Sega Vintage Collection-Gunstar Heroes

Gunstar Heroes

Developer- Treasure

Publisher- Sega

Originally released- 1993






Gunstar Heroes is now available as a downloadable game on the Playstation Network, Xbox Live and Virtual Console for a relatively small price. This release is essentially an extension of Sega’s Sonic Ultimate Collection of Genesis games released a few months before this. New features to the game include a scoreboard to compare with other players around the world as well as a new smoothing option to improve the graphical quality a little bit. Since its release in 1993, Gunstar Heroes has been considered something of a cult classic amongst the gaming community. It’s widely regarded as one of the best games of all time for the Sega Genesis. But that was then, this is now. So, the question remains, has Gunstar Heroes stood up to the test of time?

Um……yeah! This game is still every bit as fresh and as fun to play in 2009 as it was some 15 years ago. This is a straightforward side scrolling shooter that was designed in the philosophy of games in the glory days of the Arcade in the 80s and early 90s. Short, but challenging levels with controls that are simple to pick up, but difficult to master. This is one of those games where learning and mastering the level design and enemy patterns are a must for success. Chances are if you were old enough to remember that era of game design, then you will love Gunstar Heroes. Those that do remember the game on the Genesis will find that the game is still pretty innovative for its genre, even for today. However, that being said, this game might not appeal to everyone, particularly newer gamers, as stated before, this game is quite difficult. The gameplay is lightning fast paced and enemies are unrelenting, constantly coming at you from all directions. There is never a dull moment in Gunstar Heroes. The player can get quickly overwhelmed by the enemies on screen and take a ton of damage in a relatively short time frame. With such difficult enemies, thankfully you are given an impressive array of moves with which to defeat them. For starters, you can choose between four different weapon types, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, to fit your style of play. You can even combine two different weapon types. Give me a Force/Chaser gun combo and watch the carnage. The game even offers a variety of melee attacks such as the ability to toss the enemy, perform aerial attacks and slide kicks to offer a close quarters style of combat for those that prefer to do so offering a different style of play compared to many other games of its type. Try tactics like that with any of the guys in Contra or Metal Slug and enjoy a quick trip to the Game Over screen as simply making contact with the enemy warrants an instantaneous death. Wimps. Actually, it’s pretty forgiving with the difficulty in general when compared to other games of this kind. The game never seems to get too overwhelming. . Although you are not given multiple lives, you do have a pool of hit points that determine your life and health pickups can be obtained throughout to keep your strength up. You can replay the level as many times as you like and with the ability to save in this downloadable version, you’ll never have to replay a level again even if you want to take a break from the game. While this game only has but a handful of stages, each stage plays fundamentally different from one another. Game developer Treasure realized that it’s not the quantity of the stages you should be concerned with, but rather the quality. No stage plays exactly like the other and never does the game feel repetitive. One stage has the player riding on a mine cart as the screen auto scrolls and you have to avoid attacks by jumping from the top to the bottom of the screen. The most interesting of the stages has you using the character to toss a dice like a board game as you move from room to room landing on spaces that can either help or hinder you. But the real innovation of the game comes in the form of the impressive boss encounters. The bosses are where the real challenge of the game comes into play. But this is also where the game feels it’s most rewarding as each boss has a specific pattern and each fight feels fresh and different. The satisfaction of trouncing the tough bosses is perhaps the most satisfying example of fun to be had in the game.

Ultimately the best word to describe this game is fun. The game never takes itself too seriously, self aware of the fact that things like plot and character development ultimately an excuse for you to go from left to right destroying everything in sight. The game has the benefit of a strong presentation. Great music and sound effects accompany the levels and supplement the already crazy heart pumping action on the screen. Technically the game is one of the more graphically impressive game from the Genesis as the game often boasts multiple sprites on screen at once with very little flickering. The game has a great sense of humor providing many hilarious moments as many times you’ll find yourself switching from chuckling out loud to “ohmyGodI’mabouttodie” constantly. The game is surprisingly replayable for such a relatively short title due to the fact that it manages to strike a balance between boring and unchallenging and frustratingly hard. Many times will you die, yet many times will you find yourself saying “I quit” just before making that last minute decision to give it that one more try. Or two. Or three. Double the fun by going online and playing with a friend in the co-op mode. For the gamers who really want to test their skills, there is an option for a hard mode adding further replay ability. Truly fanatical people who utterly hate themselves can try the hardest mode. Treasure is a very talented game company able to squeeze an impressive game out for the Sega Genesis and this game deserves every bit of praise and adulation it gets for being one of the greatest Genesis games of all time. Old school gamers definitely need to check this out and get reacquainted and perhaps even some of you newer folks might give it a try. Who knows, you might be surprised. There’s a much worse way to spend $5.