The 1UP Network previews games with the philosophy that people want to hear our honest opinions on titles before they are released. If a game looks really promising, we'll pass on our excitement. But if a game needs work, we'll let you know. Here are our Bangai-O Spirits Nintendo DS previews.
Previews
We spend some hands-on time with the DS shmup. New screens.
With Bangai-O Spirits, Treasure has somehow managed to cram a classic N64 and Dreamcast shooter onto the pocket-sized DS. Even the original's characteristic missile-blossom counterattacks look really badass, despite some graphical slowdown. Spirits features a ton more weapons than the original game and uses a "MIX system" to combine powers. For example, if you select Napalm and Break, you'll get the explosion of a Napalm missile without the penetration penalty, so you can shoot through enemy bullets. Hitting the B and Y buttons (or L and R, in the case of EX moves) simultaneously allows you to fire each weapon separately. Not all weapons can be mixed, but the sword, bat, and other nonmixable weapons still have their place in combat.
SCREENS: Click the image above to check out all Bangai-O Spirits screens.
The superattack in Spirits is slightly modified from the original's in that you just have to hold down L or R to charge an EX move -- but the counterattack part, where you gain more bullets depending on how many enemy projectiles are bearing down on you, still stands. You can only shoot up to 100 bullets at once, but with just the right timing, they can be up to four times their normal size and deal a lot of extra damage.
Despite the evil laughter upon your defeat, there really isn't much plot to speak of -- just over 160 levels split into categories of Treasure's Best, Puzzle, and Others. There's no need to unlock them, so all you need to do is choose the most useful weapon combinations and hop in. Creating your own levels in the editor is pretty easy, and the slick Sound Load system allows you to share files by just playing a sound conversion into the microphone of another DS -- sounds like...information-rich static! Since you can just put a pair of headphones on your DS and get the file, we expect to see websites full of these for download after the game ships in August.
I had a chance to try this out -- it totally bedazzled me, I had no
idea what was going on. Mind you, it was entirely in Japanese and
considering my knowledge of Japanese is diddily squat I didn't have
much luck in figuring it out.
Bangai-O on the DC had the single best "game over" screen ever. I can still hear the accompanying jingle in my head, so many years later.
I wonder if they held over that "game over" screen for the DS version...
