GUNBIRD 2

Languages: English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese

Hours played at review time, across 42 reviews with recorded playtime.

positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up

It's hard for me to rightly look at the Shoot'em Up genre with a proper lens as I simply consider myself an outsider to it. That being said, Gunbird 2 has always fantasized me in a way that most other SHMUPs don't. The style of it looks charming, the game is very colorful, there are a multitude of characters to chose from, and it was one of the few arcade machines at this local Burger King joint I used to go to. Going to play Gunbird 2 for nostalgic reasons; I was really surprised how beginner friendly this game can be. Like don't get me wrong, it has challenging issues, but the initial start of the game wasn't nearly as off putting as some other shmups out there. Gunbird 2 has a tendency to shift between it's first few stages giving players a chance to become more familiar with it's levels. The way that you lose power ups is gradual as it's not all at once, and the enemy attacks do have some predictable patterns once you get use to them. All in all, Gunbird 2 is at least friendly in the beginning, which makes for the last 2 levels spike in difficulty really exasperating. Honestly, I think that's just the main problem with Gunbird 2 here. No matter how much you pay attention it can always feel like a bomb didn't go off fast enough or an attack came out way too fast. And really this is only noticeable near the end of the game, at Gunbird 2's last two levels that things feel unfair. Why there is suddenly a laser that can instantly come out, or the way certain enemies and attack patterns start attacking from the sides really feels more jarring than challenging. No enemies are introduced before hand that are like this, and the game sort requires you know when a boss is just going to fire a laser with little warning. It just makes getting to the end point, only to game over feel awful, or simply dying in these last few levels a hellish nightmare of survival that feels like there is no way out. Still, I feel Gunbird 2 offers more to it's audience than the average SHMUP. Not to knock other SHMUPS, but the fact this game has a team attack mode with it's own unique story for each pairing is just super neat. The difficulty levels range through 9 different ones that honestly feel like a proper work up to each level. Boss and enemy designs are fairly neat and stick out on the maps without distracting the player or the bullets that you have to dodge. The backgrounds are all different and unique on each stage, and the music is very poppy. Gunbird 2 is just ascetically pleasing to look at, and deceptively friendly at first that I can't help to not recommend to others simply because it's inviting.