Gatchaman the Shooting (PSX import)

[Melf]

Just got this today from VGD. I was hoping for a decent shmup and that's barely what I got. I finished it the first time through on my first life. This is one of those "energy bar shmups" so no challenge here at all. In fact, the real challenge was actually getting killed.

Graphics: Decent enough. Very little parallax and no special effects except for the final stage (and that's not that impressive either). Colorful and pretty but not much to look at.

Sound: Typical bells and whistles here. Not a memorable tune in the soundtrack.

Gameplay: The game plays similar to Elemental Master on Genesis. Each of the four members of G Force gets a shot at the SAME TWO STAGES with the only variations being the boss battles. There's one final stage where you fight against that evil Batman look alike and you're done. Scratch off 20 minutes of your life and go back to Metroid Prime.

You collect powerups as you go and dodge cannons and enemy soldiers, as well as ships and all kinds of funky 70-ish contraptions. No rapid fire sucks, and the super bombs are practically overkill.

Extras: There's an image gallery. Sadly, it's a gallery of the same stock images used in the game!! That's all there is too. There's a "sudden death" mode in the options but I'm not sure what it does.

All in all, a disappointment in every sense of the word. I guess I'll just have to continue my search for that PSX copy of Dodonpachi.

[cigsthecat]

Melf, in the options turn the sudden death to "on." Then the game provides more of a challenge. I liked this one quite a bit.

[Diff-chan]

I couldve told you how the game was just by looking at the title.

[cigsthecat]

And you would have been wrong.

Melf: The music is amazing- what's wrong with you?

[Technosphile]

Hey:

I was actually playing this last night.

The game is a cakewalk if you play it with the energy bar. I was able to one credit it on my first try. As Cigs said, turn on Sudden Death and it gets considerably harder--good luck defeating Jun's first level boss in Sudden Death.

A few people I know were really dissapointed by this game, but with Sudden Death on I really enjoy it. I love the color scheme, pastels in a shmup are always good.

-Technosphile

[Melf]

Sounds a lot better with the energy bar turned off. I'll give it another whirl this evening. I'll also give the music a second chance as well. It'll be a bit harder as the game has no sound test.

[Low]

The perils of budget gaming.

Gatchaman is pretty blah (and I told you that before Melf ), I've only kept it for the trippy last level.

*-neo