Giga Wing 2

The Short


Pros
- Same crazy action with insane points and bullets from the original game
- Actually saves on the Dreamcast version! Novel concept!
- More ships with more features and options, as well as a new shield option
- Bosses are crazier and weirder

Cons
- Changing the medals from bright pixalated gold to pre-rendered looking things makes them much harder to see
- Looks uglier than the first game
- Game has way, way bad slowdown on the Dreamcast version
- Attempts to "flesh out" the story only made it even stupider
- Last few levels are just bosses, one right after the other
- Ships aren't as fun or interesting as in the first game
- Shorter than Giga Wing, and seems to be missing the draw that made me love the first game

Here we go again

The Long

I loved Giga Wing, so when I heard they'd made a second one I flipped out (read: yesterday. I seriously had no idea until yesterday). So now that I had a Dreamcast I had to grab the game, pop that sucker in, and see how much they'd improved over the original game. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Giga Wing 2 isn't really that much of an improvement over its predecessor. In fact, it might even be a few steps back.

Hey, an actual Dreamcast screenshot. They don't call them "bullet hells" for nothing. 

The mechanics from the first game are here, relatively unchanged. Bombs still clear the screen, you still have an assortment of ships to pick from and each have different weapons types, and the reflect shield returns. However, in a weird change there's now Reflect Force and Reflect Laser, which I honestly couldn't tell the difference except I didn't like Laser. I think Laser does some lock-on thing with its reflects, while Force...bounces them back as usual (but doesn't seem to turn them into multiplier medals this time around). Either way, I just used Reflect Force because that's what I used before so WHATEVER.

The new ships are decent but some straight up suck, like the green one that's special power is shooting small green booger shots diagonally with no range. Upgrading slightly increases the rage (and the abysmal fire rate of the main gun) but...that ship is garbage. How can that compare with the red ship, where it's side-weapon has infinite range and locks on to enemies? Answer: it can't. And my magic blue pilot nun with lock on missiles is gone. Boo.

Points! And crappy looking explosions!

While I still like the core mechanics, they did a lot of changes that are...bad. The first one is changing the color scheme of the medals. In the first game they were a bright, flashy gold. They clashed well with everything else (including bullets) which made it easy to discern bullets from enemies from points. In this one all the medals are pre-rendered and a darker shade, which makes them blend into the backdrop. They're both harder to see and less exciting to collect, which sounds like a little thing but considering getting a huge multiplier is the point of this game, making it less fun is kind of a big minus. The powerup icons also look crappy.

Another thing is that the game is shorter than the first, but they pad the time by having tons of stupid anime talking heads explaining the "story." Now, the first game had a few story segments that I gleefully skipped over, but this one has lots more, and they last longer. Way to artificially pad your game time, guys. Not to mention the last three levels are just bosses that are stationary. No cool walking robot boss from the first game, no really long final boss; just three boring bosses. Again, cutting back on the stages are we?

Using your shield is still important, though I think this game is easier.

But perhaps the most offensive part is that the Dreamcast version has abysmal slowdown. Drop a bomb, the game chugs. Shoot a lot of shots, the game chugs. It's a lot worse in two-player, probably because of double the shots, but seriously? The game already looks like vaseline was smeared over it's decent looking pixel graphics, and it is no longer widescreen; couldn't you have optimized this better? Slowdown in a bullet hell game is killer! This isn't the NES anymore, dudes!

There is a save feature now (finally) as well as a few bonuses like a gallery if you couldn't get enough of those anime stills while watching the stupid cutscenes. The difficulty slider is back, as is the option for infinite continues and changing bomb/life numbers, which is always good for these games.

Red Ship = Best Ship. Also, the arcade version looks better. 

Despite me dissing this game, I did enjoy it quite a bit. The point was that it just didn't reach to the same heights I felt the first Giga Wing did. It's still a very good shmup, with plenty of bullets everywhere and lots of challenge for score-seekers. However, when compared to the first game this one just seems...soulless. They cut back on the stuff I liked and the style of the first game to try and make it more...something. Competent? Serious? Deep? I have no idea. Point being: it's still a good time, just not as a good time.

And so it gets docked a star from the first one, even though I still enjoyed playing it with my wife.  Three out of five stars. 

Wait, are we going to the moon? I dub thee: THE LUNAR WHALE!