Geekatana Game Review: Gungage

Gungage was one of those game that was released back in 1999 that completely went past my radar and no surprising since it was also the same a lot of great titles hit the shelves for the playstation. It also doesn't help that it was a KCET (Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo) Japanese only game that never got a Europe or English international release.

I'm a big fan of Konami fan with games like Metal Gear Solid, Suikoden 2 and Castlevania on its list of all time greats I know I have to give this one a spin or two japanese title or not. And for the most part I was not disappointed.

Gungage is a 3d shooter by KCET. Sadly being a japanese game the only plot shown at the beginning of the game is "suddenly, at locations everywhere, beasts have begun to appear and attack people" After playing it a few times I can guess that some strange Corporation has unleashed some crazy monsters all over the world and it's up to four uncanny individuals to stop them.

The narrative of Gungage is your basic four person against an evil organization cliche where you run and shot everything that moves until you reach the boss at the end of the stage. And yet despite its somewhat paper thin plot and writing it surprisingly excel in everything else making it a rather fun and entertaining shooter.

If you like games like Elemental Gearbolt, Resident Evil, Space harrier and nausicaa valley of the Wind then you will enjoy this game more as the enemies and gameplay is reminiscent of those I mentioned but concentrate more on the running and the shooting action than a compelling story.

The four characters you use are as follows

Wakle Skade - your basic default character and arguably the weakest of the four with two defensive special which are both useless specially during boss fights. He is the character you first start with.

Stayr Harquebus - a small teenage girl with a minigun that is probably taller than she is but has four special attacks. She is surprisingly the most agile and best character of the four. She is the only character who can forward dash.

Kard Berdush - Ex officer of the Corporation and a wanted man and has a giant multi function rifle which reminds me of Soldier 76 of Overwatch. She can fire four different kind of shots that reminds me of Doomguy but moves more like a tank.

Dee van Feng - a teenage cyborg boy created by the Corporation that carries a pair of uzi and has four Elemental Specials but surprisingly his Fire shot is the most useful.

There are nine stages which all the characters go through but in different order and starting location. There's minor differences like Stayr has to find a certain switch to get through certain doors but overall they all fight the same type of Boss at the end of each stage. But overall the game just involves killing everything on sight. Then eventually reach the stages final boss then read some japanese text you probably don't understand anyway then kill said boss.

The UI screen and items changes when you change characters too. The chicken that you collect to restore your health as Wackle is now a cup of Ramen when you play as Stayr. Nice small details like this that the game went to extra length to do that they shouldn't have. Also collecting 100 gems gets you an extra life ala Super Mario and collecting the flowers unlocks you extra options as well.

Graphics wise it's a 3d shooter with decent background for a playstation game that came out back in 1999. It can be choppy and has clipping issues but regardless has little to no slow down in frame rates even in the giant boss fights you encounter in the game which is always good since precise movement is required if you want to Speed run or do a No damage Boss run just for the heck of it. 

The bosses vary from a giant moth boss that is straight out of a kaiju film, a giant stone golem, a giant spider and all other manner of weirdness. The stages also greatly vary with you fighting in a rundown town, to desert or a giant tower. There's even a water temple stage with merman, piranha fishes that feels like its straight out of a Castlevania game.

The controls takes a bit of getting used to in fact it was one of my complaints about the game when I first started since the character controls like a tank but once you get used to it and learn the master the strife button its probably one of the best control set up there is type of games short since you can strafe and auto lock on the enemy while continuously shooting.

The music is impressive and is one of the first things that I like when I first started playing. The music was done by famed song composer Sota Fujimori who later moved on to do songs and music for other Konami game titles like Castlevania and Contra. You simply have to hear it to enjoy it.

Gungage is an underrated gem for the ps1 that I'm so glad I took the time to find and play. This game definitely deserves an HD remake or even a sequel for the pc or ported to the latest game console in the market. Hopefully with a more beef up and more engaging plot this time around and enhanced modern graphics.

Overall if you're a fan of 3d run and gun third person shooter that has an old school feel to it than Gungage is definitely a game for you. It's not going to win any awards for best game or being innovative but it's definitely entertaining and fun and is worth playing when you got a lot of time to burn and wants to just shoot hordes of enemies on screen.