PlanetDreamcast | Games | Reviews | Gunbird 2

Gunbird 2 Another solid shooter from Capcom and Psikyo - Review By Mr. Domino Page 2/2 The Bad Pretty busy, but not a hint of slowdown. I am a game reviewer, and section 42 of my secret guidebook says I must whine about a shooter being short, despite the fact that it's utterly ridiculous to compare shooters to adventure games or RPGs and expect people to sit down for 30-something hours dodging and blasting stuff. Yes, the game is technically short. Yes, you can beat it on the easiest difficulty setting in about half an hour. Yes, that is boring. People have become weak, and shooters are the last outlet for challenging gameplay. If you buy this, you owe it to yourself to crank up the difficulty to normal (or maybe even very hard) and get a feel for death, instead of cheesing your way through the patsy difficulty settings. Unfortunately, no one is going to force you to accept that challenge, so if you don't have the willpower or skill to play the game as it was meant to be played, you're basically looking at a short rental. While the graphics are richly colored and detailed without any slowdown (16-bit my butt), the lack of parallax scrolling is just a bit disappointing. Things look flat. The sense of depth and flight is lost since a single flat background just scrolls down level after level. While I'd take an insane amount of bullets without slowdown and really nice looking and animating levels and enemies over multiple scrolling backgrounds, others may not be as forgiving. The only worthwhile visual complaint against the game is that occasionally some of the smaller bullets can be obscured by the background, either thanks to a closely matched color scheme, or animated distractions below. Like in other Psikyo shooters, bombs are available to save you from seemingly hopeless situations. Speaking of small bullets, well, they're small. On the real difficulty settings, Gunbird 2 will flood the screen with tons of small bullets. This, of course, is why you play shooters, but the size and number of the bullets may be a bit too difficult to keep track of to those used to slower-paced shooters. Thankfully, the "holes" in the bullets waves are always there, and the game never becomes impossible a la Darius Gaiden. The only thing that I'm still trying to adjust to is bullets changing speed midway across the screen. A few enemies will fire bullets that lose their momentum and slow down by half. Reacting around bullets in these instances can be a bit disconcerting since your split second timing is thrown off by the change in speed. I suppose the omission of some of the original Gunbird characters may also be a disappointment to fans of series, but that doesn't bother me one bit since Psikyo's character designs are mostly uninspired. The music fits the game but is not something you'd listen to or be impressed with on its own. It's all very up tempo video game music -- not bad, but forgettable just the same. The loading time for the bonus art galleries is a bit of a nuisance (the game itself runs faster than a handful of images), but, seeing as no one will buy Gunbird 2 just to browse through the artwork, this isn't really a strike against the game itself. I'd have to give Capcom two strikes though: the first for hiding Psikyo's name from the manual and packaging, and the second for censoring some ever-so-slightly provocative cut scenes. A code can be entered to remove some of the censorship, but it certainly shouldn't have been necessary since nothing is shown or implied above what would merit a PG rating. I'd write Capcom a letter if I weren't so afraid that it might hurt the chances of future shooters being brought into the US, given the genre's present situation here. The Final Word Gunbird 2 is a very nice shooter at an even nicer price. If you're schooled in the concepts of replayability and challenge, Gunbird 2 will more than make the $30 purchase worth your while. It's fun and replayable -- what more could anyone want? Developer: Psikyo Publisher: Capcom Genre: Shooter Highs: Useful difficulty settings, arcade-perfect shooter fun, perfect control, nice graphics. Lows: Short for wimps, perhaps too challenging for some, chaos = confusion, slight censorship. Other: 1-2 players, VMU Compatible (9 blocks), Jump Pack Compatible, Arcade Stick Compatible. Media: Intro (MPEG) - The intro shows off the characters. Honestly, the original Gunbird's intro was better. [Big (5.9M)] - [Small (3.2M)] Gameplay 1 (MPEG) - Tavia is a small girl, but she packs a ton of firepower. [Big (16.5M)] - [Small (8.9M)] Gameplay 2 (MPEG) - Morrigan, of Darkstalkers fame, makes a cameo appearance as a playable character. [Big (14.6M)] - [Small (7.9M)] Final Score: (out of a possible 10) Visit this Game's Dreamcast Database Entry Previous Reviews Comments on this review? Mail Feedback.