Let's remember...Cyvern!

http://www.mame.net/wippics/0209/cyve_1.png http://www.mame.net/wippics/0209/cyve_2.png
http://www.mame.net/wippics/0209/cyve_3.png http://www.mame.net/wippics/0209/cyve_4.png
http://www.mame.net/wippics/0202/cyve_2.png http://www.mame.net/wippics/0202/cyve_3.png
http://www.mame.net/wippics/0202/cyve_4.png

(images borrowed from mame.net)

This game, though only 4 years old, is already a hard-to-find one. (but fortunately, not expensive). Cyvern is a vertical shooter on Kaneko's Super Nova system.

As for the story, there isn't much of one. You are a cybernetically enhance battle dragon to take on the enemy's bio-weapons.

You select one of threee dragons. Altair(Veqa) the fire dragon, Schwarz(Vais) the lightning dragon or Ferious(Serene) the Laser Dragon. Each has a secondary weapon as well as it main shot and also a "Banish" attack, which is a special attack simply performed by holding the shot button. It has a limit as to how long it can be used, but it is easily replenished by shoooting enemies or even capturing a power-up.

The graphics are very nice looking in my opinion. Your assortment of enemies range from tanks to jets, to mutant vehicles and even giant bugs. The bosses are HUGE and fairly well animated. As for its difficulty, sometimes you'll be subject to to cheap hits, and other times you might be be "forgiven". The music is decent and the sound effects are good. We can't forget the voices (like when the player dies, the dragon screams before exploding).

If you collect PCBs and have a Super Nova (Which also runs Puzz Loop, and (the later?) Gals Panic games) definitely look into it. If not, just play it.

I was under the impression it was fairly expensive.

Did you ever figure out that Cyvern+ business?

No...

When I ran that text through the translators, it sounded too confusing. Maybe it was a hack?

The carts aren't much, just hard as heck to find.:(

By the way, are the pics I captured still on your site?

No, they're not. They're still on my HD though, if you need them.

Being a big fan of Kaneko shooters I have wanted to check out Cyvern for a while but I have never come across it. Has anyone seen it in a North American arcade?

Apparently it's emulated under MAME now. Haven't tried it out, though.