Bangai-O obviously thinks very little of the casual gaming audience. I do believe it would have the potential to make gamers of a weaker fortitude cry.
The tutorial seems to be about the only place with any kind of story. I think it came up to something like Bangai-O is a giant robot that came from outer space. Since you are an anime-esque teenage boy, it your job to pilot the robot and kill the things shooting at you. After the tutorial is over, with a little bit of witty dialogue, the concept of story goes out the window. On the other hand, a game like Bangai-O doesn't really need much justification other than "kill them thar thingz."
The gameplay is what it's all about in Bangai-O, but it certainly isn't for everyone. The tutorial holds your hand a bit and teaches you a few things, but that's about it. After that, it takes off its gloves and screams "Have at thee, swine!" All of the 150+ levels from the get-go. The challenge doesn't take its time building up either. It punishes you relentlessly from the first level. I had this confidence that after clearing the tutorial that I would be able to handle the game, but I was wrong. I started the first level and found myself dead before knowing what happened. It was this terrible feeling. It's like being deemed an unsatisfactory partner before you've even had the time to get it up. It continued to do that the next 10 times I tried the level. To add insult to injury, it has this maniacal laugh every time you die, which will be happening on a very regular basis.
The game setup is with your "giant robot", who appears as about 8 pixels, against tons of enemies. There are literally hundreds of missiles coming at you at almost all times. What follows is the mixed blessing. The DS is completely incapable of running this game at full speed with so many missiles on screen at once. It slows down to a total crawl, but the game seems like it would be nigh impossible without this massive slowdown. After a bit of time, you begin to realize that all of the levels have a strategy to get through them. The game gives you a few different tools like bouncing shots, homing shots, and a couple melee weapons. Learning to use these weapons and the super-powered EX blasts are key to surviving.
The visual style is just as crazy as the game, which works well. I think there are backgrounds, but I couldn't see them behind the onslaught of incoming projectiles. All the missiles leave trails, but if you are taking notice of this, you are probably already dead. The sound design basically adds up to a cacophony of explosions, 50% of them being you getting blown to bits. I thought the music was obnoxious, though you may have worse taste in music than me and enjoy it. It seems to be better just to turn off the sound and throw on some music of your own since the sound in general in negligible.
It has this wonky feature for sharing levels. Since the game supports a level creator that is very robust, sharing seems like a natural step. The game converts your levels to sound (no, I'm not joking about this crap) and plays them over your DS speakers. The sound is similar to a bird being strangled. But if another DS picks it up via the mic, then the level is translated. If you are really into it, levels could be shared by recording them on a PC microphone and played from your computer with the DS close to receive it. The idea itself is very cool.
Summary: Bangai-O is a challenging and frustrating experience. Some gamers won't want to even touch it, but masochists have something just waiting for them to replace the expensive costs of dominatrices.
The tutorial seems to be about the only place with any kind of story. I think it came up to something like Bangai-O is a giant robot that came from outer space. Since you are an anime-esque teenage boy, it your job to pilot the robot and kill the things shooting at you. After the tutorial is over, with a little bit of witty dialogue, the concept of story goes out the window. On the other hand, a game like Bangai-O doesn't really need much justification other than "kill them thar thingz."
The gameplay is what it's all about in Bangai-O, but it certainly isn't for everyone. The tutorial holds your hand a bit and teaches you a few things, but that's about it. After that, it takes off its gloves and screams "Have at thee, swine!" All of the 150+ levels from the get-go. The challenge doesn't take its time building up either. It punishes you relentlessly from the first level. I had this confidence that after clearing the tutorial that I would be able to handle the game, but I was wrong. I started the first level and found myself dead before knowing what happened. It was this terrible feeling. It's like being deemed an unsatisfactory partner before you've even had the time to get it up. It continued to do that the next 10 times I tried the level. To add insult to injury, it has this maniacal laugh every time you die, which will be happening on a very regular basis.
The game setup is with your "giant robot", who appears as about 8 pixels, against tons of enemies. There are literally hundreds of missiles coming at you at almost all times. What follows is the mixed blessing. The DS is completely incapable of running this game at full speed with so many missiles on screen at once. It slows down to a total crawl, but the game seems like it would be nigh impossible without this massive slowdown. After a bit of time, you begin to realize that all of the levels have a strategy to get through them. The game gives you a few different tools like bouncing shots, homing shots, and a couple melee weapons. Learning to use these weapons and the super-powered EX blasts are key to surviving.
The visual style is just as crazy as the game, which works well. I think there are backgrounds, but I couldn't see them behind the onslaught of incoming projectiles. All the missiles leave trails, but if you are taking notice of this, you are probably already dead. The sound design basically adds up to a cacophony of explosions, 50% of them being you getting blown to bits. I thought the music was obnoxious, though you may have worse taste in music than me and enjoy it. It seems to be better just to turn off the sound and throw on some music of your own since the sound in general in negligible.
It has this wonky feature for sharing levels. Since the game supports a level creator that is very robust, sharing seems like a natural step. The game converts your levels to sound (no, I'm not joking about this crap) and plays them over your DS speakers. The sound is similar to a bird being strangled. But if another DS picks it up via the mic, then the level is translated. If you are really into it, levels could be shared by recording them on a PC microphone and played from your computer with the DS close to receive it. The idea itself is very cool.
Summary: Bangai-O is a challenging and frustrating experience. Some gamers won't want to even touch it, but masochists have something just waiting for them to replace the expensive costs of dominatrices.
