G.G Series (3DS/DSi)

[Special World]

I keep my eye on Gamerankings, because there are a lot of games that slip by without much press. Lately, there has been a *flood* of games in the G.G Series getting reviewed by NintendoLife, some of them with very favorable scores. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a lot of these games were scrolling shooters! Proper shooters, with colorful bullet patterns and traditional design. The caveat is that these games are super indie (they each only cost $2), but in a Japanese style rather than an US/Euro "I got a ship and a laser pew pew is it fun yet" way. What this means is that they generally share music tracks between games, and the levels in each game share one background between them. Levels are made up of a very limited amount of objects and enemies, which are then reconfigured and rearranged in subsequent levels for new and interesting challenges.

These are actually really great! They feel rooted in old classics without being beholden to them, and they share the old design ethos of "do one thing, do it right, and then push that mechanic to its maximum potential." Each game has its own specific "idea" that it's exploring. There's also a big emphasis on score, time trialing, and loops in most of these games. Without further ado, here are the four games I've played so far:

Assault Buster
(Single screen shmup/platformer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hftvvq7G8l8

Assault Buster feels like a lost Treasure game—I really feel a lot of influence from Alien Soldier and Bangai-O in this one. Basically, you're a badass military chick with a gun as long as her entire body who boosts around the screen killing enemies. You have a stock of four boosts, which you can use as quickly as you want, and then recharge, one by one, over the course of a few seconds. A lot of later levels will have you boosting around the entire screen, taking out enemies from all directions by shooting up, down, left, and right. If you hold the shot button in she'll keep rapid-firing in that direction, which is good for boosting along the bottom of the screen, or shooting at enemies as you slowly fall out of the air. Each level has a short wave of enemies and then a boss, which come in two types. One type of boss is a number of blocks stuck together, each block acting as a weapon, and a central block acting as the core. The other type are flying robot masters I guess, who are much more of a pain in the ass. The first one acts as a really great tutorial for all the moves you'll be using throughout the game, though. You receive a large bonus for completely dismantling block-type bosses, and a small bonus for time left over at the end. If I could recommend one of the four games I've played to you guys, this would be it.

All Breaker
(Action/puzzle platformer)

This one is pretty tough. You play as some purple-haired space lady named Rebecca who runs around smashing blocks. In each level there are a number of red blocks, and she needs to smash all of these to progress. Most levels take the form of a simple puzzle, where you have to navigate your way through the area without screwing yourself by destroying vital platforms. Different enemies appear throughout, and Rebecca can't kill them with her hammer, rather she knocks blocks at them or makes pits for them to fall into. I really love the blocks that, when you knock them, shoot straight across the screen and form a platform somewhere else. There are also linked blocks that disappear when you hit one of them, and orange trap blocks that fall when you take out their support. Scoring revolves around destroying blocks and enemies, and finishing the levels quickly. I'm not much for puzzle platformers, but this one falls well enough on the action side for me to enjoy it.

Dark Spirits
(Manic hori)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ293yRHSEI (I dunno why it looks so compressed here, looks better in-game)

This one plays a lot like Lords of Thunder meets the bullets of Cho Ren Sha. Your character is some glowing vampire looking dude who flies over a futuristic city taking out various tech/fantasy enemies. He has four familiars that he can arrange in three formations (focused shot, wide shot, and backwards shot). There are different elemental powerups (ice, fire, light, and uh... purple laser) which he can grab by ramming the powerup with one of his four familiars. So basically he can have four different powerups at the same time, or mix and match the ones he likes. These familiars gain levels by then collecting more of that same powerup, up to level 5. This game has some really good design (especially for $2 dear lord, puts a lot of $10-20 indie shooters to shame) only marred by the fact that it's too easy. The ice familiar in particular really cuts through the difficulty, because even though it's short range, it cancels out enemy bullets and does some pretty big damage. I'm not very good at shooters and I made it to loop three. I think the loops go on forever (?) and get progressively harder, but if you're good at these games then you'll probably be here a while. This game actually has two backgrounds (!!!), as when you make it to stage 5 you get a special background for the final boss. Then it loops and you get a different color cityscape, which is nice. The main character is also a little slow, though he's faster when you're not shooting. A good game, just a bit too easy. Increase the difficulty by not using an ice familiar.

Great Whip Adventure
(Classic platformer)

This one's tied with Assault Buster as my favorite. Basically it's a bite-sized, chunky version of La Mulana. The music in this one *really* nails it, hitting Castlevania and La Mulana at the same time. Basically you're an explorer in the jungle, who can jump and whip. The physics are unremarkable and get the job done, not as stiff as Castlevania or La Mulana, but feeling a little more controlled than Spelunky. Basically you just run through a series of levels (no idea how many), whipping enemies and getting to the finish. A lot of the time you'll have to whip your whip upwards to grab onto hooks between platforms, or kill enemies out of the sky. You get points for enemies killed and time left over when you reach the golden doors at the end of the level. It's hard to describe why this is so good. Basically it's just focused, tight design, great music, and a nice variety to the levels. They use a lot of the same design elements, but they mix them up and reposition them to good effect. It's just a really clean, solid game, and it's fun to try for a new high score. The game lets you continue (resetting your score), which is good to see the levels, but bad for score. So I usually just play till I die. Very good game design here; a lot of developers could learn a thing or two from this.

And there you have it! There are a ton of these available right now (I'm counting 35?) in various genres, with a lot of shmups. In particular I'm looking at Wonderland (bullet hell) and Spiky the Blowfish (platformer/shooter) as my next purchases. I was wondering if anybody here had played any of these, or if anyone wanted to try downloading one at random and giving a short review? They're pretty cheap, after all. And with how hard it is to find good STGs on 3DS, I'm really surprised that such a quality bunch had flown under my radar. I guess a lot of them were released in 2010 and 2011, and only now is a new batch coming out. Check em out! They're really good!

[BrianC]

I noticed a few of the games (including some just released as DSiWare in the west) are on cart in a JP DS collection. On the top of my head, I know for sure Dark Spirits and Wonderland are in it and it has around 30 games. Here is a list of games. Looks like some games took a loooooooong time to reach the west.

[Special World]

Yeah, I heard that most of them were compiled on a cart. At that price though, it's probably better to pick and choose the ones that interest you from the e-shop though

[BrianC]

Yeah, I heard that most of them were compiled on a cart. At that price though, it's probably better to pick and choose the ones that interest you from the e-shop though

It sounds like the unlock method for the games sucks too. I also heard some games are better than others. It may be cheaper to get the collection, but at two dollars each, it's much easier to pick and choose which ones to get while avoiding the weaker ones.

[M.Knight]

Don't quote me on this, but I think some of the G.G series games were only available on that cart at the time of its release. Though I guess most if not all of them are now available digitally. (unless your console is a PAL one, as usual...)

I have the G.G series cart and one of my personnal highlights would be Score Attacker, a vertical shmup with heavy emphasis on scoring. You have a ship with a standard shot and two special weapons that consume some energy jauge upon use : a temporary circular shield and an energy ball.
When you fire your regular shot at enemies, they drop some small energy icons that fill the energy bar. Whenever this bar is filled you can use the shield once or fire a ball, and you can stock up on them up to 5 times I think. In order to score, you have to use those special weapons to destroy enemies and absorb bullets. Any enemy destroyed by the energy ball drops a big energy icon that fills the bar much more, and any bullet absorbed by the shield increases your score as well.

During each of the stages, you first have a set amount of time to destroy as many enemy waves as possible. Therefore, it is necessary to quickly fill the bar to start firing energy balls to wreck those waves faster to generate the following ones and maintain a filled bar to fire those powerful energy balls.
The second part is a boss, or rather a series of bigger than average enemies. Using the shield to absorb as many bullets as possible is essential here to achieve a high score.

At the end of each stage, your score is compared to a set of thresholds, and if you score well enough, you get to play a harder version of the next stage. Aside from stage 1, the four other stages have Easy, Normal and Hard versions and the harder versions have more scoring opportunities of course.

Overall, the game has much more depth than what it seems and that's all the more surprising for a small "indie-like" game like this, but I guess that's the same for all of the best G.G series games.

@BrianC : Yep, the unlock method really sucks. You have an in-game shop from which you can buy the games with in-game currency acquired by playing and clearing some in-game achievements, but an average play session gives less than a thousand points and each games costs 30.000 points. IIRC, you are given enough points at the very begining to buy two games and 4 are already available but afterwards, you better clear those achievements to get enough points.
Oh, and, by the way, only four specific games are available for purchase every day. You may have enough points to unlock a game but it may not be available before two or three days. I suppose you can trick the game by changing the console's date, though.

All in all, despite a few shortcomings, I am happy with the cart as I am sure I wouldn't have even tried some of the games were they not available in this package.

[Pretas]

Someone individually reviewed almost all the G.G. games over here. There's a few others that were only sold digitally.

[BrianC]

Looks like Score Attacker just came to eShop recently in Japan and isn't available in the US yet. Definitely sounds like one to look out for. Reminds me of the Xbox 360 indie game Score Rush. Another game with a deceptively simple title. It looks like one of the eShop only games, one that has yet to reach the US, is a sequel, Ninja Karakuri Den 2.

[Special World]

Whew, thanks for the info! That link certainly made me re-examine my priorities as to which games to look at. In particular Ninja Karakumi-Den sounds great, and I'm really looking forward to the localization of Score Attacker. I'm probably gonna get Wonderland eventually, even if that link says it's not great, because how many 3DS bullet hells are there? Drilling Attack, Air Pinball Hockey, and Conveyor Toy Packing also sound like definite maybes. Can anybody here say whether Z-One or Spiky the Blowfish are good? I'm getting mixed signals between that site and NintendoLife.

[BrianC]

The Nintendolife review of Wonderland was more positive. I think it was talked about in another post on this forum, but I don't remember exactly what was said about it. Assault Buster will probably be the one I go for first since what I read about it sounds really neat. I just wish DSi games could be played without saving them to memory. It's not too bad since they can still be saved to SD card, but it makes no sense since this issue was already fixed for WiiWare and Wii VC games.

edit: Doh. Read the first post again. You probably already read the NL review.

[Special World]

Yeah, I'm still thinking of getting it. But three levels is pretty short. It does look fun though, and it'll be the only bullet hell I can probably loop haha. I might pick it up before heading on vacation in a week.

[Special World]

If I have one complaint about Assault Buster, it's that the "all destroyed" boss bonus is like 75% of your score. Granted, most players will probably want to destroy all the boss parts anyways, but the game gives you basically no choice if you're playing for score, and undervalues time bonuses and enemy point values in the process.

[cave hermit]

I actually remember buying some of the GG games from the dsi shop years ago; the only one I remember though is Ninja Karakuri Den, which was an arcadey single screen action platformer where you had to constantly jump using platforms that fall after being stepped on; there were enemies, but I believe they could only knock you down pits, and you were able to retaliate using shurikens and a quick forward dash with a katana slash.

I remember the GG games being pretty fun, so I might check out some of these newer shmup entries.

I still have them on my dsi, although I have yet to transfer my purchases over to my 3DS account.

[Special World]

Ninja Kakuri Den is really fun; I downloaded it after the other four. Having a character who auto-jumps is novel and fun, and I love dash-attacking enemies. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Cave's Nin2Jump. My only complaint is that the game starts out really easy and there are a ton of levels, so it really takes a while to complete a full game.

[BrianC]

Good news! Telling from Nintendo's website, it looks like Score Attacker is coming to the US eShop tomorrow!

[Special World]

Awwww yes! Thanks for the heads up!

[Special World]

Score Attacker seems pretty solid but utilitarian. It doesn't really have a strong hook, unless I'm misunderstanding the scoring (I could be, as I can't get anything better than normal). Seems like you attack enemies and gain chips to raise your energy meter, and each stock you gain can be used as a bomb or a shield that sucks in bullets and nets you some extra points. And then depending on your score it kicks you into the easy/normal/hard route for the next level. I'm wondering if there's more to it, such as a way to gain faster energy or milk extra points out of enemies.