THE LORD OF THE GUNS
Welcome back to another videogame review.
Time for another great non-shmup review. How 'bout if we talk about Gunlord X?
Turrican-esque action at its finest.
Gunlord X's is more than a love letter to Turrican. It's the redefinition of the Euro Run-Maze-N'-Gun mashup that made Manfred Trenz a legend of gaming. Starting off with the gameplay, but mostly on the controls. Most of us oldschoolers we'll remember how restricted Turrican's aim was, only firing frontally without being able to aim up or diagonal regardless of which weapon was using, only having the spread Vulcan as the only thing able to shoot on multiple directions. Our pal Gordian Gaiden, can aim on diagonal and vertically with almost all the weapons available, being the special "blue laser" Power Shot the exception. He can even aim standing in one place by using the Right Analog Stick and even run backwards with the aim locked. As a Run N' Gun game it exploits the concept of control perfectly, and having a perfectly functional control really comes in handy on situations that require you to aim vertically before making a jump to an enemy-infested platform. ¿Remember the paralyzing beam which granted a 360° aim? Gunlord X not just adds this feature, it IMPROVES that sub-weapon making it able to damage and destroy enemies even below you since it has "Wave Beam" like properties. It consumes the same energy bar used for the "Ball" transformation. It might look and sound like a flaw having two skills using the same gauge on a Turrican clone (you can call it "Turriclone" if you want), but this game addresses one problem from Turrican: It allows you to reload the gauge once it depletes. This really comes in handy since you'll be using both the ball and the rotating beam constantly, very, very constantly. You can also make the screen scroll a little bit up or down by aiming vertically or crouching for a brief period of time, allowing you to see enemies above and below you. Another great improvement was the Bounce/Rebound weapon, rather than just bouncing around as small balls that split or being a ground based weapon like it did on Super Turrican 2. In Gunlord X, you have two fire types for the Bounce. The first one is the bouncing ball by tapping the fire button, and a continuous fire stream by holding the fire button, and you're able to aim on any desired direction.
Hope Dr. Robotnik doesn't see this.
One of the additional aspects of Turrican (mostly Mega Turrican and both Super Turrican games) was the lives and coins scattered throughout the stages. Gunlord X does takes that concept in the form of Diamonds and Super Diamonds. Although there's no score to go after, only the Super Diamonds are pivotal to get bonus things throughout the game, as they'll give you a continue after picking all of them on that stage. So that means 9 continues to be obtained throughout an "Easter Egg Hunt".
Percentage and Rewards.
They always come in handy after blowing his ugly face.
Diamonds and Extends (1ups) are only meant for challenge to see how much you've got on that stage, while the Super Diamonds are the "1 Continue per all the on-stage". After getting all of the Super Diamonds on all the stages, you can concentrate on one thing: Clearing the level as fast as possible. Yeah, you can focus all of your efforts on hunting all the Super Diamonds while doing all the massive exploration in pure Metroid-style and after that, concentrating on wandering around minding on passing the stage fast, adding a little "Plus-valia" (Replay Value) to the game itself. "Explore first, Run and shoot later", a wise move if you ask me. It was really great to see how the game uses the concept of time in a more free way rather than the "reach the goal before time hits zero", giving players a chance to explore the level properly rather than getting killed for runnin' around as fast as they can.
That corridor was a lucky guess.
One of many you're gonna find.
Like in Turrican you will be relying on basically EVERYTHING: Hidden item containers to use as platforms, stairs, ceilings and even use large enemies as platforms in order to find the hidden and VERY ELUSIVE Super Diamonds. While the hidden corridors are fun, there's little-to-none hints to tell the difference between a hidden corridor and the rest of the background. ¿Remember when in Super Turrican you couldn't reach a specific place because you've destroyed the item-giving platform? Gunlord also addresses that problem by respawning the platform infinitely, making your Diamond hunting exploration more tolerant to beginner mistakes. To sum things up, this is an enhancement of what Factor 5 gave us with the Super Turrican games: The vast exploration-based gameplay with the controls of a complete Run N' Gun game such as the Contra series.
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One of the things that I hate is that later you'll find blocks that looks like the destructible ones, but unlike those ones, they refuse to explode. You can shoot them as much as you want. They'll blink as if they're being damaged, but you're not gonna break them.
The gameplay itself is perfect already, but with a small flaw: The lifebar. While the game uses the "take a few hits before dying" like Super Turrican, the problem itself is the life bar: 3 Hit Points are what separates Gordian Gaiden from the end of all things. While some players would consider it enough life based on games such as Contra Hard Corps, for a Turrican game is simply running on the minimals.
Stage 5 is the worst of all, as the game is a auto-scrolling stage with plenty of bottomless pits and giving you almost no-room-for-error precision to obtain the Super Diamonds located in the area. The good news there is that there's no bosses to fight, compensating all the troubles in the stage. Speaking of bosses, the majority of stages are comprised of Sub-boss and Boss battles and the boss battles aren't your typical Turrican-esque battles. These are going to pit you with gruesome monstrous behemoths that multiply your size plenty of times and are armed to the teeth waiting to make mincemeat out of you. You've better figure out which weapon is better for the battle before getting to the boss room unless you're willing to burn your Sideflashes.
Turri-Force.
Along with classic Turrican Run N' Gun platforming, Gunlord X follows the example of Super Turrican 2 and makes room for shmup segments. Stage 2 is the first of them, with a simple, yet intense starfighter battle that can be described as Thunder Force with super firing rate. While there's no power ups for your ship, you're granted a Super-extra-heavy firing rate that compensates the lack of any power ups, but without killing the fun of the stage.
Forgotten Turriworlds.
The second shmup segment can be found on one of the final levels. This one is more like the "Flying Man" segments of Jim Power. Unlike the second level, you can aim your weapon like in the regular platforming levels, giving you a much wider firing range pretty much like Forgotten Worlds minus the 3D-ish aim, but is still functional for a shmup mini-game. As a variation of the regular game, you are allowed to use your Sideflash bombs for a more shmup-like experience.
Badassery is my Pro-Gear Spec.
When it comes to graphics, Gunlord does an epic job, because rather than emulating the Amiga to nod Turrican, it borrows the massive detailed pixel art of the Neo-Geo, mostly of the late era of the hardware like The King of Fighters 2002 and Metal Slug 5, rather than the CGI-esque Pulstar influenced Last Hope, there's a few CGI-esque effects like the waterfalls. 2D graphics with very minimal 3D-ish imagery in the game and it really feels like if you're playing a game from the Neo' with the color palettes used and the multi-layered scrolling in most parts of the game.
One great aspect of the character is Gordian's badass attitude during the intro scene "How cute. I am the Gunlord!" *Fires at the alien judges* "Have a nice day!" even if they were a couple of lines, it nods the agressive-sarcastic humour of Deadpool and The Punisher. Speaking of Gordian, his Gunlord suit kinda nods Master Chief from the Halo series, except for the more alien-ish head.
The music on the other side it is more based on the Euro-gaming style and the soundtrack is composed specifically to fit the mood of the stage. For instance, Stage 1 starts with an upbeat, adventurous melody that changes into a solemn and somber tune as the storm gathers on the stage, but returns to its original pace as you get closer to the boss room, Stage 2 "Air Stride" has a guitar-electronic combination nodding Thunder Force and Blazing Star and Stage 8 is an techno-industrial theme because we're in a high-tech factory. Simple details that manage to fit on each stage as a whole thing. My only complaints are that the music loops like the first CD/redbook games, which means that rather than looping on certain points making them sounds like an everlasting theme that ends until you complete the stage, it fades to silence after 3 minutes and then plays again, and in Stage 2 the music suffers the same problem as Aero Fighters 3 and Thunder Force VI: Ends abruptly due to the stage's length, in this case is 1 minute and a half of being in the level. Aside of that, the soundtrack is perfect for the game.
TRIVIALORD X
This has been a Vasteel-loaded day, don't you think?
- Salival bears a striking resemblance to Gargoyle Diver from Thunder Force IV/Lightening Force.
- The image of The Master appearing on the sky mirrors the Devil Emperor Gava from Contra III: The Alien Wars and Black Viper from Contra 4.
- The Z-42 Warpstar mentioned in the intro scene was the ship from Last Hope, NG-Dev's R-Type/Pulstar clone.
- In fact, Gunlord X's events take place after Last Hope.
- Gumbanis has some similarities with the Barakus from R-Type II.
- Bubble Crab shares the same name of a boss character from Megaman X2.
- The name of Stage 8 "Factory Five" refers Factor 5, the developers of the Turrican series.
- EastAsiaSoft's promotional artwork was done by Genzoman (Double Dragon Neon, Ghost Blade HD, Project Starship series, etc.).
That's gotta be the most epic way to relax on the beach:
Using the skull of your defeated nemesis to rest your feet.
In the end, we have the closest thing to a Turrican sequel and a Neo-Geo entry in the series. You can call this game "Neo Turrican" if you want, and really made an effort to earn that name.
When it comes to complete Run N' Gun collections on the PS4 and Switch, this is a great entry, and the same goes for Turrican fans.
To put it simple: Gunlord rocks.