Gate of Thunder (PC-Engine) Normal 1CC 1.664.500
4Gate of Thunder (PCE)
played by Judgment Storm
Score: 1.664.500
This is Hudson Soft/Red Kaminarimon's take on a Thunder Force game, and just as good. In fact, some Technosoft developers had gone to Red and worked on it.
Instead of a back shot, your options can be turned to fire behind you with a double-tap of the fire button. All three weapons can be raised up to 2 levels. If you take the item for a weapon that's already maxed, it will turn into a firewave bomb.
It is one of the most visually impressive PCE shmups. The PCE is not known for spectacular parallax, but the devs manage some here. Some of the backgrounds actually have a few sprite elements. Sunteam has a graphics breakdown of some stages with the sprite and background layers shown separately.
Difficulty is just about right, a bit higher than TF3. You can get through the first three stages early, and things pick up around stage 4.
GoT is one of the PCE's finest, and the USA was lucky to get it for the Turbo CD. The Turbo Duo had it included. NEC made a serious mistake by not allowing a sequel to GoT (and many other PCE franchises) on the PC-FX.