Visually, the game seems nothing particularly great at first. The sprites are tiny, not altogether too over-animated (you'll find none of the gratuitously sexy animation found in titles like Metal Slug in this game), and the backgrounds are, while moderately pretty, nothing to get excited about. All this changes, however, once the game gets into its more intense moments. For you see, I'm pretty that I have never, in my history as a videogamer, seen such insanely frenetic action. The whole experience reminds me of the more over the top scenes in the Macross anime, with zillions upon zillions of missiles flitting around the screen like gnats on a corpse. Using the term "busy" to describe this game would be the understatement of the millenium. Things often get so frantic that the Dreamcast, possibly the best equipped console ever for this sort of game, will start to clunk when there's upwards of a thousand individual sprites spreading across the screen like some sort of tidal wave of heavy ammunition. And is this a bad thing? God no. In fact, if it wasn't for this slowdown (which I assure you, ONLY occurs when the feces hits the fan in terms of action) you'd probably be obliterated. So don't think of it as "slow down", think of it as "2-D bullet time". :P

Aurally, Bangai-O is also a trip back to the old school. The music consists of classic light and fluffy Japanese game music, which invokes memories of Mega Man in contrast to titles such as Jet Set Radio and Shenmue. And that's perfect, because that's what this game is about - a celebration of old school. Well, that may have not been Treasure's intent, but that's how I took it. The sound effects are also suitable, although to be quite honest, I would've appreciated a little more bang for my buck. In a game so rife with explosions, I would've liked to get the impact that's lost by having such tiny sprites brought back to me with some deafeningly cool explosion effects. But it's all quibbles-because there's one thing and one thing alone that sells me on Bangai-O, regardless of sound or visuals.

Gameplay, baby.

Bangai-O is intense. It's not particularly hard, except for certain boss battles, but this game has got something that I've come to call "Nekketsu Burning Passion". It can be best described as an intense, exhilirating feeling, and it's exactly what causes Joe from Fatal Fury to scream "YOSHYAAAAAA!" after winning a battle. Off-topic, you say? Hardly. Bangai-O is built around this idea of steely intensity and almost euphoric excitement. And like I said, the game isn't particularly hard...but that's the thing. If a game, a shooter in particular, is incredibly hard the feeling of "Yes, I did it!" (or "Yoshyaaaa, if you will") is replaced with an exhausted feeling of accomplishment. I, for one, prefer the more frenzied glee offered by games like this.

So where does all of this intensity and excitement stem from, you ask? The aforementioned missiles, of course. If all the ammunition fired at your character in Bangai-O had it's real-life equivalent stacked up, that stack would be tall enough to reach the moon. This isn't one of those games where you'd be able to survive if you weren't able to shoot the enemies' attacks out of the air. And it all works in your favor, because the more you get shot at, the more you can shoot-I think the maximum amount of firepower your super movie launches is something in the area of 500 missiles/bounce lasers (I refuse to call them bounce bullets) at once. Impressive, no?

As I mentioned, I don't like "ship-based-shooters" of this variety that much. I'm much more about Contra/Metal Slug deranged commando style. But Bangai-O takes the one thing about most shmups that annoys me and eliminates it-automatic scrolling is nowhere to be found in this game, and I am thoroughly enthused. Honestly, you'd think that Japanese developers are incapable of figuring out a way to make a shooter challenging without having the stage mercilessly scroll along. Well, Treasure did; and I love them for it.

Along with Bangai-O's delicious gaming content, the title goes even further to evoke the feel of the golden days in it's (purposely) ridiculous translation. Anything I could type here cannot possibly convey to you people the kind of insane localization given to us by the minds at Conspiracy Entertainment. This makes "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" look like Shakespere. Hell, I'd recommend renting this game just to witness the translation.

But thankfully, it doesn't come to that. Bangai-O offers enough raw, delicious, frenetic gameplay to make it more than worth the effort of hunting it down (as I imagine it's rather rare by now). If you're a fan of shooters, go buy it. You'll thank me; and if you're not...beat up Hero and "borrow" his copy. You might find yourself pleasantly surprised; I know I did.

Screenshots courtesy of DCIGN

· · · Riisuke