[DS] New Treasure Game For Nintendo DS Reve-it's Bangai-O Spirits

I just played it for a bit. Just about everything is in Japanese except for the pause menu. I don't really know what mode I was playing. All it had me doing was complete mission after mission where I had to destroy certain targets. The game certainly got hectic pretty quick, but it was quite fun. No stylus controls from what I noticed. The top map shows a map, while the bottom screen has all the action. From what I was able to tell, the controls are something like this:

Y: Weapon 1
B: Weapon 2
A: Dash
R: Bomb
X: ???
L: ???

Definitely gonna spend more time with this later.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

It is out in Japan. It's called Bangai-O Spirits by the way.

It is also very different from the N64 and DC originals.

First off there is a tutorial mode. It is 17 levels with cutscenes before each stage explaining some game mechanics or something. It's not in English so they could be talking about muffins or something, they get very excited. Anyway, you beat those 17 levels you get credits. This will take you ten minutes and you'll be all waah?

Next you'll try the 2nd option on the main menu which is free play. Now you can choose from any of the 160 levels already in the game and have at her. Levels can be incredibly tiny (as big as the screen) to about the size of the maps in the original.

You are also given the option of loading yourself up with four weapons, two basic attacks and two counter attacks. You've got lots of different missle types, and a couple melee types. You will want to take the bat around with you because it sends shit flying all over the screen and is the best part of the game.

Anyway, the game is hard. Enemies have a lot more health then they did in the originals, and they shoot a lot more bullets. Shooting your regular guns is pretty much usless so you're going to be using your counter attack a lot to flood the screen with bullets. Like the N64 version you can charge your counter attack up before releasing it (up to 100 bullets), and if you release the counter when you're surrounded by enemy fire, you will release larger, more powerful bullets. They can get really big, it's pretty silly.

Oh, by the way, no ABXY controls. L is one counter, R is the other, B fires one of your guns, Y or X fires the other, and holding A makes you dash around. You cannot fire while dashing around. It works better than you think since you pretty much just counter bomb the crap out of everything or hit them with your bat.

Here's something neat, pressing select opens up a little edit menu which lets you do pretty much anything you want to a stage, while you're playing it. You don't like that enemy in front of you? Just erase him. Not enough enemies? Add more. Put a couple soccer balls all over the screen and smash them with your bat and watch all hell break loose if you want.

There's also the level editor where you can make your own levels from scratch and save them. You can then copy a sound wave of the map and share it with anyone through the mic on the DS. After you beat a level it will also ask if you want to save the replay and these can be shared the same way.

Anyway, you'll have to try it and see for yourself. It's very different.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

So it uses the awkward direction lock system instead? That'll take some getting used to, but luckily counters don't require directions.

Sounds really neat, hopefully they translate it <3

I was speaking idiomatically.

Large bump because this is a game that should not be neglected.

I've been playing this since my US copy arrived in the mail on Friday and it's quite excellent. It took me a moment to even realize just how excellent it is.

The game initially feels like a Bangai-O Lite, with a level editor thrown in to compensate for the apparent compromise elsewhere. The DS is incredibly tiny for my hands and on one hand entirely unfit for games with this pace. The shooting controls feel a tad fiddly and it's ridiculously easy to die on a single enemy without chance for retaliation. Completing levels often feels like a case of luck rather than skill, mostly due to the random nature of some of the enemy movements.

Stick with it though as this will change. It dawns to you. For one, it is an incredibly addicting game. You can die really fast, but restarting a level is just as quick, further enhancing the "just one more go" feel. And you will be repeating that a lot. After the first 16 tutorial levels, you will start dying at an alarming rate on the 17th. At first you feel the game is just really fucking hard and the controls too fiddly. Later on, by the time you return to the level to improve your time and score, you'll notice the difference. You no longer rush, shoot blindly and hope for the best. You've developed new techniques, strategies and tactics, gaining new ways to survey the field and assess your options. You'll see that while the game really is very hard, there is surprising depth to the system, affording multiple different playstyles, thanks to the weapon loadouts. You steadily learn the rhythm of EX-counters and surviving tight roomfulls of enemies without a single scratch.

First you learn to dodge enemy projectiles, then get rid of them, then use them against the enemies. The EX-counters range (you can pick two for the level) from previous Bangai-O style missile clouds (now reliant on both the time you hold the trigger down and the amount of bullets heading your way) through freezing time, to sending everything flying away from you.

The shooting weapon loadouts follow this same system (two per level) with various missiles with different strengths and weaknesses, a directional shield, a laser sword for cutting through bullets and enemies, and my favorite, a giant bat for hitting projectiles back at enemies, as well as sending them flying.

At best, it's completely intoxicating, panicky shooting and dodging morphing into graceful dancing and playing with your enemies. One level you would be a typical anime mecha, releasing hundreds of missiles to wipe out an armada, one level you're dashing between enemy fire, freezing time ZA WARUDO style and sending everything crashing about, finishing them off with a sword.

But it IS really hard, and the DS IS really tiny, resulting in extremely sore hands if you have long fingers like me. It's a splendid kind of pain, as finishing that next level proves so satisfying.

There's shooting levels, puzzles levels, salutes to all manner of anime and videogames (a pac-man level, an R-Type mothership etc), even pokes at modern gamers. Plus the level editor is easy and fun to use, the sound load sharing system is admittedly novel but once you get it to work it's a lot of fun and clever.

So yeah, this is fast becoming my third favorite Treasure game, right after Radiant Silvergun and Gradius V <3

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Woo YAY I preordered but I couldn't wait, so I also downloaded the US version. It's awesome!

I haven't even scratched the surface of the pack of levels that comes with the game itself, and then there's the practically endless supply of additional levels thanks to the level editor (which I also haven't touched yet). The tutorial levels were extremely funny, and the levels that I've tried so far were all really fun (if sometimes really difficult, did anyone else struggle like hell with the final tutorial level? never mind, just realized that was the 17th level you were talking about Q). Sometimes I wish there was a little more in the way of being able to predict what weapon would be good to take into a level, but it's all good, I don't mind going through a level a couple times to learn by trial and error.

What's your favorite weapon? Mine has to be the freeze EX, combined with the bouncing EX. It's just too funny to freeze a circle of bullets as it's about to hit you, and then shoot giant bouncing balls that trace the enemies and clear the screen for you.

FELIPE NO

Recently I'm constantly going with the combination of Bat and Bounce, with Freeze and Bounce for EX. Sometimes I switch the missile weapon around, but I'm almost always carrying the bat as it's really useful and very, very fun. If the level involves ANY Longai-Os, Reflect is a must or it's impossible for me.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Qwarky

Longai-Os

Freeze and Break does a good enough job of turning their missiles against them, though I imagine with Reflect the action stays much more fast paced, rather than being defensive and somewhat dull in comparison. Beats swinging the bat like it's going out of style... and then getting killed anyway because Longai-O's have damn infinite EX POWAH.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The easiest trick is to get them to fire as large missiles as possible. Bat their crap at them till you get them to do one of those mid level counters, then immediately Reflect it back, which will in turn make them counter with much, much larger missiles. These reflected, they will surely kill anything on screen and it was the only way I survived the last few levels in Treasure's Best with multiple (and different size) Longai-Os.

I have a saved replay where my reflected counter reads 35991, although that could well actually be 359, with maybe the Longai-Os EX counter of 191 under it or something. But I wouldn't mind the idea that I reflected 35000 missiles back at the big Longai-O~

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm not sure how I'd survive The Earth stage with that strategy, mainly because Ninjas and Spiker Roll things want my blood. I need to be Dio, Q. I NEED TO BE.

ZA WARUDO.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I guess I got lucky as every time I play the Earth stage, the blue bots and longai-os beeline at me, with the hedgehogs calmly staying put at the top of the level without activating. I've also found both ninjas get obliterated if you manage to reflect both longai-o's large missiles rapes. They really wipe out everything. And one time one ninja survived, I could collect the left over fruits and finish him off with Freeze and batting him to death. I didn't think you could launch large ninjas but apparently you can.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I just picked up this game a couple of days before I left to go back to work. I've been playing it during all my free time at work, and it is an immensely enjoyable game.

It is definetely highly enjoyable, I've pretty much have most of the levels beaten but there are still a few that are pissing me off from time to time. I had a hard time trying to destroy the Longai-O's.

I have to agree with Qwarky and my favourite combination of weapons is the Bat with the Bounce Missles. In terms of EX I actually prefer using a combination of Direct and Break. I find it oblitorates some of the larger enemies with just a few hits.

I'm hoping in a few more days I'll have all the levels finished, but it was definetely a worthwile purchase and would recommend this game to anybody.

I was speaking idiomatically.