How good is Gunners Heaven?

[ST Dragon]

Graphics are definitely better than Gunstar Heroes featuring some cool scaling & rotation & nice early PSX transparency effects.
This was one of the 1st PSX releases by the way & the 1st PSX game I saw at a shop back in 1995.

Gameplay & weapons are better than Gunstar Heroes, but it doesn't compare to Mega Man X3-X6, Turrican 2 on the AMIGA, or with some other top-notch SNES platform shooters out there imo.

[Turrican]

Gameplay & weapons are better than Gunstar Heroes, but it doesn't compare to Mega Man X3-X6, Turrican 2 on the AMIGA, or with some other top-notch SNES platform shooters out there imo.

I don't really consider Turrican a "run'n gun". If I had to, no other game mentioned so far in this thread would compare.

[PaCrappa]

Graphics are definitely better than Gunstar Heroes featuring some cool scaling & rotation & nice early PSX transparency effects.
This was one of the 1st PSX releases by the way & the 1st PSX game I saw at a shop back in 1995.

Gameplay & weapons are better than Gunstar Heroes, but it doesn't compare to Mega Man X3-X6, Turrican 2 on the AMIGA, or with some other top-notch SNES platform shooters out there imo.

Don't forget that Gunstar is plagued by huge slowdown and sprite flicker. Gunners Heaven has no such problems.

Pa

[Ganelon]

Gunners Heaven was also developed by Media Vision. If you liked the Wild Arms series, you might wanna give Gunners heaven a try.

[Skykid]

Necroing this 13-year-old shit.

I disagree with most of the sentiment in this thread; I've been playing Gunners for about a week now and managed to make it to stage four. It's a very challenging game, no doubt about it. It's tougher than all the comparisons - Contra and Gunstar specifically - at least with Axel, who has way crappier weapons than Ruka (but who, for some reason, I've been dedicating my time to learning).

The weapon switching is very useful, has a fun Thunder Force on foot vibe, and the power-up system is totally fine and makes stockpiling gems actually feel good (and worthwhile as a pursuit).

I just wanted to hear from anyone here who might have cleared the game on a coin. It's rather long at around 45/50 mins and the third and fourth stages are busting my balls at the moment. I've sort of got stage 3 down for the most part, but the boss has this ground sweep attack where he guns the floor from left to right while moving his firey exhaust from right to left. I've only managed to clear that jump unscathed on a few occasions, I can't figure out the timing.

Stage four's first area boss is a total bitch with his flame patterns. Some of these mid-bosses are harder than end of game bosses in some respects.

Any clear advice or info regarding the game would be great.

[Ghegs]

It's been ages so I don't really remember any specifics, but here's my 1CC video playlist, back from when Youtube had a 15-minute limit. Or full 60fps video here.

[xxx1993]

It's pretty good. You should really try it if you enjoyed Gunstar Heroes.

[Skykid]

It's been ages so I don't really remember any specifics, but here's my 1CC video playlist, back from when Youtube had a 15-minute limit. Or full 60fps video here.

Thanks Ghegs, got that DLing now. Will give it a scan!

[Skykid]

It's been ages so I don't really remember any specifics, but here's my 1CC video playlist, back from when Youtube had a 15-minute limit. Or full 60fps video here.

Just took a peek at the stage 3 boss and you ALSO get capped by that carpet gunning movement! Damn tricky that one.

[Ghegs]

It's been ages so I don't really remember any specifics, but here's my 1CC video playlist, back from when Youtube had a 15-minute limit. Or full 60fps video here.

Just took a peek at the stage 3 boss and you ALSO get capped by that carpet gunning movement! Damn tricky that one.

Yeah, I went through the vid myself to reminiscence, and my site has some short notes about each of my vids, and apprently I have been able to dodge it all, but just couldn't pull it off in this run.

However, I do beat the Stage 4 first Area Boss without taking a single hit, so I think I redeem myself there a bit.

But goddamn this was a fun game, wish I could play something like it again. So much better than Gunstar "Oh I accidentally 1CCed this game on my first try ever, huh" Heroes.

[Skykid]

It's been ages so I don't really remember any specifics, but here's my 1CC video playlist, back from when Youtube had a 15-minute limit. Or full 60fps video here.

Just took a peek at the stage 3 boss and you ALSO get capped by that carpet gunning movement! Damn tricky that one.

Yeah, I went through the vid myself to reminiscence, and my site has some short notes about each of my vids, and apprently I have been able to dodge it all, but just couldn't pull it off in this run.

However, I do beat the Stage 4 first Area Boss without taking a single hit, so I think I redeem myself there a bit.

But goddamn this was a fun game, wish I could play something like it again. So much better than Gunstar "Oh I accidentally 1CCed this game on my first try ever, huh" Heroes.

Well, yes. Although I'm not sure how Gunstar lines up against Gunners I'm definitely in agreement that Gunners is far more challenging, and so far, not in a bad way.

I also understand why entering Gunners it got some of the comments it did in this thread. I think I also felt it was bland originally. That could be because of steep learning curve versus direct comparisons to Gunstar and other Run n' Guns. It doesn't have the stage variety of comparative games - there's no fighting atop an airship/airplane, it doesn't have the vertical bravado of Contra, and the stages tend to be more about attrition. I seem to remember finding this a turn off in the past, but then I didn't give it time to click properly. Once you get a handle on the different weaponry and how it can actually be useful to you, learn boss patterns and the odd trick, it becomes varied in a learning sense. It's more rewarding when you managed to see off an entire stage and all its bosses because you worked for it than it first seems. It's a looker too.

I still have a few reservations (sometimes it's frankly too damn hard in spots and takes a lot of practice to figure out) but otherwise it's really good... SO FAR. I'm making inroads into stage four but still feel less comfortable about my stage 3 play.

As for that Stg3 boss pattern, I figured out how to get around it a couple of times, but I've got no reliable method.

[Skykid]

Got my first clean run yesterday through to stage 4.5 before buying it in the forced vertical scroll section. Game is good!