[Gun-Nac/ガンナック] Normal ALL Clear (Score: 4,399,080)
0Gun-Nac is the ideal game to potty-train bombing.
Gun-Nac is said to be Compile's answer to the cute-em-up trend. While to an extent I can see what people mean, the stuff within the game are less wacky than what people said it is. It's Cotton-level of cute-em-up: barely. It's pretty flawed but I certainly love this game!
You can shoot (duh), change speed, and this is the interesting one: Bombs. Among NES games bombing was a luxury at the time. Crisis Force wasn't even out yet! There is a complicated mechanic with the power ups and bomb stacking. You can hoard up to whopping 20 BOMBS! The gist is the more you stack the bombs the more potent the bomb is when you unleash it. But here is the catch... The bomb consumption also increases in tandem to your bomb level. Sure, upgraded bombs are more likely to protect you. However that means when you have 20 bomb stocks and your bomb level is 4, you can only bomb for 5 times without reloading. You'll be more likely to be vulnerable due to running out of bombs! My suggestion about bombs is 1, alternate between bomb types to keep the bomb cost low, because trust me, you'll need the bombs! 2, DON'T PICK F BOMBS! The F bomb is both offensively and defensively weak! B and T at least has good coverage. W is the most reliable: Whenever you can, stock up W bombs. The last bomb you pick up is the bomb you get to use! Oh, right, this has some traces of Battle Garegga's design: Bombing does erase bullets, but it won't give you i-frames. Make sure to be aggressive with your bombing!
In general the game is on the easier side, but remove bomb usage and this game is actually on the harder side to no-miss. Very hard, actually. On Normal I find the enemy HP to be at the comfortable level. But on Hard and higher? NO! It's painful! Each time you get hit your fire power gets stripped down considerably to level 1. To comfortably survive actually a single level of power up is sufficient. But the level 1 shot is so weak you're practically defenseless with just your peashooter. Think twice before attempting Hard and harder!
For the shots there are 5 of them. Any of them work. Personally I'd stick with 3 because in Compile games homing shots tend to be the most comfortable. But I'd say the other 4 shot types are competent enough. The shot level is limited to Lv. 2 when you don't have the Wing power up equipped. And the Wing also acts as your barrier. Whenever you can, don't get hit and prioritize recovering your Wing!
Thanks to Touhou people tend to forget to bomb. If you want to build the habit to bomb, Gun Nac is the perfect game! Frantic and strategic, this NES shmup is ahead of its time. Though the road of bombing had been paved by Toaplan's Truxton...
#stg #shmup #nes