Taiyou no Yuusha Fighbird, Irem's unknown Famicom-exclusive

[Ghegs]

I was browsing eBay for some Famicom games when a mechtastic box art grabbed my eye. And then a few seconds later, that Irem logo in the corner. A quick check on Youtube revealed that it's actually a vertical shmup, and based on Sunrise's The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird -mecha anime. So out of love of Irem and mechs, I naturally had to grab it.

Got it yesterday and...it's not very good, unfortunately. Audiovisually it's decent enough, and I like how you can change between vehicles (or weapons when you're in mech form) at will. But holy hell it's so easy and boring, I very nearly fell asleep playing the first stage. The enemies come in sparsely and most of them die in one hit, so quite often you're just waiting for the next one to arrive. Though you have five vehicles (three land-based and two aircraft) to play as, there's no real reason to switch between them. Pick one of the flying ones and you don't even need to drive around the obstacles on the ground.

So, it's just a crappy licensed title. The chase was better than the catch, the feeling of finding such a little known Irem shmup was greater than the enjoyment from the game itself.

[BrianC]

There's a different Fighbird GB game that's also a shmup, though, from what I tried, it didn't seem too hot either.

The music of the Famicom game reminds me quite a bit of the GB Mega Man II. I wonder if it's the same composer.

Edit: Found this. Not surprisingly, Mega Man II GB has the same composer as Fighbird FC, Kenji Yamazaki.

[Ghegs]

Ah, good catch. I did think the music was pretty good in Fighbird.