Guwange (Arcade) (1999)
Developer: Cave

Review by Faididi and Co.

Turbo-fire attack / Ancient Japanese secret / Silly space shooter

Story: Above Average

Murdering sweet little girls is bad, especially when they're sacrificed to summon killer demons who want to take over the world. In this story, three heroes band together to stop evildoers from pulling off such a scheme. Although the main ending remains the same, the characters you play have their own unique scenes at the conclusion. The game's presentation is delightfully elaborate, but having the heroes throwing knives and shooting arrows like machinegunfire just doesn't look as cool as superpowered psychics unleashing energy bolts.

Gameplay: Above Average

Cave's Guwange may be treated as a feudal Japanese take on Esprade, which itself is a creative twist on the Donpachi 2-Player space shooter series. Although the heroes here are people walking on foot instead of soaring starfighters, they move through 6 vertically scrolling stages, hurling ridiculous-looking barrages of metal projectiles against hordes of bad guys. The playable characters each have their own patterns of fire. Shishin, the super-emo ninja dude, can angle his throwing daggers to the sides. Kosame, the archer lady, shoots concentrated flurries of arrows. Gensuke, the wandering scholar, tosses a wider spread of knives. Their equivalent of megabombs are powerful streams of mystical energy that can be swept around in a 360-degree arc, which we guess appears more bad-ass than simply damaging every enemy on the screen.

The level and enemy designs naturally draw from the related folklore. The stages take place at pleasant riverside villages, handsome castles, and eventually the frightful landscapes of the underworld. Besides the usual evil soldiers and ninja, the bad guys are based on a wide assortment of youkai, such as spider-cat demons and severed heads stuffed in pots.

Of course, there's more to Guwange than another change in aesthetic style. This game features a drone system in the form of the heroes' familiars. These supernatural companions act like invulnerable tethered drones who help by grabbing items, slowing down enemy projectiles, and, just as importantly, redirecting the heroes' attacks (so Shishin and his friends don't need to stand directly in front of the bad guys). As cool as this drone system is, unfortunately, it restricts the heroes to only lateral movements whenever the familiars are being maneuvered. The hectic gunfire that's characteristic of Cave's space shooters may be central to this game's challenge as well, but the drone system's mismatch of movements makes dodging enemy fire needlessly more difficult.

Controls: Above Average

The controls are reponsive, except for the heroes' own movement restrictions while their familiars are being maneuvered. Why they can't slowly step forward and backward in addition to sideways in the fashion of Donpachi is weird.

Graphics: Above Average

Aside from the heroes' eye-rolling attacks, Guwange is another visual treat. The colors are deep and rich, and the animations are smooth. The bad guys explode into messy blood spatters when they're defeated, and parts of towers and other buildings burst into fiery splinters as the heroes fight their way through them. Going back to games like SNK's Ninja Commando isn't easy after witnessing the visual work here.

Audio: Above Average

The sound effects of the characters attacking, flesh getting cut up, and things being blown apart are loud and crisp, while the vocal effects are forceful. The music consists of often slow and gentle tunes, perfectly matching the gorgeous scenery, if not the intense pace of the action.

Overall: Above Average

Guwange isn't as original or as cleverly matched with its genre as Esprade, and its drone system imposes an unnecessary restriction on the heroes' own movements. Nevertheless, it's another beautiful spin-off from the Donpachi space shooter series, thanks to its incredibly pretty graphics, sound effects, and music.

OST: Excellent

Published by Cave, the Guwange and Esprade soundtrack collection repackages the music from the two space shooters into a convenient bundle. Released almost a decade after the original editions of the soundtracks, it throws in a few neat extras, most of which are the sound and vocal effects from both games. The Guwange portion is more interesting, because it contains some unused phrases and a few prototype tunes (of the first two stages and the bosses). It also features an original vocal version of the third stage's song. Unfortunately, the Esprade portion doesn't include the bonus remix found in the earlier release of its respective game's soundtrack.