Retro Review: Dick Tracy (Mega Drive)
A long-running comic strip and a fun, if slightly surreal, 1990 film, Dick Tracy follows the hard-nosed detective as he takes on the city’s criminal underworld with his fists, his fedora, and a Tommy gun. The Mega Drive adaptation was originally planned as a movie tie-in but ended up arriving a few months later — and despite the delay, it managed to carve out its own identity.
You play as Tracy himself, tasked with taking down crime boss Big Boy and his colourful band of gangsters. The gameplay is pretty straightforward at first glance: a side-scrolling action title with light platforming elements, where you move from left to right shooting, punching, and ducking behind cover. But what makes Dick Tracy stand out is its two-layer shooting system — you can fire at enemies in both the foreground and background. This gives combat an extra layer of strategy as you balance threats up close with those taking potshots from a distance.
Each stage mixes things up with variety. Some levels strip you of your gun entirely, forcing you to rely on Tracy’s fists, while others throw in car chase sequences or shooting gallery mini-games to break up the pacing. Boss fights punctuate the stages, usually involving enemies attacking from the background with different firing patterns. They’re not wildly inventive, but they do test your reflexes and timing.
It can get repetitive, but the challenge ramps up steadily. Before long you’re being swarmed by enemies from all angles, and the difficulty curve keeps you on your toes without feeling unfair. It’s tough, but that’s part of the appeal — it rewards precision and patience.
Visually, Dick Tracy is one of the Mega Drive’s more striking early titles. The destructible backgrounds are a highlight — windows, streetlights, and cars can all be blown apart in satisfying fashion. The urban environments are stylishly rendered, and the comic-inspired artwork between levels helps set the noir tone. Enemy sprites are fairly generic, though the different suit colours appear to indicate varying attack patterns, which actually becomes useful as the difficulty climbs.
