When discussing the world of shoot ‘em ups, or ‘shmups, there is one developer’s name that cannot be left out of that discussion: Treasure. Since the early ‘90s, this small developer has been producing many of the most well-known and well-loved shoot ‘em ups that have come to define the genre for gamers. Two of Treasure’s finest games, Gunstar Heroes and Ikaruga, have already made their way to the Xbox Live Arcade, and two more, Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun, are on their way. Recently added to this stellar line-up is Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury, a game that can be easily labeled as a “bullet hell ‘shmup,” but is a poor descriptor of what you actually experience.
Upon first glance Bangai-O HD is busy and hectic – and that’s just the tutorial level. You’re given an overview of your abilities by a man in a white lab coat (whom, if history has taught us anything, we should inherently not trust) in a screen of text before being told, “go do it.” You can read through all of that, you can play through the tutorials, or you can save some time and just follow these easy steps:
1. Use your left-stick to move around, your right-stick to shoot, and your left bumper to switch between your two weapons (which changes with each level)
2. Ignore the right stick, fly into the nearest swarm of enemies/bullets, hold down your left trigger until you see something in the high hundreds, and then quickly tap the right trigger a few times
3. Shout “BANGAI-OOOOOOOOOOOOO” at the top of your lungs and release the left trigger
4. Collect space fruit (it’s good for you!), repeat steps 1 through 3, win
This video acts as a better tutorial to the game than the actual in-game tutorial
What did you just do there? Why are you doing it? This is the part in many reviews where there’d be some kind of breakdown about what’s actually happening when you press all those buttons and what it means. I’d talk about how the left trigger engages your “Counter” attack, the right trigger boosts that attack, and has the added functionality of doing this and that, but I don’t think that actually matters. Bangai-O HD is one of those games where spending the time describing the different elements of the gameplay has no real bearing on the actual experience of playing the game, or how good it is. No words can do justice to the sheer amazement, excitement, and satisfaction that comes from rushing head first into a group of enemies and unleashing an omni-directional barrage of bullets in a glorious symphony of destruction.
The two players are distinguishable by the different color circles behind them and each is free to wreak havoc on their own
Where the game’s faults lie are in its lack of any real cohesion between its 100 stages. Unlike many of Treasure’s other games, including the original Bangai-O, Bangai-O HD doesn’t have any story element to it whatsoever. Each stage is more of a bite-size morsel that’s intended to take you, at most, a couple minutes to clear. While these morsels can end up packing a big kick, and the steps outlined above will see you through many of them, it would be nice to have some ultimate goal or purpose to see you through them all. As it is, Bangai-O HD becomes nothing more than a series of challenges to overcome that get progressively harder. If one level proves overly tough, you won’t be stuck for long as three unsuccessful attempts allows you to just skip it and move to the next one. With the inclusion of an online leaderboard, there is a nice competitive/bragging rights element added to the game, though that competition element is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the top player’s replay of their playthrough is available to watch.
It’s this dichotomy of elements – inventive levels, but nothing that ties them together or forces you to complete them; multiplayer competition, but learn how to be as good as leader – that carries over into the co-op play and level editor and, ultimately, brings the game down overall. Beating these challenge levels with a friend makes them a whole lot more fun as the craziness just ramps up to a new level when both players unleash a barrage of 1000 missiles at the enemies. It was actually by playing the game co-operatively with Nick that I learned the key step in winning (i.e., shouting “BANGAI-OOOOOOO!”). While couch co-op is a feature that would be nice, after playing a few levels in the co-op mode, I'm not sure it would work. So much of the game entails what you can see coming at you and being able to freely move about, and any implementation of a split-screen feature or tethering mechanic would severely hamper the co-op experience. Fortunately, for those who want to play locally (and have another XBox and TV lying around), there is a system link feature for the game.
Some levels put you in a confined space where you have to quickly kill everything, others are much larger and divded into sections
Yet while the levels become more fun, and easier, when playing co-operatively, you can only play those levels that the host has unlocked in their single-player game. Work together to beat something, but don’t get any credit for it. It's a methodology that's annoying when it comes to games like Fable II, but it's practically unthinkable in a game like this one. The reason for this is no doubt tied to the online leaderboard keeping track of everyone's scores and clear times, but I would think that it'd be possible to just disable this feature in order to allow friends, strangers, and 'shmup enthusiasts to team up together to advance through the plethora of stages. Finally, the level editor, where you can take any of the levels you’ve cleared in single-player and modify them to increase the insanity, can only be shared with friends but can only be edited solo. It's a sadly missed opportunity to allow co-operative level editing given that only your friends benefit, or suffer, from your particular brand of 'shmup ingenuity/cruelity.
Ultimately, Bangai-O HD is a great game, if not a confusing one. Its dual-nature makes some of its best features, the co-op play and the level editor, a little lack-luster, its core gameplay is solid and worth the price of entry for just about any gamer. If this whole thing seems like it’s a little bit bilateral in its thinking, I believe the game has affected me. You see, after playing through a good 30 or 40 of the game’s 100 stages, I’m still not entirely sure I understand everything that’s going on, and I definitely don’t know why I’m doing it. All I know, and what I think really matters and speaks the most about this game, is that I don’t want to stop doing it.