Gunbuster (1992)

Name:Gunbuster AKA Operation Gunbuster
Number:230
Year:1992
Publisher:Taito
Developer:Taito
Genre:FPS
Difficulty:2/5
Time:2 hours 30 minutes
Won:Yes (100W/73L)

An arcade FPS. Not as a metaphor. A FPS on arcade hardware, that plays like one of those computer FPS. Made in Japan even. That's such a winning combination that I assumed going in that there was something wrong with the game. You have this game that does all these important things that anyone should be waving around games media. This isn't the usual ugly things I champion, this is just as attractive as the big boys, yet possibly more advanced. What gives?

Also, I have to point this out, this has nothing to do with the Gunbuster anime. People in Japan just liked naming things Gunbuster. The anime seems to be a space opera, while this is more of a cyberpunk thing. I haven't watched the Gunbuster anime, so I could be mistaken. It'd hardly be the first game to be a weird adaptation.

If you move the cursor too far to the right or left, you get to see the heatmap, then skeleton of the characters. I don't understand the purpose of it.

Once you put your quarters in, you can select one of four characters. Everything seems to be the same for gameplay purposes except the special weapons. We've got four, Mine, Flame, Laser and Spread. Mine is an explosive attack and has the shortest recharge time. Flame also explodes, but leaves fire behind and has a mid-recharge time. Laser shoots through enemies and has the longest recharge time. Spread is basically a shotgun blast. I lean towards Mine and Laser. Mine you can simply pump out fast enough to make up for its lower damage; Laser deals a lot of damage and deals with pesky enemies in front of the boss. Spread is basically unnecessarily in comparison to the others and I didn't see anything Flame had over Mine.
 

Putting "warm up" in quotations makes it sound a lot worse than it probably is supposed to sound.

Before each mission, you get a briefing from a creepy-looking databroker of some sort. He tells you what's about to happen on the stage, though his presence is hardly necessary. The intro text you get during the attract mode informs us that cyborg criminals are ruining the city, so bounties have been offered on them. The player is a bounty hunter.

How polite of an arcade game.

The first stage is simple, get used to the controls while a flying monster rotates around an elevator into nothing you're on. No, seriously, the game is seriously focused on letting you get used to its bizarre controls, which are on original hardware, a joystick and a light gun. Emulated, this is WASD and a mouse. This isn't quite true mouse aiming, but it's close. The light gun controls a cursor, reach the edge and you turn.

Oddly, it's this subtle shift in control that feels off. Most of the other arrow movement with cursor aiming kind of games come off as more smooth experiences. Something about this one seems odder than the more odd titles. I'm going to attribute this to being just close enough to what the usual method is that my brain stops trying to parse it as something different and my desire for a standard modern FPS kicks in. I also noticed that turning is very slow, which may have something to do with my issue. I'm also really not sure how two players was supposed to work out, only one gets control of walking, but turning seems like it could be tricky.

Back to the boss, he shoots flying rockets that you can shoot down, and occasionally pops out a drone you can also shoot down. He is the opposite of complex; If this is new to you he's easy, if you aren't he's a joke. Taito really wasn't screwing around with making this easy for players.

And then we have the second stage. This guy's on a hoverbike, not that you would know it by the way he stays in place waiting for you to catch up. Everyone is actually flying, including the player characters. I don't know why. This level seems designed to help you get used to movement...which is kind of helpful knowing that the game is a bit weird. The boss has one trick up his sleeve though, he drops a set of four mines which you will hit if you don't shoot all four.

I suppose that's one way to put it...

The third stage has a boss which shoots projectiles that you can't shoot, instead, you have to dodge. He just goes around in a figure 8 pattern. There's also a person hiding in the corner and another person who if you get close to, attacks you. Basically just a random jump scare for no apparent reason. There's no explanation for it, they pop up here and in one of the variations on stage four.

It's at this point that the game feels weird. You get a choice of two targets, one cheaper than the other, and usually weaker. This continues on until the final stage. I'm not entirely sure why considering that a complete game of this feels incredibly short. I'm through about a third of the stages of one game, even if the later ones are longer. The difficulty hasn't spiked yet, the closest thing to a problem has been that you can't heal, your health only comes back if you die and put another quarter in.

On each level where minor enemies pop up, there are doors that they come out of, so you're never truly out of them.

I'm going to just mention those that I found interesting. Either way you go off the start, you're going to end up fighting mostly the same boss which now is surrounded by a bunch of little tanks and the occasion other flying dude. This is basically the archetype it settles in for the rest of the game.

The next interesting level is a hoverbike gang. This feels like more effort was put in even if it's basically just a rail shooter stage. You automatically move around in a circle, sometimes in front of the boss, sometimes behind him. In general, you're trying to dodge him and the minor gang members. It sounds simple, but it works a lot better than some of the other stages. Even though I basically demonstrated why I don't like rail shooters...burned up the most coins outside of the final stage.

One stage has two fellow Busters who apparently went all psycho killer and killed someone they shouldn't. Or did they? Since if you shoot them enough they turn into robots. Or are all the Busters cyborgs and nobody knows who is going to kill next? Food for thought. It's actually odd, because outside of them looking like two of your possible characters, they're not that interesting. Other bosses use your special attacks, so that doesn't make them special.

One of the final possible bounties is a guy attacking a cruise ship. At first this is a quite simple level, except that the guy goes under the water occasionally, until he spawns two snake robots. These are annoying, they have hard to dodge shots and fly around in and out of the water. I feel like while I understand most of the rest of the enemies attack patterns, even if I can't avoid them, these feel like you need to work miracles to avoid.

The final stage decides that the best way to make itself harder is to have four bosses. The first you kind of fight two at a time, but in practice they were easily isolated from each other. Owing to the level being designed in such a way that there are sliding walls that divide one boss away from you. Gun one down, then take out the other. Once you do this a third boss pops up, and then random enemies start popping in. You can mitigate this a little by shooting some of the targets around the start, because those are unactivated versions. The boss is basically impossible to dodge...unless you aren't in front of him. I'm not quite sure what his pattern is. Once you take out the third boss, you have to flee the stage to...an elevator downstairs.

Then the game goes weird and the true final boss is a brain in a jar. A jar that shoots out lasers. This guy is a real pain, even after getting used to the rest of it I'm still trying to get past him without putting in a couple of quarters. He stands still at first, shooting out a pattern of laser beams. First, two at your sides, then one towards you. Later on he adds another towards you afterwards. About the same time he starts running after you. And don't think you can dodge them by hiding behind a pillar, there are more cyborgs around and he can shoot over the blocks. There was a process where I was mentally like, oh wow, creepy, then just ignored it. I think I should be acting like this is impressive now, but it just feels like a cool little trick.

Kill him, the place catches on fire and then starts exploding. You automatically start flying away, seeing your guy fly away from the explosions.

And I win. You get a win screen depending on the character. The first time, with the Mine dude, he gives an end speech about how he drinks. Damn, that's hardcore. Takes some balls to end your mindless arcade shooter with something akin to "life sucks and then you die". Others include "I enjoy killing cyborgs", "My revenge is pointless." and "I'm glad to get back to my girlfriend now."

I'm going to repeat a point I made earlier. Every level is basically just you going around in a circle shooting at the boss and his underlings...outside of the first which is the boss going around in a circle and you shooting at him. This connects into an interesting design choice. There's an invisible fog of about 4/5 tiles, can't tell which. If the boss is outside of your vision the game will outright tell you in which direction he's in. It might sound like hand-holding, but you don't really have a chance of finding him otherwise.

While this game is never going to win any awards for graphics, I do like the scope of destruction effects it has. Not just your usual scenery objects, but on enemies themselves. As they get torn apart by your shots, they gradually reveal more of their cyborg skeleton. Sometimes limbs get shot off, which affects their damage output...not always in your favor. Oh, and there was a timer which I guess kills you if it runs out. I never remember it running out.

As I close this out, a thought occurs to me. Three out of the four main characters have an ending that shows as much dissatisfaction with the establishment as with the antagonists. If you believe the level where we fight the crazy Gunbusters, they're cyborgs too. The guy who gives us our contracts is a creepy guy who is hooked into some weird machine. This game might not be treating it's story with much focus, but even so, it does feel like it's asking if what we're doing is truly for the good of the city.

With that, let's get to the rating.

Weapons:
Because you get two weapons per character, the game feels limiting in the moment. It doesn't play out like Hexen, it plays out like a flight sim. And because there are no specific targets like there would be in a flight sim, some weapons are of less utility than others. 2/10

Enemies:
On one hand, there are a number of interesting enemies, on the other, there is a lot of fodder. Sort of balances it all out. 4/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
Every level is basically the same and the only real difference is the occasional gimmick fight or switch between rooms. 2/10

Player Agency:
Even in contrast to most early mouse aim games, this is awkward. Because this technically isn't mouse aiming, but a light gun and a joystick. Except that this game uses a specific light gun, there's a second button on the trigger which uses the secondary. Outside of original hardware, you're never seeing that, so awkward mouse aiming it shall likely remain for us who don't have the money and space for a 30-year-old arcade cabinet. 7/10

Interactivity:
There are plenty of destructible objects, but not much else. 2/10

Atmosphere:
This is one of those block-based FPS games where after my session, no matter how I played, I felt like I had been at it for forever. Considering this one is about 30 minutes long, that's impressive. 1/10

Graphics:
Linework is nice, but shading is incredibly simple. Just simple pillow shading. Animation is all but ignored, since the characters are designed in such a way that animation is unnecessary. Oh, and the raycasting is often awkward with scenery objects moving in incredibly illogical ways. 4/10

Story:
I'm probably overthinking it, but there is some ambiguity in an otherwise ignored story. 2/10

Sound/Music:
Nothing objectionable, but none of it is very interesting or meaty. Which might be MAME, since I had to put my speakers at max to hear the game. 4/10

That's 28. On the high end, but I'm satisfied with where it ended up.

It's not really a mystery why this didn't take off. Even if you're just a semi-good light gun player, this isn't going to cost you much more than the $4 I would have spent to beat this. Another $4 to play the other paths and suddenly you've seen all there is to see. This just doesn't have a whole heck of a lot going for it, and judging by its rankings in arcade revenue at the time, most people felt the same way.

Instead, the reason to play it, today at least, is because this game is an incredible oddity. While it suffers from the same design philosophies that made the VOTOMS FPS awful a few years ago, it's still interesting. Mouse aiming almost like what we expect today, on an arcade system. It doesn't matter if it is good or not, what matters is that it did what it did. To give the game a lot of credit, we're still arguing about the Build Engine's implementation of mouse aiming, and that was one of the two engines responsible for bringing it together as we know it.