PSX Longplay #73: Robot Anime - Geppy X
60Plenty of shooters have been clearly influenced by various anime over the years, but few wear this fact on their sleeves as proudly as 70’s Robot Anime Geppy-X, a parody of/tribute to the ever-popular “giant robot” subgenre masquerading as a shoot-em-up. Spanning an almost unheard-of four discs, there is a truckload of stuff here to make mecha fans giddy or cause them to laugh out loud – levels are grouped into pairs and set up as television “episodes”, complete with opening and ending theme songs, and even a commercial break in between, hocking fake Geppy products, from action figures to shampoo. Over-the-top voice acting, retro-styled character designs…you name it, it’s probably in here, impeccably preserved.
Of course, there’s also the matter of how the game actually plays – as your robot scrolls sideways, you can use the trigger buttons to shift between 3 different forms at any time. Each transformation has a “main” and “sub” weapon, both of which can be charged up for a more powerful attack, but also must be leveled up separately – other than that, you can turn your mech around to attack enemies behind you, and unleash an occasional screen-filling super attack. You’ve got a basic set of weapon powerups and health refills, but otherwise your only goal is to get from one end of each stage to the other intact. It’s a cool enough setup, but the interface is a bit clunky – your robot, as you might expect, is a big target, and hesitant to react to certain commands (i.e. you can only turn around or transform when you’re not doing anything else, including shooting), which makes quick responses to many threats on the player’s part all but impossible.
As was mentioned before, all the retro-cheese is great, though in similar fashion to a TV series DVD marathon you’ll wind up skipping the theme song and other repeating segments after you’ve seen them a few times. Progress in the game itself is also something of a drawn-out affair – your life meter does not refill between stages, and your weapons are reset to square one if you load up a saved game, both of which can put you in a tight spot very quickly, especially as you get farther in – to reach the end you’d best be prepared to conquer the whole thing in one go. All told, old-school robot fans will want this just to give their nerd cred the mother of all shots in the arm – those looking for solid shooting action might want to hesitate, especially considering how rare and costly this one tends to be.