Gun Frontier review for the Sega Saturn


It's 12 years old. What is it? It's Gun Frontier, an old-school Taito shooter.
A vertical arcade mode is included in this game.
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The first level kinda sucks!
So at first sight this title doesn't seem like much but from level 3 on the game begins to shine (more).
On the later levels all sorts of effects are present. Including scaling, mode 7 effects, big sprites & in level five when you shoot the wooden barns with a skull on it entire cliffs will fall down.
The weapon system is very poor. The only shot you have is a vulcan-shot that you can upgrade 4 times.
And even when fully upgraded it isn't an eye catcher.
But this is regardless of the aforementioned still an OK game.
When you lose one life you lose one upgrade to your vulcan shot.
When you lose an entire credit you lose all of your upgrades.
There are 2 difficulty settings: Easy & Normal.
You get 6 credits on both difficulty settings to finish the game.
You can select the amount of lives in option menu from 1 to 5.



FACT FILE     

Vertical arcade mode   Yes
Unlimited continues    No 
Levels                 6  
Aircraft               1  
BGM Audio test mode    Yes
CD player audio        Yes


-Graphics- The graphics are ok for a twelve year old shooter.
But what has to be mentioned is the fact that the brightness degree is too high on some levels.
Therefore I advice you to simply turn down the brightness and turn up the contrast on levels 1 & 2.
There are a lot's of different sprites and there's activity in the backgrounds as well.
there's the drive in movie screen.
The explosions are big but lack a bit in the animation department.

-Music/sound- Not really great but not bad either, just barely o.k..
The explosion sounds are nice though.


Il verdimentolini:

Playability 8
Graphics 7,5
Music 6,5
Lastability 6,5
Overall 7

Well it's really hard to rate this game properly because it's 12 years old! By today's standards it's really bad, but as a game released in 1990 it's not that bad.
It's not the best vertical shooter released in the arcade that year, though

Also check out D.A.M.'s review: Gun Frontier review.
The thing that Mike B. says about Battle Garegga being inspired by Gun Frontier is very much true. I thought I was the only one to note this but it seems he sees it too.
Similarities:
-Enemy fire which are bullets instead of red-yellow blinking balls.
-All Power up icons.
-The tanks that sit at the begining of the first level.
-The explosions that sometimes have a 3D effect to them (like missiles from Afterburner).
-The sound effects.


9 screenshots: