Why Bangai-O HD makes me want to throw a controller...and why it doesn't

Bangai-O HD 2

I'd be up lying if I told you that Treasure didn't design Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury for Xbox Live Arcade with hardcore, borderline-masochistic gamers in mind. Even though I consider myself to be a dedicated follower of the Japanese developer's brand of innovative shoot-em-ups, I've caught myself furiously cussing at this game as if it just cut me off on an L.A. freeway. But I suppose that's part of the allure. At the same time, some of the unique features of this title renew my faith and interest in the aging genre. Oh, Bangai-O HD, how I love to hate thee; let me count the ways....

Why it's 100-proof rageahol:

• Rock-paper-scissors meets shoot-em-up. One way you're not going to beat the 100-plus levels in this game is by picking your favorite weapon and sticking to it. Good old homing missiles...nothing beats that, right? Wrong. Believe you me, you will get to know all of the different attacks at your robot's disposal (via imposed restrictions on each stage) and which enemy each one works best against. If you’re stubborn, expect to die quickly and often. I would know. Hell, even if you know how to beat a level or bad guy, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to do it in the first dozen tries.

• The HD in the name isn’t fooling around. I've been working through this title on an SDTV, and boy, has it been...fun. Most of the action and enemies are easy enough to see -- save for one breed of microscopic asshole robots. The real agony comes from trying to read (what appears to be) the 8-point font during the mission briefings and tutorials. What am I supposed to be doing exactly? And is it really that hard to include an option to increase the font size?

Lag is for chumps...and I'm a chump. I never thought I'd complain about the action not slowing down to a crawl, but in games like this -- where you're confronted with tons of hostile bogeys and projectiles with only seconds (if that) to make it out safely -- sometimes a little lag is a welcomed technological deficiency. Sure, it's fun to play on a system that can actually handle displaying an overwhelming number of objects on-screen, but usually that means I die much faster and more unexpectedly than I originally anticipated. Ugh.

Bangai-O HD 1

Why it has the same active ingredient as a chill pill:

It's super effective! As I mentioned earlier, each of your weapons and attacks are best suited for specific enemies. Once you get acquainted with the pros and cons of the different offensive options, you'll soon realize the joy of taking out both pesky and beastly bots in a heartbeat. When you mess up, usually all it takes is a couple of tweaks to your strategy in order to progress. Afterwards, you will likely die from the next baddy waiting around the corner, but let's focus on the positive here!

Skip the digital quarters and the hard levels. Since Bangai-O HD is a Nintendo 64/Dreamcast port and not an arcade one, you don't have to worry about extra lives or continues and progressing through the game in a linear fashion. If a particular stage hands you your ass enough times, the one-eyed mission-briefing guy allows you to move on. It's hard to get stuck somewhere and get your gamer Incredible Hulk on when completing each level in numerical order isn't mandatory.

Are you ready for some football? Even though this game is pretty damn hardcore, it can also be pretty quirky at times. When we're talking about 100-plus levels, that doesn't mean that every stage is more epic and intense than the last. Occasionally, it will throw you for a loop, and you might find yourself trying defeat a fleet of enemies by dashing (and only being able to dash) into dozens of giant soccer balls to launch at them. As odd as that may sound, it's silly things like this that keep me playing and help to keep me sane.

Fortunately, my list of stress-reducers slightly outweighs my list of rage-inducers just enough to stop me from fast-pitching my Xbox 360 controller at a wall. So thank you, Treasure, for crafting a title that appears to cater to a passionate niche of gamers but also has something for your other main demographic...that is, players like me who fall somewhere in between the casual shoot-em-up fan (does such a thing exist?) and the diehard crowd that rarely sees the sunlight.

Tags: Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury, Bangai-O

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Pierce Hacquard

May 15, 2011

Reads like old-school EGM. Might give this game a try, thanks for the review.

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Jonathan Oyama

Holy cow, that's a lot of bullets. I wonder how long I'd last before yelling at the TV. Lol.

Rob Haines

I own Bangai-O on the DS and played the XBLA demo, and while it seems like the sort of game which I should love, I just can't get the hang of it past the first couple of levels. I'm clearly not very good at it; unfortunately, there's a gaping chasm between 'not very good' and 'acceptably competent', and without a structured tutorial of any kind as to how best to use these many abilities of mine, I'm struggling to understand what I'm doing wrong when I die fifteen times in a row.

I'm sure I'll give it another try, but it's frustrating to know there's a great game under there which I just can't quite reach.

Alejandro Quan-Madrid

May 16, 2011

The tutorial in the full game helps to introduce each attack individually. I don't know what levels are in the demo, but a couple things that might help that I figured out: If you let go of the left stick and press the (I believe) right trigger instead of a dash attack you'll freeze what's inside the yellow circle. If you freeze hostile missiles then respond with a counter attack (left trigger, I believe) you'll fire off a bigger counter attack usually killing everything within your blue circle. Also, when you dash attack, you're temporarily invincible. Finally, after you counter attack, your dash/freeze gauge refills and you can keep attacking.

May 18, 2011

I had another go at the demo (which I think is just 3 levels of Fury Mode), and beat the second stage. Getting the hang of it, perhaps. At least until the insane third stage destroyed me repeatedly. Gotta love it!

yeah, man. Keep at it. Like you put it, there's a great game underneath the learning curve and endless amount of bullets. Once you understand what's going on, it becomes super fun.

Brian Vaughn

I'm with Rob there...I love shmups but Bangai-O just goes way over my head for some reason. I even consider myself more than a casual shmupper but the intensity at which Bangai-O plays is insane. I too tried the DS version and gave up. I was hoping the XBLA version would make more sense but it hasn't. I feel like I'm missing some crucial point of game play whenever I start playing...almost like they assume you're a previous player or something, it's just weird. Bangai-O is like a niche within a niche.

I don't mind a challenge and I don't mind a ton of bullets on the screen, but whenever a game can create this much frustration I just can't keep playing. As a friend once asked me, "why do you want play a game that frustrates you?" Especially given all the other shmups that will fulfill your "crazy bullet" quota (like Trouble Witches).

I started by playing through all the tutorial levels and then working my way through fury mode afterward. Like I said in the article, once you become familliar with how each weapon and attack works best, the game becomes way more fun and easier. I recommend not giving up on it and at least trying to play through the first 10 or so stages in Fury Mode to get a feel for it.

Chris Fain

At one point did it become impossible for developers to code games for standard definition. I mean I really thought they had the hang of it way back in 2004. Maybe I'm just looking at the past through rose tinted glasses.