Last year I remembered this game
existed and that I used to want to try it, so I got it for my
birthday. Amazing intro.
Bangai-O Spirits is a pretty unique 2d
shooter. You play as the titular Bangai-O, a Gundam looking mech that
is as tall as a building, although your sprite is quite small as the
levels and other enemies are also huge. There are a ton of different
stages that fall into different categories, and you can play any of
them at anytime. You can also edit them on the fly or create your own
stages in the edit mode. There are a whopping 167 stages by my count
which includes a pretty extensive group of tutorial stages, which
feature some sarcastic, 4th wall breaking anime characters
that are pretty clever. These guys are the game's only real story and
are only featured in the tutorial and briefly after beating one set
of levels. They are a nice little touch though.
You'll need to go through the
tutorial, as the game is kind of difficult and also a bit different
than any shooter I've ever played. Bangai-O can fly in any direction,
and the screen scrolls with you. You can go back and forth and up and
down through levels; there is no automatic scrolling. Holding A makes
you dash. You can't fire weapons while dashing, but you can ram
enemies for damage. B fires one of your main weapons, or a
combination shot if you have chosen 2 compatible weapons. At the
beginning of each level, you can choose two main weapons out of 7
choices. 2 of these are melee weapons, a sword, which rapidly
attacks, and a giant baseball bat that can send enemies and enemy
missiles flying. Some of the bullet type weapons are compatible and
if you choose them you will automatically fire a shot that combines
the attributes of both shot types (there is a way to fire them
independently, but I never used it). For example, if you pick bounce
and homing shots, you fire shots that home in on enemies and bounce
off walls. If you choose 2 non-compatible weapons (such as the bat
and a gun) then B fires 1 and Y uses the other. You can move and
shoot at the same time, or you can double tap the fire button to
lock yourself in place and then fire in any direction.
You also choose two EX weapons at the
beginning of each stage. These are the screen clearing super powerful
type weapons seen in many games, although as you'll see in the
gameplay description coming up, you use these weapons a lot more than
in a traditional shooter. There are 7 choices, and many of them are
beefed up versions of the main weapons. Others are more unique, such
as one that freezes enemies and one that reflects all missiles on
screen back at their owners. These EX weapons also follow the same
combination rules as the main weapons, so you can combine compatible
types. To use them, you hold down either R or L to charge them up and
then release when you are ready to fire, causing an awesome animation
of tons of missile pods opening up on your tiny mech sprite. The
traditional missile types show a number next to you as you charge up
that represents how many missiles you will fire (up to 100!). Others
work differently, such as the freeze weapon, which shows how many
seconds you will freeze the enemy for, or the reflect weapon, which
you don't charge up at all.
Levels are typically pretty short. All
of them are completed when you destroy the target or targets in the
stage. There are lots of gimmicky levels, such as mazes and block
pushing puzzles and really great stages that involve setting off
fuses and waiting for them to unlock new areas and enemy groups.
There are also many combat levels, and combination combat/ puzzle/
maze/ fuse levels, and others, such as levels that look like stuff,
like a DS or a face.
Combat in Bangai-O is insane. There
are hundreds of missiles onscreen at once as dozens of enemies try to
gun you down. I constantly used my EX weapons to clear the screen of
missiles, as you can shoot down enemy fire and enemies can shoot down
your fire. EX weapons are as much a defensive mechanism as an
offensive weapon. The closer enemy missiles are to you when you fire
an EX weapon, the more powerful it is, so you are constantly trying
to fire a fully charged EX shot a milisecond before enemy fire hits
you. The more shots are near to you, the more missiles you will fire
back. If you would fire back more than 100, your missiles instead
grow in size, up to 4x as big as a normal missile. The best feeling
is charging your EX shot up to 100 and then releasing just as a
million missiles are about to eat you. 100X4 pops up on the screen
and then you fire a deluge of giant missiles out that gobble up the
enemy shots and penetrate the missile curtain to damage and kill the
enemies that fired them. Awesome. Time and time again enemies flood
the screen with missiles, and you flood right back. You can store up
to 3 EX shots at a time and collect fruit and money (?) dropped by
enemies to recharge it. Getting into the flow of when to use EX shots
so that you can kill enough enemies to recharge you shots and repeat
is essential to learning how to succeed.
Some enemies require different tactics
than well timed missile barages. Some smaller enemies can slice your
missiles down or hit them back at you, requiring you to catch them in
certain animations or use melee weapons against them. For example,
there are mechs that roll up in a ball and are invincible as they
rapidly fly around. They also fire so rapidly that they counteract
your shots, so you have to catch them with a big amount of fire right
when they stop rolling or use melee weapons on them. If you don't,
their rapid fire shots can shred you in an instant. Actually, most
enemies can shred you in an instant if you aren't constantly on your
guard. There are health pick-ups in many levels, and they often
figure into your strategy in a big way. You might choose to go
through a few tough battles, then double back for a health pack, then
continue on. Even with the health packs, you are almost always in
mortal danger, so they don't make things too easy (in case you were
worried about that). The game is challenging, and I can see it being
frustrating for less experienced players, but if you like a challenge
or are willing to learn, it's really rewardingly awesome.
The other enemy type that you need to
deal with are giant boss-type enemies. These are frequently
encountered and often need several vollies of missiles to take down
and can take you down in very few shots...like 1 shot. Or they may be
giant sword enemies that will reflect all your shots back unless you
flank them. Between your normal enemies that are weak but flood your
screen with bullets, the specialist enemies that require unique
tactics, or the giant and mighty boss-type enemies, the many levels
stay varied with interesting combinations of baddies. There's a lot
of visual diversity in the enemies too. Most are other types of
mechs, but there are also giant drill machines, huge wheels covered
in guns, and even giant ants.
And then there is Langai-O, an enemy
type that has all of your capabilities. So it can counteract your
missile attacks just like you can counteract others. These guys are
seriously challenging and require unique strategies. If you want to
figure them out your self, skip to the next paragraph, as I'm going
to offer a few tips. Reflecting can work, although usually causes
them to counterattack extremely hard and take you out. My favorite
strategy is to fly close to them with a shield equipped. They should
stop a medium distance away from you and fire. Your shield should
catch all of their shots. Charge up a full EX shot while this is
happening. After a few seconds, they will charge you. Release your
shot a split-second before they melee you and BAM! They shouldn't
have time to counterattack. This isn't fool-proof as it doesn't
always work for me, but it was the best strategy I could come up
with. There are probably other methods out there.
All this crazy action really taxes
the DS, and slowdown is rampant. I viewed it as part of the fun
though. It never really bothered me. One of my goals was to make it
crash, but I never quite managed it. Sometimes when you pull off a
really big EX attack on an already crowded screen, the action will
pause for quite a bit before continuing. It adds dramatic flair, I
think. It's hard to imagine it running at full speed no matter what
happened. I would love to see that. There is a Bangai-O game on Xbox
360 called HD Missile Fury. I'm very curious how it runs. It must be
crazy if it runs full speed. I'm not taking any points off for the
slowdown in this game. For whatever reason, it compliments the epic
feel of the over-the-top action.
Bangai-O also has a pretty nice level
editor. You can edit any of the game's levels or build one from
scratch. I had a few ideas and was able to very quickly build them.
There are barely any instructions on how to use the editor, but it's
so intuitive that you don't really need instruction. You basically
pick what you want to put in the level and then use the stylus to tap
or draw it in. Very simple, yet very effective. I made a few concept
levels, and I had them functioning in minutes. In one level, you set
off a fuse and have to survive and push a few blocks around while being chased by an unstoppable hoard of Langai-O's until the fuse
burns out and destroys the target. In another level, you have to
destroy yourself at the same time as the target. In another, I make
you choose between blowing up your mom or your best friend (I've beenplaying the Walking Dead a lot recently). And then I basically
ran out of ideas and just made a level filled with missile launchers
so you can play around with big EX attacks. All of these were simple
to make and test play. You can set up gimmicky levels like this
pretty quickly. I imagine balancing a decent combat level is much
harder, especially since you have to jump back and forth between edit
and test modes.
You can output these levels as sound
files that other DS's can listen to and re-create. I've tried to get
other peoples' levels with no success. I tried 2 different sets of
headphones held up to the DS microphone with no luck. I also don't
really have the equipment I need to upload my levels' sound files to
youtube. Sorry, I know you really want to play them. Reading some
forums and stuff, it's clear that the system does work, you just need
the right conditions and headphones and stuff. I'm giving up on it
for now, but may try some different headphones in the future. And if
I have any new ideas for cool levels, I may try the editor again too.
Bangai-O's music is really bad. I
don't like it at all. I played in the break room at work a lot, and I
would have the sound off out of respect for other people. I didn't
miss the music at all, it's horrible. About half of the sound effects
are grating too, such as the screams when enemies explode (well, they
are kind of funny). I'm just realizing now that you can turn the
music off but keep the sound effects. I wish I had known that before...
Bangai-O Spirits is a pretty unique
game for me. I've never played anything like it. It's challenging and
incredibly chaotic and frenetic, and I loved it. It's a Great Game,
tier 2.
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