Gunbird review for the Sega Saturn


Wow! What a great game this is. There's a vertical arcade mode present.
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I had Gunbird 2 first and now I have Gunbird. I didn't expect the prequel to be this good.
This game has more serious level & enemy design than Gunbird 2. Meaning it's less cute.
I get a better feeling playing this game compared to Gunbird 2.
In Gunbird 2 the great level design is gone. The backgrounds in Gunbird 2 are o.k., but not nearly as cool as in Gunbird.
Then there's the paralax scrolling and sometimes even sideways scrolling!
Gunbird has much nicer sprites and the music really rocks.
The music is much nicer. Gunbird 2 has a lot of music from this title.
In Gunbird though, it sounds like they upgraded the music that's in the original pcb.
Not that there's anything wrong with pure PCB music.
Only from level 4 and on you'll restart the level after your credit's depleted.
Gunbird 2 also has this feature only in Gunbird 2 it's only from level 5 and on you'll restart the level.
The difficulty is reasonable. Set on the "very hard" it has taken me a while to finish but I just did.
When you finish the game you get the ending for your character AND the game restarts for a second loop. The second loop is much harder (surprise!), but what's very interesting is that all of the color schemes are different. This looks very nice! The level I saw darker; like it was night time.

The fighters speeds

Ash                  Marion                  Valnus                  Yuan Nang                  Tetsu

speed = *****(5)      speed = **(2)         speed = ***(3)      speed = ****(4)         speed = *(1)



*TIP
The key to succes when fighting bosses & big ennemies with Yuan Nang is to:
1 charge by holding shot untill your sepcial move is charged
2 move in on enemy (close enough to be able hit it with your special move)
3 release -then- if you know the enemy is about to fire at you and you are too close to get out of the situation:
4 smart-bomb, this 'll give you some time to get away from the enemy.
5 charge (right after you've thrown a smart-bomb) & by the time the smart bomb finishes you might allmost have a special move charged up again.
Repeat this procedure & you should be able to complete the game on the hardest settings without using the second controller port if you know what I mean.
Yuan Nang is a good character, not the fastest but she has nice weapons and a good smart-bomb.
Ash is THE fastest, but he has lousy smart-bomb that cannot be used to get out of hairy situations.


FACT FILE     

Vertical arcade mode   Yes
Unlimited continues    No 
Levels                 7  
Aircraft               5  
BGM Audio test mode    Yes
CD player audio        Yes


This game has lots of art to see in the TWO gallery menu's.
It also includes 457 fanart pictures.

It's in "EDGE magazine"-16 (jan '95) where it got to the first place in the "arcade:PCBs" section on the charts page (page 98).
Now I see how it got to the first place.


Le verdiquement:

Playability 10
Graphics 9,5
Music 9,5
Lastability 9
Arcade-ness 10
Overall 9,5

Get this game, it's even better than Gunbird 2 for the Dreamcast (go figure).
Check out the Gunbird 2 review for the Dreamcast to compare the two games.

And I see why Gunbird for the Saturn is better than Gunbird 2 for the Dreamcast.
It's got nothing to do with the systems or the quality of the conversions, they're both more than adequate.
It's just that in Gunbird 2 they didn't really improve the game.
I know that that's been said a thousand times (not by me though).
But I guess that in Gunbird's case part 1 is better than part 2.
Sure there are more characters to play with and an expanded attack system but that doesn't make a (better) sequel. It's like they fired someone at Psikyo that played a big part in designing the original Gunbird when creating Gunbird 2.
I know this fact makes it seem like Gunbird 2 is a bad game, but it isn't.
Gunbird 2 is still the best vertical scrolling shooter out on the Dreamcast and the only with a vertical arcade mode. The Gunbird series is the only series where the prequel is better than the sequel.

-Do DonPachi
-Strikers 1945 part 2
Are all better than their prequels.



8 screenshots: