Title: Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Developer: Psikyo (original games)/Zerodiv (Switch versions)
Publisher: NISA (NA and EU)/City Connection (JP and eShop WW)
Release Date: February 18th, 2020 (NA)
File Size: 1GB
Review copy provided by NIS America
And here’s the second Psikyo collection! I just reviewed the Alpha collection last month. Both collections have their own set of six classic Psikyo games. It’s worth noting that the vast majority of the 6 games here are shmups of various styles. In fact, they ALL are except for one game and that’s Gunbarich in this collection, which is actually a Block Breaker clone. Anyway, how’s the Bravo collection? Let’s find out!
Samurai Aces Episode I
Like the Alpha collection, the Bravo collection is a 6-game compilation of classic Psikyo games. The games are; Samurai Aces Episode I, Samurai Aces Episode II: Tengai, Samurai Aces Episode III: Sengoku Cannon, Gunbird, Gunbird 2, and Gunbarich. Let’s talk about each in order like last time.
Samurai Aces Episode 1 is a classic vertical shmup that plays VERY similarly to the Strikers 1945 games. You pick a difficulty, choose a character, then shoot down everything in sight and grab the floating power-ups and special ability bombs that come out of enemies. The former gradually gives you more fire power and in some cases homing bullets. The bombs grant your character a usable special attack that differs depending on who you play as. Honestly there’s not a whole lot that’s different if you’re experienced with the Strikers 1945 games. It’s pretty much the same but with a feudal Japan style now.
Samurai Aces Episode II: Tengai
For Samurai Aces Episode II: Tengai. you’d expect it to be more of the same right? YOU’D BE WRONG! In a bizarre twist, this actually plays more like Sol Divide where it becomes a horizontal shmup. Even the screen features a similar left and right border that cam be disabled to stretch the image if you want. Now instead of Sol Divide, it’s more of a straight shmup. Hell THIS is more what I remember the Monkey King games being like, since this of course is also feudal Japan-themed as well. Huh.
Now Samurai Aces Episode III: Sengoku Cannon is actually more like the second game, but here’s the funny thing; it’s actually more advanced to the point where the entire background is in full 3D (and in HD!), AND true widescreen! Here’s the odd thing though; the button layout is different! This will definitely catch you off guard, where Y is to auto-fire instead of A. Luckily if you can’t get used to it, like before, you can remap the buttons to your liking! What may actually surprise you is that this ISN’T an arcade game… but rather a PSP game! Yeah, this was made by a team called X-Arts (“cross-arts”) which are (were?) former Psikyo folks. So yeah, that explains everything.
Samurai Aces Episode III: Sengoku Cannon
Next is Gunbird! This is a cuter variant of Psikyo’s vertical shmups. It still plays similarly, but now with a more cute anime aesthetic. One thing I noticed is that power-ups just keep coming, even if you max out. Oddly once or twice I begin a new stage weaker than before? Maybe I missed something. Also I’m not sure if it was just here or in all games, but if you touch an enemy you power down as well, so that may be why as well.
Gunbird 2 is more of the same. This is the only one of the collection that’s more of a “more of the same” as its predecessor. Not a whole lot to say here that hasn’t been said already. Multiple difficulty levels, multiple characters, shoot, collect power-ups and bombs, etc. Actually the main blonde girl Marion’s bomb is unique where she seemingly turns bullets into collectible candy? That’s neat.
Gunbird
Gunbarich is the final game in the collection and this is the most unique. As said this is a Block Breaker clone. Block Breaker was created by Arari (though popularized by Taito) way back and has been cloned to death, even by Nintendo on their Color TV-Game plug-and-play system in 1979, the hardware of which was one of Shigeru Miyamoto’s first ever projects FYI! Anyway, the gameplay in all of these has you bounce a ball pinball-style upward on a table to break all the colored blocks. Only here the twist is that there are colorful enemies to defeat, and power-ups to collect that create more balls to bounce around, or to make balls go through enemies severely damaging them. Also of note are the surprisingly high-res sprites. This looks like it was a 480p res game back then, so 2x (each axis) more than earlier arcade games. It looks VERY nice because of this.
Options in all games are more or less identical to the options in the Alpha collection, depending on the game of course. Options for blur and scanlines. Custom credit, lives, and bomb counts. Button remapping. Score resetting. Wallpaper removal (though some will still show an outer HUD or not even make the border black), and 90-degree rotation options (again for most games). There’s plenty for you to adjust to your liking, and of course these are specific to each game. Of course like with the Alpha collection, there are ZERO bonus features. A shame too as looking around, some games like Gunbird had animated intros on Sega Saturn? Having those are viewable options (like in Sonic CD‘s intro and ending scenes being viewable in Sonic Mega Collection on GameCube) would’ve been incredible.
Gunbird 2
Visually it’s all what you’d expect if you’ve read the Alpha collection review. All are crisp and clean, and all run in 60fps… with the exception of Samurai Aces Episode III: Sengoku Cannon. Yeah this only runs at 30fps. My guess is since it was on PSP they decided to hard code it to only run in 30fps… due to not thinking it’d ever be ported? But the game even by PSP standards is rather primitive, so I don’t really know. I actually thought it was a Sega Model 2 game at first because it looks rather close to Sega Saturn-tier I think. Still it is in HD as well here, and I think even the artwork is much higher res than what the 272p PSP would’ve displayed. So it’s more like a legit HD remaster, rather than some kind of emulation. Again, shout out to Gunbarich as its sprites are nice and high-res compared to the other games, seemingly being from a 480p source. No idea of the arcade board it was from though. Google turned up nothing on that, sorry. 😦
Audio-wise it sounds fine. All games use Japanese voice-acting. Actually did any of Psikyo’s games get English dubs… ever? Anyway, they sound fine. Music’s good for their platform source. No objections to speak of. Again there’s options to adjust the volume of music, sound effects, and voices if you wish.
Gunbarich
Overall this is again a really nice collection despite the no frills package. The inclusion of a PSP game was a big shock for me, as I think it’s the only non-arcade platform game across both collections. I still wish you could somehow combine both collections into one chunky 12-game menu or something. Like a bonus 12-game version download if you own both collections. It’s a shame about the lack of bonus content, but still, the games are definitely fun, if some are very similar to each other. I’d even say half of the 12 games are near copies of each other frankly, so that might turn off some newcomers? Either way, they’re good games and that’s what counts really.
You’ll Love:
+ Again a pretty decent collection of solid games. Samurai Aces Episode III: Sengoku Cannon being a PSP game really surprised me.
+ Some games like Samurai Aces Episode III: Sengoku Cannon and especially Gunbarich seemingly use higher-res artwork in-game. Even more noticeable for the latter in TATE mode!
+ Like in the Alpha collection, there’s a truckload of customization options for all games. Button inputs, audio options, credit number changer, 90-degree rotation for most games. It’s nuts.
+ Again there’s difficulty options for all games which is very handy for newcomers.
+ Has cloud-save support.
+ Has screenshot and video capture support.
You’ll Hate:
– No online leaderboards again like in the Alpha collection.
– Still no real bonus features. Shame since other past versions of these games seem to come with anime intros like Gunbird on Sega Saturn. Would’ve been a fantastic inclusion for bonus material.
– Gunbird 2 can’t remove the border for some reason, it just turns grey. Gunbarich also can’t remove the border, even if you rotate both games to TATE mode, but Gunbarich‘s is nice and fitting for the style so there’s that at least.
Score: 8/10