Gunstar Super Heroes Game by Sega/Treasure Reviewed by Adam P. puyopop@gmail.com Size: GBA Cart Save: Three files Released: October 2005 Works with: GBAs, DS Price: USD$30 (As of March 2005) Fast Thoughts: You'd be better off with the original, if you can get it. **************************************************************************** Opening Snide Remarks: Gunstar Heroes is a tough game to "prove" to people. Not everybody played it, but those who did own the game for the Genesis in the mid-90's knew it nearly out-Contra'd Contra. Treasure was the team that worked on the original Contra for Konami, which is why they are a big name to hardcore gamers who know better. What pushed it over the edge was much more evident around the time the game was released. Personally, it brings back the fondest of memories to fire up the original. I read a lot of reviews of the game from people who never played the original. Many of those same reviews said the game was too short. However, this game is about as long, give or take, as the original Gunstar Heroes. The difference is that this game has battery backup. I'd also challenge those reviewers who said this game was over in a half-hour to try playing the game on hard mode, as a game like this should be played. Yet, should a game that's "Super" be the exact length as the original? Sometimes this game doesn't even feel like a sequel. Should the game be twice as long to compensate for the battery save? Should battery save have been scrapped or altered? I will examine this game for better or worse in the next few paragraphs. **************************************************************************** Gameplay Descripion: For a moment in time, the buddy-up run-and-gun shoot 'em-all was revived with great furor on the Sega Genesis. Games like Contra: Hard Corps and the original Gunstar Heroes came at the perfect time; just when you thought video games were going soft, here came two of the toughest games in years. However, Contra: HC, for all it's 16 bits of glory, was only reaching for the bar that Treasure had grasped with Gunstar Heroes a year before. All of the sprites and effects exploded off of the screen. Earthworm Jim would later make you wonder if you were really playing some Saturday morning cartoon, but Gunstar Heroes was more enthralling to watch than most action movies. It was lucid, living, breathing adrenaline in pixelated form. Now that you're up to speed... Gunstar Super Heroes is the much-demanded sequel to that game. It comes to us on the Game Boy Advance, the last hope for 2-D gaming, nearly 12 years on from the original. So how is it? This game manages to retain much of the charm of the first game. I was excited to read an interview with Treasure concerning the development of the game. To paraphrase, the team stated that they did not go back and play the original; they wanted to start from the bottom and make something faithful to the standard they set, yet reborn so it didn't feel like just a remake. Playing it at E3 and witnessing the intro level, it seemed to be a pretty big diversion. Yet now that I've beaten the game, I can't help but be let down. While there's plenty of new stuff, there's still a mine-cart stage where you chase a train, a jungley stage where you fight a spore boss, a board-game type stage near the game's end. The new stuff doesn't really boost the action. For example in the first stage you are standing atop a ship shooting down whatever baddies fly by you. It looks great but it's not too interesting to play, and is rather easy. This scenario shows up later a few times. At the end of the first stage is another part that plays like an update of the old Genesis game "Flicky". You lead a bunch of helpless... thingies, to the exit while avoiding the monster arms that reach out at you. In another stage, the opening is a cool psuedo-3D helicopter shooter. Too bad this area is awkward to control, mostly detached from the normal run-and-gun mode of play, and SLOW. In other words playing Gunstar Super Heroes will just make you miss the original. For people who didn't experience the original, they'll get a glimpse at what made it great, unevenly injected with throwaway little segments that push the system's graphics to their limits but are rather boring alongside what ended up being not too inventive nods to the first game's adrenaline rush. In addition, this game is one player only. You have a choice of Red or Blue, but they aren't too different. The biggest change from one character to the other is the direction of the story. Honestly, we didn't really come here for that. 2-player co-op action is sorely missed, and it was kind of ludicrous to do an update without it. There's one thing that does save GSH, and that is something it would be hard for Treasure to mess up. The BOSS FIGHTS! Any jaded gamer should pick up the game and fight the boss Seven Force every day as soon as they wake up and maybe right before bed. All of the other bosses in the game, with the exception of the intro level boss, are exceptional examples of good old pattern recognition and twitch reflexes. This is where the game doesn't disappoint, but in most other spots you can tell they were worrying too much about slowdown and sprite flickering to make the game a true head-rush experience. Back in the day, you could have fooled me... I thought they were just trying to be dramatic. Liked: BOSS FIGHTS! Compared to many other GBA games this is a gem. Like Astro Boy or Ikaruga before it, there's always high scores to go back and try for. Certainly not a bad game by any means, Treasure still has plenty of magic. Hated: ...It's just that what's offered here cannot compete with past glory. No two-player, and a lot of diversions that aren't as fun as they are "impressive." Oh, and whatever they insisted in that interview, this game rehashes a lot of all-too-familiar moments of the original that will make GH fans mope for the old days. **************************************************************************** Graphics Description: Everyone agrees. If you want a showcase for the GBA's graphical prowess, this is it. Even though... the Nintendo DS could surely have been the vessel for an even more beautiful game, and is more than a year old now. That being said, could we have possibly seen a two player version of this game over Wi-Fi, across two screens? The DS could've handled the showcase of this game and had room for dessert. What we have here though is the kind of stuff you only see in system tech demos. Huge sprites rotating across scaling backgrounds. Yet the gameplay in some of the more impressive segments seems a bit tacked on, which sometimes make them feel like just that: tech demos. Gunstar Heroes doesn't need a helicopter stage or a "Flicky" stage. Please, send more enemies running at us and firing all over the place! Slowdown is your friend! Liked: An art design rehaul, and tons of graphical treats. Five stars for getting the most of the hardware. Hated: Not really a flaw of the graphics themselves, but they could have been more cohesive to gameplay. **************************************************************************** Sound/Music Description: It's like Genesis all over again. None of that frequency modulated grungy vibraphone sound, but still faithful to the Mega Man style of MIDI-rock. The sound effects are great too, and anyone within a few yards will want to see what all that gunfire and grunting is about. Liked: Nothing wrong here. Hated: Nope. Make a soundtrack cD please. **************************************************************************** Play Control/Game Design: I figured this was a game design issue more than anything... the game is considered "short". Maybe they should have opted for quick save in this game's design, where you can only resume once? People do not seem content with six levels when they can start right where they died at. The game lets you select which of the four stages you want to begin at of the initial set, which is another reason they could have made the battery save not as generous. It's like Super Mario All-Stars. We know that with a battery save, all of those games are made infinitely more "friendly". We just know that the source material didn't have that same convenience, so we don't hold it against the individual games themselves. But besides that, this game is roughly as long as the first game. Maybe we really should have seen twice the levels this time. I can certainly live without that annoying helicopter stage if it meant two more manic bosses to fight. Maybe even a Metroid-sized world inside the Gunstar Universe, but more fast-paced and not as much exploration? In any case, we got what we got, and the people who are playing the game on easy mode are likely crying the loudest. As for the play control, no gripes. The game is just as silky smooth to control as the original. Liked: Perfect play control. Hated: Needs more balance in either length or approach. **************************************************************************** Improve: More of what made the original great! RIYL: Treasure, shooting stuff, Contra. **************************************************************************** Final Words: We wanted a sequel, we got a watered down version of the original that looks really cool. But for all that could have been, this is a mostly good game. SEVEN FORCE! Also, it is a crime for a game like this to not be two-player. Very bad. It's not as big a letdown as Advance Guardian Heroes supposedly was, but for a game attached to a license, Treasure seemed to put much more love into possibly their best GBA game yet, Astro Boy: Omega Factor. I think Treasure just has sequel anxiety. Maybe we should trust them and let them look towards something brand new for each game. Hey, after all, we should be getting Gunstar Heroes for the Revolution's download service! If you're a huge fan though, go ahead and drop $30 for this, but on the other hand, I picked up Astro Boy for just $15 brand new, so give it some thought beforehand! **************************************************************************** Score Gameplay: **** Graphics: ***** Sound/Music: ***** Play Control/Game Design: *** Personal Opinion: *** Total: 21, times 4 Final Score: 84% Note: Yes, I would consider the original a 100% :). **************************************************************************** Currently Known Codes: No.