Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury

[justjustin]

Available now, get it while it's hot (or not if you didn't like the DS game). Like Spirits, it's an action puzzle game that emphasizes score attack on a variety of boards which last a few minutes each. If you liked the DS game, you'll probably like Missile Fury since it's the same kind of game. It's been too long since I played Spirits for me to tell if Missile Fury is an improvement, but I get the sense there are more moves (two different kinds of counter attacks, a freeze attack and a dash attack) to make things more interesting.

The only problem I have with Missile Fury is that it's downright ugly. The action is intense enough (with a billion colors and shapes exploding on the screen) that I didn't really notice, but the overall look of the game is very unpolished and off-putting. From the demo, there's no wacky dialog, just some crappy drawing of a Professor guy sketched in 2 minutes telling you to kill stuff before the level begins.

Newcomers are going to have a rough time with this demo. It's horribly presented with no explanation of how to play whatsoever. I was able to get through the first 2 stages just from my knowledge of Spirits, but after about 10 minutes stage 3 still has me stumped.

[acidonia]

I do not know how many levels this game has but another stages unlocked if you due 3 times on it until you reach level 47 that you have to beat. The online in the game is really slow though and rather laggy well it has been for all matches ive played. Beating stages online does not count as you clearing the stages byour self either.

[seethoven]

May 4, 2011 12:48:37 GMT -5 acidonia said:

I do not know how many levels this game has but another stages unlocked if you due 3 times on it until you reach level 47 that you have to beat. The online in the game is really slow though and rather laggy well it has been for all matches ive played. Beating stages online does not count as you clearing the stages byour self either.

I think this is the first post I've seen of yours where you're not complaining that 'no one is going to localize this game'.

[justjustin]

After playing the demo some more, then playing Spirits for a bit, I think Missile Fury is a much better game. The graphics become less distracting the more I play. They've gone from looking ugly to being sufficient. I realize now that Spirits doesn't look that great either. The controls are much better than on the DS (thanks to proper twin stick), and the four different kinds of special attacks (counter, counter multiplier, freeze, dash) add a lot of variety to the game. I think I'll be buying it soon.

If you didn't like Spirits due to its very nature of being more puzzle-like with short stages, Missile Fury probably won't interest you since it's the same setup. But if your complaints were generally minor, or you had at least a mild liking of Spirits, definitely check it out.

[kitten]

I liked a few things about Spirits, but mostly found it to be an incredibly disappointing follow up to what is my favorite Treasure game.

[lanceboyle94]

justjustin: I believe Spirits had the Freeze attack, dashing and counters (and the multipliers were there too, I think)

[justjustin]

I'll definitely take your word for it. When I popped Spirits in this afternoon I only played a few of the tutorial stages to refresh my memory. Didn't refresh it enough though.

I bought Missile Fury this evening and I'd recommend it. I'm having a lot more fun with this one compared to the DS Bangai-O. What's totally puzzling is the tutorial is available in the full version but not the demo. If you can beat the demo the tutorial will tell you nothing new.

[Lee]

Does the real game get better than demo? I wasn't too impressed by it.

[pepsimanvsjoe]

Yeah the demo pretty much blows.
The full game is amazing.

[kitten]

I was impressed enough by the demo to figure that the full game was probably pretty rad (I went ahead and bought it, I hope I get time to play it, soon). The third stage in the demo took me something like fifteen minutes to figure out how to beat and I was barely given any instruction on how to beat it (turns out I'm just supposed to dash around and release counters at the right time, but I can see 99% of gamers on Xbox struggling to get past even the second stage and then being bewildered and furious by the time they get to the third one).

I mean, the demo seems to really just exemplify Treasure, in general... Bizarre, unintuitive and requiring an acquired taste. I generally dislike them, as a company, and find their games to be far too reliant on weak and repetitive quirks, but the original Bangai-O is my favorite game by them (followed by Mischief Makers). It's really not at all different from their other games in the regard that it relies very heavily on a few quirky mechanics, but it's hard to say that shooting thousands of missiles isn't incredibly awesome, even if it's for the millionth time you've done it.

[vetus]

My first Bangai-O I ever played was Bangai-O Spirits in which I have spent lots of hours and it's one of my favourite Treasure games and, of course, one of the best games for DS. I always wanted to try the original game for Dreamcast until I learned about the plans for a new Bangai-O for X-Box 360. I won't say if Missile Fury is better or worse that Spirits mainly because a comparison between them would be unfair. Why? Because Spirits was released for a portable console which is less powerful than Dreamcast while Missile Fury is released for a much more powerful console. I haven't played the original but with Spirits they made a great job for a DS game.

Now as about Fissile Fury...while the graphics aren't very impressive at least they do the job and they're ok for the eye. Besides, with graphics like that there is not frame-rate drop even with so much graphic elements and action and that's what it counts and makes the game so enjoyable and fast-paced. My only complain is the lack of personality that Spirits has with the comical conversations on tutorial. And there is not even a background story or a main plot in order to know what the heck is all about this game.

Without doubt it's one of the best games for Xbox360.

[TheGunheart]

I'm one of those few who liked Spirits more than the original. There was just something awesome to me about equipping my robot with a sword and a time stop and just going to town.

Having just tried the demo, I can honestly say I am beyond impressed. The third stage was just insane, but oh so satisfying to complete.

[justjustin]

The funny part is that the third stage in the demo is actually stage 30-something in the full game.

[Jave]

I don't know when, but I'll definitely get this at some time.

[lanceboyle94]

May 7, 2011 9:21:37 GMT -5 justjustin said:

The funny part is that the third stage in the demo is actually stage 30-something in the full game.

That reminded me of the Shadowman demo on an Argentinian PC Gamer: the level included on the demo was level 9 on the full game.