STRAIGHT OUTTA NEO-GEO
NEO-STATION 4
MAX 330 MEGA
PRO-GEAR SPEC
RESURRECTED
Andro Dunos by Visco Games... I've never played that one before. Whether the arcade days or the emulator days, never gave that one a try. I mean hell, the arcades where I live released plenty of Neo's games, including shmups like Aero Fighters 2 and 3 and Blazing Star along with the common King of Fighters and Metal Slug games, so it was quite unacceptable the absence of Andro Dunos there. I was hoping to see it as part of ACA Neogeo, but Hamster pulled the plug on releasing Neo's titles to focus on Arcade Archives before they entered on the "BN Era" (BN = Before Namco), while Visco released Andro Dunos as part of Visco Collection.
As far as I know, Andro Dunos was a simple, yet fun arcade shooter with a selectable weapon system that allows you to switch the weapons on the go and even charge them to unleash devastating attacks which were useful against the bosses. Like most Neo-Geo titles, it had a bright color palette and amazing music that lived up to the basic yet essential titles of SNK's arcade behemoth, and since 1992 the game only had one single title, until Just For Games and Pixelheart with the license of Visco themselves they've brought a sequel 30 years later, and that's Andro Dunos II.
The first thing to do before starting the game is to select the screen resolution with its preset wallpaper and if we want CRT lines for a retro-screen effect.
If the Neo-Geo was the "Super High Tech Game"
Any console with Andro Dunos II would be "Ultra High Tech Game" I guess.
Andro Dunos II retains the simplicity of the original game, along with a basic weapon switching that believe it or not, is tactical enough to handle any situation. But the key to survive is to gradually power up each weapon rather than focus on one first and another later because you will be using all of them throughout the game. My best strategy is to power up the Type 1 in Stage 1 then Type 3 goes next? Never played Andro Dunos or you've totally forgot with all those modern shmups out there? Well here's the list of weapons of the Neo Type Spacefighter "Yellow Cherry".
TYPE I "FORWARD ATTACK": The Vulcan of the game. It fires blue bullets that increase in size and strength as it powers up. It is equipped with the Fintael, a missile that goes upwards and downwards frontally like the missiles in Gradius. Its charged attack is a rapid volley of bullets similar to the R-9O's Hyper Mode on R-Type III.
TYPE II "REAR ATTACK": This is the "Back Shot" that provides you rear firing against enemies that come from behind and even required to use in some of the boss fights of the game. Its support subweapon is the Hawk, which shoots 4 missiles in diagonal trajectories. Its Charge Attack fires stronger and faster rear vulcan shots.
TYPE III "ALL DIRECTIONS": 5 Way Shot. Shots four lasers in a "X" trajectory while firing an additional frontal beam. Its projectiles are the Homing which fires four energy balls that chase their enemies. Its charged attack unleashes a spinning 3 way laser beam attack.
TYPE IV "WIDE FORWARD ATTACK": The "Spread Shot" type. Fires crescent moon shaped bullets. Its backup is the Laser, which shoots a 6 way Air-to-Ground laser fire effective against ground and ceiling targets. Its special attack unleashes large crescent shots at a very fast firing rate.
Along with your basic weapons, you have a support unit simply called "Units", which are pods that provide protection and have 4 different configurations that can be switched in order to adapt your defenses to the required situation.
FRONT: The units are placed in front of your ship providing frontal protection. It is the Unit configuration of the Type I weapon.
REAR: Type II configuration. Like its name says, deploys the Units behind your ship to protect it from enemy fire that comes from behind.
ROLLING: This is the preset configuration for the Type III weapon. The Units are placed one in front an the other behind it and spinning around the ship just like the Rolling Shield from Gradius III.
SIDE: Type IV configuration. Units are placed above and below your ship, providing protection from enemy fire from both ceiling and ground.
Andro Dunos II retains much of its classic core gameplay but adding a few new twists. Starting off with the changes to the Homing. Rather than being a secondary weapon for your ship, it is now the support weapon for the Type III weapon. Picking Power ups for your ship comes in two forms: The regular "S" sphere that upgrades the selected weapon and the "Box confined" item, which after a few seconds changes to "M" and "U" for your missile or Unit kinda like the weapon crystal from the classic Raiden games. In terms of difficulty, it retains the challenge factor and speed of the early days of the Neo-Geo such as the good ol' Andro Dunos. Not a brutal merciless shmup as Pulstar or Last Resort, but still fast and challenging enough to keep the pace with later NG shmups such as Blazing Star even if Andro Dunos II doesn't had the immens variety Blazing Star offered. Like Pulstar and Blazing Star, Andro Dunos II utilizes a Charge Shot mechanic, but unlike the traditional hold and let go button control, here is more like the common "Bomb format" of pushing Button 2 (You can customize which button you want to use), However, once you use the Charge Shot, it will degrade your weapon to its level 1 shot regardless of which level it was. But here's the good news, that downgrade is temporary as it recharges, and also you can switch to another weapon with a higher level so you can keep the pace during some of the enemy crowded situations. One thing that really comes in handy is that your missile and Unit powering is permanent. If you lose a life, their level will be the same. One final thing to remember is that the Units are not indestructible, they will go down after absorbing a few bullets, ditching all chances of pulling R-Type/E.D.F. tricks.
GET IT MORE!
One difference between the original game was the introduction of bonus "Orbs". The small ones grant you 500 points and the large ones 2000. Keep this in mind: These bonus items appear by following this simple rule: Small orbs will drop after taking down an entire enemy formation and the larger ones by defeating large sized enemies such as large vessels and mid-bosses. Also, picking a Shot/Missile upgrade once you're maxed up you'll be getting 2,000 point bonuses. The orbs also play a secondary role in the game, but before talking about it, let's talk about the boss fights.
No more "Mr. Defenseless" boss
Boss battles are unique compared with any other shmup. While in most shooters destroying a part like a turret or a cannon will result in disabling that weapon, that doesn't happen on Andro Dunos II. You can shoot a cannon until it explodes, but it will just become damaged and it will still fire at you but on a weaker level. It will only go down once the boss dies. This adds an interesting challenge factor and makes the enemies still combat capable in "if it goes down, it will go down fighting you" plan. One minor flaw of this game is the lack of local or online co-op player, so the game ditches the Neo Type Space Fighter "Red Fox". Quite selfish since it pokes on the premise of being arcade styled (think the SNES ports of Final Fight and U.N. Squadron), but still fun to play as a solo player game.
Peace Sells, and you're buyin'!
Remember what I said about the orbs and their secondary function? Well, this is it. After defeating the boss, you'll be greeted with a "Results" screen where each orb will give you points, but the main bonus here is the Upgrade Points which are obtained for every 10 orbs. Each stage has a total of 30 orbs, and these are the key for further upgrading, requiring you to eliminate the major number (or all) of enemies possible. Upgrade Points can be used to power up your weapons, or get 5,000 points per UP.
If you blink, you're dead.
In a great tribute to Konami's Gradius series, Andro Dunos II pulls three stunts from this legendary series of shmups. The first one is in Stage 5 where you will be fighting enemies throughout "Speed Zones", but fortunately it is more tolerant for beginners and average shmuppers since the speed segments can be easily navigated.
The Endurance Round
The second Gradius nod is the Battleship stage. Here you will fight multiple bosses in pure Boss Rush style, and if this felt a lot like Gradius II/Vulcan Venture and Gradius III, even the music of the Boss Rush has a Konami/Gradius feel during these battles.
Shoot The Cores!
To complete these Gradian references, the stage "Secret Base" has a "Core Wall" similar to Disrupt from Gradius III, but in this case, it goes Thunder Force-ish by making it multi-screens larger and better equipped, along with the No-disabled damaged weaponry, making this enemy quite challenging even for a fully powered player, and if that wasn't enough the game throws you one last speed tunnel with closing gates. Fortunately, its easy to navigate despite the closing gates and you have to face two final bosses that will put your flight skills to the challenge. To put it simple, Andro Dunos II is one of those shmups that makes challenge from the stages themselves, placing enemies on the right time, at the right spot and the right amount of them, making them hard but fair, but also fun to navigate if you have a low power level. My only complain will be an issue when you continue the game. For a Neo-Geo inspired shmup, it pulls the "Capcom Point of Shame" which means it adds 1 point to your score as a mark of shame that increases on each credit. Is not as drastic as Taito's Dariusburst CS: Chronicle Saviours, but still unnecessary. Speaking of points, when you start the game you'll be sent to the action with 10 points instead of zero. Why? I have no idea.
Overall, Andro Dunos II is what I always expect of a good shmup: Fun, useful weaponry, that feeling of "I'm facing a sometimes tough, yet fair" challenge and the fact the game makes challenge from the stages themselves rather than throwing things stupidly being loyal to the premise of homaging the old school arcade classics. There's nothing negative to talk about on that aspect, resulting in an A+ in gameplay.
There's more Andro Dunos II beyond the main game.
You've finished the game? It's not time to shutting it down yet. This game is one of those good shmups that still have more to offer beyond the main game.
Battle against all odds.
There's new modes waiting for your challenge. The first one is the Boss Rush where you will be facing all the bosses of the game in one shot. Unlike the main game where you'll be obtaining your good dose of power ups, you'll be getting ocassionally a mode-exclusive power up item for all the weapons.
It's a trip down memory lane but in 2020's style.
After completing the Boss Rush, you will unlock a new level called Respect 1992 A which is a re-take of "The Moon", the first level of Andro Dunos, up to the first boss. In this special level, you'll start with your power settings at 1, so you have to decide which upgrade gets more power. My best strategy is to power up the Type I weapon and switch to any other weapon when you think you're about to collide with something. Also, there's no continues on this stage. Its just you and your 3 spare ships. Aside from that, it is an easy mission and it will be easy enough to clear it.
Gone R-Typing.
Thought you're done? Think again one more time. After clearing 1992 A, you'll unlock Respect 1992 B, which now nods "Alien", the third level of the original game. Unlike 1992 A, your power levels will start at level 3, except for the Fintael which will be on level 1 and the Units on level 0. This level is a bit more harder and challenging. Once you've cleared that level, it's Mission Complete since you've will definitely finish Andro Dunos II.
Bringing the best of the Neo' and the CPS-2 in one amazing space blaster!
Graphically, is as old-school 90's arcade as possible. While the enemies seem to had a boost in their design, your ship remains with the classic cute-looking compact ship. Back then, that's what you only needed in these kind of games; your ship, a good enough arsenal of weapons and your imagination. Yeah, you only needed to pretend that you were the pilot of "the Andro Dunos ship" and that was a cool childhood/youth moment of your life. While the pixel art remains right on with the premise of resemble an arcade game, there's times where it feels more like a CPS-2 shmup than the Neo-Geo (both 330 Mega and Giga Power), for example Stage 3 which makes me think of Eco Fighters and Capcom's PlayStation games like Megaman X4.
One of the details that give the "Modern Game" giveaway is the effects of zoomed enemies that look overpixelated versions of their original sprites and the very perfect inclination of your projectives (Fintail for example), rather than having pixel-by-pixel animation like in the old arcade games (think Namco System II hardware like Ordyne or Assault) we have the perfect rotation effect common in most Indie pixel games.
Allister Brimble made a great job with the music. Despite breaking with the more "Anime" appealing soundtrack of the previous game, the music of Andro Dunos II has a strong Euro videogame style with some reminiscence of Chris Hulsbeck styled synth and percussions that will make you feel you're playing a Factor 5 game instead of a Neo-Geo title and combined with the nowadays crystal clear quality which no longer has sound card limitations, the Hulsbeck experience is perfectly felt giving as a result a nostalgic tour-de-force for your ears. Just the first level theme "Our Planet" and the boss theme are Turrican-esque. Stage 2 leaves the Hulsbeck vibes in favor of a more electronic styled setting for the space scenario, but without leaving the rhythm and speed to fit on the game.
TRIVIO CURIOUS II
- The original logo was depicted as "Andro Dunos II", but the updated one looks more like "Andro 2 Dunos".
- Fintael is wrongly written as "Fintail".
The Neo-Geo legacy is alive and its back.
Regardless if you've played or not the original Neo-Geo shooter, Andro Dunos II is one brilliant example of how to make a sequel of a classic Neo-Geo shmup. Classic gameplay, excellent arcade graphics, amazing soundtrack, bonus modes that homage the source material, this is a GREAT example of how to make a retro-styled arcade shooter and you definitely should give this game a try.
Hope someone takes the challenge of continuing an arcade shooter like Blazing Star, that was a great one. I could say Aero Fighters, but the Psyvariar guys (Success) are working on Sonic Wings Reunion.
Positive results on the Eda Scale. Well done Andro Dunos II.