/vr/ - Retro Games

Bangai-O looks like a free-roam shmup at first, and it is, but it has a lot of more depth than that, and it's hard to classify in one genre, and the only similar game to this is called Hover Attack, an early 80s game on a japanese Sharp computer, Bangai-O is a spiritual successor to that game which the main programmer of the game loved when he was younger. Well, Bangai-O takes the concept of Hover Attack from the controls, you're using a humanoid robot and you can jump at zero gravity and hover in any direction you want.
But Bangai-O adds something else apart from shooting enemies, and that's the explosion counter. Basically Bangai-O is a love letter to all these mecha anime from the 80s that used a ridiculous excessive amount of missiles, each with their own trace. The way this works is that the more enemies, or enemy bullets you can make explode with your own missiles, the higher your score is, and in the N64 version, it also lets you make upgrades through a combo system (you can make up to like 10 consecutive combos, that means 1k explosions).
In one of the dialogue cutscenes the characters discuss what kind of game is Bangai-O, one says it's obviously a shooter, while the other says it also has a puzzle element, then another character concludes it's a "bait game". You're baiting enemies as much as you can and just in the last moment you release your missile explosion, the more enemies and bullets are going after you, the better.

The original N64 version looks more "retro", but anyway Bangai-O is based on an old game called Hover Attack for the PC-88

>>1771743
A sweet little Dreamcast game from childhood, Bangai-O

Holy balls if you like overtop action that in no way takes itself seriously, look into this one. Really easy to get into, really addicting. Also love the sound track.