3RRDC Giga Wing

Most reviews for 2D shooters would probably start off saying
something about how that they are a dying breed of games and that
only the hardcore respect the classic ballet of bullets. And you know,
unfortunately, that really is the world we live in. These types of games
simply do not get their dues here in the States anymore. Now games
are all about top-of-the-line graphics, and being able to roam around
and kill/rape anything on screen. Violence in games has certainly
gotten intense over the years and games have generally been able to
become more complex and difficult. So what I don't understand is
when you have a beautiful 2D shooter, with bullets just littering the
screen everywhere, and intense moments every 5 seconds, why don't
these games get any respect here anymore? One such game is Giga
Wing from Capcom. Now this may not be as big of a game as Radiant
Silvergun, Ikaruga, Silhouette Mirage and the like, but it certainly is a
fun way to kill 20 minutes.

You play as either one of four pilots on a mission to stop this evil
medallion. For centuries countries have gone to war over it and many
lives have been lost. Now it is the year 2050 and new wars have
broken out as countries try to obtain this magical medallion. The four
pilots going into battle all carry a magic stone that may be the only
tool at destroying the medallion, and bringing peace to the world once
and for all. Meanwhile, there appears to be some sort of mysterious
organization in the game, but I couldn't really get who I was fighting.
But hey, as long as there are a lot of explosions right? All in all the
story is definitely there, but it is confusing and most of the time is hard
to understand. But it's there!

The four playable characters are all unique, and have slightly different
powers to their ships. One has tracking missiles, another bigger
explosions, etc. But they mainly, for the most part, play the same.
Although, I prefer the explosions because the tracking missiles make
the game more cluttered then it already is! The four characters are all
way different: with a guy with a robot eye trying to save his wife who
has turned into a golden statue, to Ruby a woman who once led a life
of crime but now has founded an orphanage. They lack the charm and
style of the Gunbird 2 characters, but they at least present the player
with some interesting stories to go along with all the action.

There aren't too many modes to choose from here. There's arcade
mode, where you play through the six levels, and then there's score
attack mode. This is only available for 1 player only, and you choose a
level and try to get a top score. Scores can be later seen in ranking
mode. Throw in options and save and load to get the standard
essentials. But also there is a how-to-play tutorial, and a gallery. The
how-to-play doesn't last long, and you just watch a demo that explains
the basics of the game. The gallery has about 8 pages of pictures. But
many of the pictures are just the same person, only different facial
expression. It would have been cool to get some TV on the side action
like Gunbird 2, but arcade mode is good enough I guess.

So you go in pick your character and launch out. I think the first three
levels are in a random order. The last three always follow the same
order. There aren't many attacks in this game. R trigger fires, B button
is bomb, and pressing and then holding down the A button is the
reflect force shield. This is a cool little technique. Once your reflect
force shield fills up, when bullets get near you and you use this, it
creates a shield for you that repels enemy fire causing it to destroy
enemies nearby. Using the shield will be vital to living for the boss
fights, and later levels.

This game has a lot of stuff happening on screen. Enemies that range
from planes to tanks are all firing bullets at you. When you fire back
and kill them, they drop little gold medallions. These give you more
points. It's a cool idea, but at times there just gets to be too much stuff
happening on screen at once, and then you might just miss that one
stray bullet heading your way. Sometimes you'll find power ups in the
levels to increase your amount of bombs, or to make you shoot more
bullets at a time (I thought it was kinda cool how old school the power
ups looked. They take the forms of very simple letters, "P" and "B".
Simple, but retro).

So you shoot your way through the level and get to the mini-boss. Kill
him rather quickly, kill more enemies, then get to the boss. Read some
text from your character and blast away. Repeat for the first 5 (out of
6) levels. The final level is just a boss fight. A big boss fight with many
forms. Beat the levels, and then read a little bit of text from the
character and jump into the next level. One thing of note is that in the
results screen it tells you what percentage of enemies you killed in
that level and how many bombs you have left. Go for the 100%!

The graphics in this game range from crap to really cool, it all depends
on the level. The ship itself is a good size and easy to spot, as are most
of the enemies, and the bullets are all good size. Some of the small
purple bullets can get lost in all of the chaos though. But the levels
themselves belong in a mixed bag. One level in particular looks horrid.
The volcanoes level is just an ugly, ugly, UGLY setting, with a boring
red fire background that just screams yep ugly. But other levels like
the Heavenly gold city, and Valley, look rather good. The bosses are
always huge, and always hard. So you got to use the special bomb
attacks. For the most part they all look the same, just being of a
different element (lightning, ice, etc.). One thing of note is how good
the in-game menus look. It has a background of character sketches
and random Giga Wing related words that flash and change in the
background, and the results look cool. So overall, if you like 2D you'll
mostly like this. If not, this probably won't change your mind.

The music makes me want to relax in a chair one moment and throw
the chair out the window the next. You see, the game can't decide if it
wants to have a mellow, cool, jazzy theme (as heard on the title
screen), or some obnoxious butt rock (as heard on the results screen
when you beat a level). As for the music in the levels, there's some
good and some bad. The last three levels are all good, and have a cool
hint of some tropical and mysterious vibes to them. But the first three
levels have more of the rockier/techno-mesh thing. My brother said it
sounds kind of like Sonic Spinball, and in a way it does (or at least the
volcano level does). Is this a good thing? For me, it does nothing, but if
you like that kind of stuff....Also of note, I really liked the cool,
simplistic techno in the Rail stage with the trains. Very simple, but very
funky. I suppose I should mention that the Japanese version had
voices to go along with the dialogue but for some odd reason Capcom
decided to take it out (this also happened in Gunbird 2).

Replay value is moderate. I have been told that if you can beat the first
six levels on one credit, then you will go to the seventh and true final
level. Upon beating that you get a good ending. Normally if you use
more then one credit the ending is just a single still picture with some
text. The bad endings are all sad. So 4 characters all have their own
endings. Also, like Gunbird 2, when you pair the characters up each
team has their own ending. But unlike Gunbird 2 there is no one-player
two-player mode. This sucks because now I have to get someone to
play 2 players with me, and they were all scared away by the volcano
level! But I did get a friend to play 2-player mode and the stories in 2-
player mode seem to be more developed and deeper then the one-
player mode stories. Still the endings still suck. I also have heard that
there may be one ship you can unlock, but again I don't know. Two-
player will also be necessary to play to get all the pictures in the
gallery. These games are played mainly to see how far you can get and
it certainly delivers on that account.

So is this a game to get excited over? It's not bad. It's fun and has
some cool 2D graphics and challenging game play. The answer can be
summed up in your response to the following question. "Does a game
that is in 2D, only has about 6 levels, can be defeated in under a half
hour, but has challenging and addicting game play interest me?" If you
answer yes, then give Giga Wing a shot (if you can find it cheap). If you
answered no, then get back to playing your Vice City.

Review by: Orochi Sonic