Gunbird 2 is a 1998 vertically scrolling shooter originally released in the arcade, and later to the Sega Dreamcast. I was fortunate enough that the game was ported to the Nintendo Switch, as a CIB copy for Dreamcast costs over 80 dollars!!! Dreamcast people loooove their shooters. I'd been in the mood to play a shooter over the last few months, so after I got my Switch, I perused some of the titles, narrowed it down between Aerofighters 2 and Gunbird 2 thanks to an excellent Metal Jesus video detailing shooters on the Switch, and ended up picking Gunbird 2 due to the fact that I'd already played through Aerofighters exhaustively back in my emulatin' days.
The game has a pretty standard look and feel for arcade shooters of the time, with anime style graphics, goofy characters, and a cheesy story. You play as a witch, a turbaned Indian on a flying carpet, a giant robot, a vampire, a samurai (hidden character), or a teenaged tech wizard as you weave through bullets, blast the enemies, and save the day. You must find some stuff that can be mixed into a potion, but only at the North Pole, and have a wish granted. Along the way you must combat an extremely chesty lass named the Pirate Queen along the way.
None of this silliness works apart from the gameplay, so how does this game feel? It's really excellent. The controls are spot on, the mechanics feel great, and Gunbird 2 brings a few additional toys to the shooter table. As a note, I don't know a ton about shooters, so some of the things I'll say here may have been innovated in other games (or even in Gunbird, which I haven't played), but I've never seen them before. First is the existence of a melee attack, which is totally unique. This attack is extremely powerful, and can do as much damage as holding down the fire button for probably 5 uninterrupted seconds, which can cut down boss fights tremendously. It, however, comes with the strategic downside that you need to get up close and personal with enemies to melee them, resulting in a high risk, high reward element to the gameplay. This requires that you memorize the boss patterns to find a time when you can slide up to the top of the screen, melee, and retreat to safely, and will really reward skilled and repeat play by the player.
The other fun and original introduction is the use of coins for points. Plenty of shooters have currency that are more or less solely for the purposes of inflating your score, but Gunbird 2 takes a unique approach in which the coins spin around, and vary in points depending on which position the coin is in when you claim them. When the coin is facing you directly and shining, they're worth 2 thousand points, while other positions are worth less and less. This really rewards the skilled player who can simultaneously dodge hundreds of bullets while also nabbing those coins at the exact right time to maximize their points.
The game is definitely not a bullet hell shooter, but it's very challenging, and there are a few points in which you'll be weaving back and forth like you would in a bullet hell. The difficulty level is pretty fair, with tons of different difficulty levels from which to choose.
The soundtrack is pretty poor, to be honest. There are a few tracks that stick in your head, but for the most part, the soundtrack is dull.
I feel like more could have been done to differentiate the characters. It seems like you're either a spread firing character with a hit everything bomb, or a focusing firing character with a straight line bomb. Ho hum. With six separate characters, it feels like they could have come up with some more creative ideas, such as a character who relied more heavily on melee attacks (maybe killing 5 enemies with melees gives this character a shield that guards from one attack) or one who has a strong burst of fire, but then weakens over time until he's given a break to build back up his power.
The goofiness of this game also definitely puts it in a certain niche, even apart from the genre. You have to be super into goofy Japanese humor to find the story anything but offputting, and would probably enjoy more straight vertical shooters like 1942 if you don't. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and will definitely pick it back up from time to time when I'm itching for some good old fashioned shooting action (I think I may actually give it another run through today). I'll give it an 8.0/10.
Up next on What I'm Playing is (likely) another collaboration with my boy that we've been working on for a while. Here's a teaser below...
-TRO
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