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| Title Screen |
I wasn't really all too familiar with or interested in the run and gun / shoot 'em up genre of video games until I played Contra III: The Alien Wars just a month ago. Based on its score, I have it rated as the 2nd best game I've played out of my 1992 playlist, and that score sounds about right, as it is one of the games I most fondly look back on from that year, and will do so in the future as well I'm sure. When I shared my thoughts about that game at the time, I was recommended to make sure that I check out Gunstar Heroes as well, which I had never heard of before but had already been on my 1993 playlist beforehand, interestingly enough.
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| You can choose the order in which you complete the first 4 stages, after which there are 2 more |
Gunstar Heroes released on September 10, 1993 for the Sega Genesis and on Game Gear in 1995. It was produced by Mastao Maegawa, and it is the result of him and some of his colleagues at Konami rejecting an idea of a game (presumably similar to this one) that they had, which led to them quitting at Konami and starting up their own development studio, Treasure. Gunstar Heroes is a run and gun video game that players of, say, Metal Slug and of course Contra games will instantly be familiar with. You run forward on a side-scrolling screen and just shoot up dozens of enemies as explosion fill up the screen, until you reach a boss, learn its patterns and defeat it too, which lets you advance to the next stage.
In its basic form, it's the same style of game. If you enjoy a game such as Contra III, you are sure to enjoy this one as well. If you didn't enjoy Contra III or similar games at all, you won't enjoy Gunstar Heroes either.
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| Lots of enemies to shoot at all times |
What makes Gunstar Heroes stand out in this genre in my opinion is its presentation and the variety of weapons you can use. Contra III had about a handful of attacks that you could use and gave you two slots to put attacks onto. Get hit, and you lose an attack but can switch to the other slot. In Gunstar Heroes, you also have two slots, though you don't lose the attack in a slot if you get hit. Plus, these attacks don't just work individually, but you can also choose to use the combined effect of these, which gives you even more powerful attacks, which differ in damage output, range and firing directions. There are over a dozen combination to use this way, all with their own strengths and weaknesses, which adds a lot of replayability to how you want to challenge the tougher fights in this game.
The presentation is also worth highlighting as I mentioned. Some of the bosses look really interesting, like the Bravoo Man, Melon Bread or "Seven Force", which can take upon a variety of forms out of which a couple are randomly chosen whenever you face it. There are also some very cleverly designed levels, such as the final boss rush where the screen is presented as a "TV" on which the bad guys collectively watch you fight their guys. Whenever you defeat one of them, they get mad and you can see the main antagonist sending out the next boss out to face you. Another really well designed level is the "Dice Palace", which reminded me of Cuphead's King Dice boss fight. You roll a dice to see how many platforms you can advance, and each platform has either a boss fight or an item room for you. The bosses vary in difficulty, but most are pretty easy on "normal" difficulty. The second to last platform has you start over (just like in Cuphead) and I had the pleasure to step on it once, losing about 10 minutes of progress. Each major boss you defeat gives you one of four gems, and there is a funny scene that plays with the Dice Palace boss, who, once defeated, throws out what looks like the "red gem" but is actually a bomb. So I had the boss beat, but didn't know it was a bomb, so it hit me and I died, which means I had to start over the Dice Palace. Made me mad at the time, but was hilarious in hindsight.
Graphically, the game looks more than serviceable for the Sega Genesis and makes up for lack of high-tier production values with great enemy design. The game's soundtrack overall is pretty good. It has a few pretty average tracks and is mostly overshadowed by the constant sound of explosions. The highlight for me here though was the "theme of Seven Force", which, as I would like to eloquently say, "slaps".
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| I really like the design of Bravoo Man |
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