Nintendo World Report

Shoot everything that has ever existed, ever.

I never had the pleasure of playing GunStar Heroes on the Genesis or whatever backwards communist game console it was originally on. I hear it was pretty good, but I certainly wouldn't know. But I do know that I love GunStar Super Heroes on the GBA, even without mind-clouding fanboy nostalgia telling me that I do. Thus, you can take my word for it that it's a hot game. My logic is infallible! The object of the game, like a lot of Treasure's old-fashioned-like-mom-used-to-make games, is to shoot the hell out of everything. In fact, with my new rating system, wherein points are deduced by the number of times "stats" or "cards" come into play, the game scores a perfect 10. Until Planet GameCube adopts my system, however, I'll have to make my case with a lot of words.

The player selects one of two marginally different characters, shoots a lot of enemies in an easy intro level, and then selects one of several other levels which are thankfully much harder. Some of them get pretty rough, in fact, but the heat can be turned up or down with 'Easy' or 'Hard' difficulty. Sticking with Normal, though, many areas will take quite a few attempts. For the normal, on-foot levels, 'A' jumps, 'L' switches weapons, and 'B' shoots the hell out of everything. It's still a good ol' fashioned 2D action game, of course. The really sweet feature is that 'R' can hold gunfire in the same direction while the character moves, or hold the character in place while shooting in any direction. It might sound tough to use, but it's intuitive after a while. Each of the three weapons (regular fire, an angle-changing laser, and a buster shot), when used/charged enough, can unleash a super version of its attack. For extra trickiness, up+A will send the character up in the air with an uppercut, and A again in the air does a kicking double-jump. The best thing about the controls is that that the player can move and shoot in different directions, giving an awesome amount of flexibility in intense situations.

Gunstar Super Heroes also has some other wacky departures from running around and shooting everything. There's a high speed chase level involving riding a... dog-robot thing, there's an overhead chopper-piloting level, there's a dice-rolling board game level, etc. The game isn't so straightforward like a NES Ninja Gaiden or Contra. It mixes up more like Battletoads. Each level has a few sections, sometimes with one of these other play modes, and the player can retry or just save at the beginning of each one.

One of the coolest moments of the game is the boss battle against Green. During the first attempt, I got owned. Thinking I understood his pattern, I gave it another shot, and was surprised to find him nailing me with a completely different attack. He has like a dozen different attack modes, even though you probably won't see half of them during a battle. Tricky! All of the bosses are tough but pattern-oriented battles. Just the way they should be, right?

The game presentation - the graphics, sound, goofy cinematics - are all pretty good but hardly relevant in an old-school shooter. It's always easy to see what's going on on the screen even with explosions everywhere, the music is nicely wacky but not particularly memorable, and the characters are strangely proportioned anime characters. The overall style seems quite a bit like Mischief Makers on the N64, actually (Treasure did that one, too). It's easy to know what you're getting into if considering a purchase of GunStar Super Heroes; it's a well-constructed game in which the object is to shoot in eight different directions and destroy everything that stands in your way. It more than meets expectations, with its addictive gameplay, scorekeeping, and level-selecting all well-suited for GBA gaming on the go.

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