime, which led them there on false pretenses, and they are all are subsequently gunned down by an attack chopper. Guy is left the only survivor of this incident, and becomes a recluse.
A year later, a terrorist group known as the Force Project forms and begins to threaten the free world. The Force Project is led by four of the most dangerous international criminals: the arms dealer Chairman Steve Lloyd; Colonel Jim Kadat of the Republic of Lybid; Tommy Lee of the Hong Kong Mafia; and Dr. Che Garcia, a brilliant physicist. Harvey Leonard, an old friend of Guy and the current Director of the CIA, is assigned by President Allman to bring the international terrorists to justice. Realizing how dangerous the mission is, Leonard and Kay, a fellow CIA Agent, track down Guy Kazama and attempt to enlist him to defeat the Force Project. Seeking vengeance against the Lloyd Regime for the loss of his comrades, Guy accepts, and sets out to dismantle the Force Project.
The Run-and-Gun gameplay is very reminiscent to Commando (Capcom), varied by adding features like being able to shoot a different direction from moving, powerups, and a level-up system.
Tropes Present in Last Alert:
- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Some of the one-liners.
- A Father to His Men: Colonel Kadat gets pretty offended at Guy for killing the "precious men" whom he trained.
- All There in the Manual: Chairman Steve's full name is Steve Lloyd.
- Apocalypse How: The Force Project tries to pull off at least class 3a.
- Asian Speekee Engrish: Mr. Lee. While most of the game is already pretty Engrish-y, his accent is very noticeable, and also possibly intentional due to the character being from Hong Kong.
- Attack Drone: One of the powerups spawns 2 orbs which fire alongside with Kazama.
- Back from the Dead: Dark, who kidnaps the President and is the stage 2-3 boss, is revived by Dr. Garcia as the boss of 6-1.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Colonel Kadat, Mr. Lee, Chairman Steve, and Dr. Garcia, the leaders of Force Project.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: Take one look at the gameplay on YouTube, and it'll be immediately obvious how the writers and voice actors aren't English-speaking natives."Garcia, nobody can hire my feelings!"
"You can never trust, Leonard."note - Body Double: Chairman Steve uses one, but the protagonists know that he's a fake and he's blown up in the same scene that he's introduced.
- Colourful Theme Naming: Kadat is accompanied by a trio of color guards, named Red, Blue and Black.
- Conspicuous Electric Obstacle: On the way to Dr. Garcia, Guy encounters node pairs that move up and down, constantly emitting electricity between them. These, however, are destructible.
- Cores-and-Turrets Boss: Some of the later bosses consist of a core that has to be destroyed, aided with turrets.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Chairman Steve Lloyd, a multi-billionaire chairman of the Dual Foundation and a core member of the Force Project.
- Crate Expectations: Lots of crates here and there. One of the boss arenas even has crates rolled into the arena.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Anything that is not a non-boss human will get destroyed with an explosion.
- Dull Surprise: Mr.Lee's reaction when he is told Guy is coming for him.Mr. Lee: Oh rearry? Werr, that's interesting.
- Elevator Action Sequence: The final level.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Force Project is led by a British arms dealer, a Middle Eastern Colonel, a Chinese mafioso, and a Hispanic actually cyborg physicist. They also employ women, with one of the Force Project's 'toughest fighters' being a woman.
- Exploding Barrels: In one stage, these are rolled at the player.
- Eyepatch of Power: Colonel Kadat wears one.
- First-Name Basis: Chairman Steve Lloyd, unlike the other Force Project members who are referred to by their surnames, is instead primarily referred to as "Chairman Steve".
- Flash of Pain: Things with multiple hitpoints tend to briefly turn white when hit.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The "bio-monster" in the sewers of Garcia's base.
- Homage:
- The whole game pays homage to the Rambo films.
- Mr. Lee's stage is one long reference to Enter the Dragon, from the fighting tournament to even Lee's prosthetic claw-hand.
- Human Shield: The first boss tries to use one. The player can still shoot the boss as normal.
- I Call It "Vera":Black: Hey, Guy! Let my baby Betty throw you a kiss!Guy Kazama: You're some weirdo, naming your helicopter!
- Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Several of the levels in Garcia's base contain these, most containing boxes to block or hinder your movement even further.
- Kill It with Fire: The Flamethrower sub weapon.
- Made of Explodium: Many enemies, bosses, doors and logs. Also chickens, though not cows.
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Garcia, a physicist and core member of the Force Project, creator of the Indra space station, built with the intention of destroying the world.
- Market-Based Title: In Japan the game is called Red Alert. The name change was done to avoid confusion with another game of the same name.note
- Nebulous Evil Organisation: The Force Project.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Colonel Kadat of Lybid is, at least in name, based on Muammar Gadaffi of Libya.
- No, You:Blue: This river's gonna turn red with your blood!Guy: How interesting... but it's going to be your blood and not mine!
- One-Man Army: Guy Kazama. One of the higher ranks is even called "Oneman Army" [sic].
- Painfully Slow Projectile: You can outrun enemy fire. Your own bullets go significantly faster.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Guy exchanges some brief banter with almost every boss before the fight begins.
- Post-Defeat Explosion Chain: Bosses produce series of explosions after getting defeated.
- Rank Inflation: The game's ranking system starts out with fairly ordinary military ranks... then you get to "Tank Buster". After that, a few more military ranks, then "Metal Soldier". After "Marshal", you get gems like "Fullarmor Guy", "Heavy Warrior", "Mad Thunder", "Final Command", "Oneman Army", and finally "Super Hero".
- Rank Scaleswith Asskicking:: Invoked; Guy's level-up system is based on his score attained from killing enemies, with each level being some kind of promotional rank-up.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: As revealed at endgame, Dr. Che Garcia is at least partly a cyborg. It's not given much attention or elaborated on, but as shown throughout the rest of the game, he actually has something of a speech impediment and speaks like an actual human, interspersing his dialogue with 'ums' and extraneous words, implying he's either a cyborg or just a really convincing robot.
- Robotic Reveal: Dr. Garcia, who you discover is a cyborg once you defeat him by the end of the game.
- Sentry Gun: In later levels. There's a stick on a ground variety and a ball with a barrel variety.
- Smurfette Principle: Two doses of this, as both the villains and the heroes have one prominent female character; Kay, the female CIA agent who occasionally works with Guy to get him to his next mission, and the unnamed female fighter during Tommy Lee's arc, who serves as one of the Force Project's top enforcers.
- Spread Shot: Most of your guns.
- Sunglasses at Night: Dark and Leonard.
- Those Two Guys: Leonard and Kay more or less have this role. Leonard has a bit more character in that he's an old friend of Guy's and gets the plot rolling recruiting him, and they're not always together (Kay gets two scenes with Guy alone) but when they show up, it's usually to interact with each other about Guy's activities in the story.
- Three-Quarters View: The game is played in this style.
- Timed Mission: Each level in the game has a fairly generous time limit.
- Try to Fit That on a Business Card: Some of the names for your ranks when you level up are... odd.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Human Shield that the level 1-1 boss uses is invulnerable to your bullets, which makes it all the more frustrating that you aren't told you mustn't shoot the hostage in the boss room of 3-1.
- Universal Driver's License: Guy steals a space shuttle to pursue Garcia.
- Who Dares?:General Kadat: ...How dare you kill these precious men I've trained!
- Yellow Peril: Mr. Lee of the Hong Kong mafia.
- Your President Is in Another Castle:Guy Kazama: That makes me want to get him back even more!
