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Guwange Review - Microsoft Xbox360 XBLA

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  • Guwange Review - Microsoft Xbox360 XBLA

    As veterans of the genre, it comes as little surprise that Cave's most recent release is a top-down, scrolling shoot 'em up. Perhaps more surprisingly, unlike their more recent home ports, it is not a modern title published as a full-price disc release, but rather an XBLA port of a game over 10 years old. Thematically the game is even older, shunning the futuristic military and mecha settings so common within the genre, and instead setting the action in feudal Japan, full of mythical spirits and monsters to boot.
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    The plot revolves around a world in which people unfortunate enough are possessed by Shikigami (or spirits, to you and I and here-on in), granting them incredible powers but cursing them to an ultimately premature death in the process. You choose from an array of three characters sharing such a fate - Shishin, Kosame and Gensuke - and with their spirit in tow you progress through 6 stages of increasing difficulty; your ultimate aim being to slay the game's namesake, freeing yourself from the curse and granting you a more reasonable life expectancy in the process.
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    Whist in-game little reference is made to the story, the plot does however inspire Guwange's key mechanic which sets it apart from the crowd – with the one set of directional controls, you handle both a character and their corresponding spirit at once. Your human character provides fairly elementary firepower but ultimately acts as the hit box which must be dodged and weaved through the oncoming bullets, whilst your spirit counterpart plays a far less conservative role – on top of dishing out heavy damage to all nearby, bullets generated within the same proximity are also slowed dramatically, which soon becomes less of a nicety and more of an essential. In holding the shot button you spawn and relinquish full control to your spirit, and whilst your human character still moves, it is in a highly limited fashion and much slower than when operating in solo.
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    In line with the difficulty curve found almost universally genre-wide, the first two stages aren’t too taxing, and during these you may find these control quirks quite novel. Much past here however, and you will soon realise the difficulties and frustrations associated with this system. Whilst your human character is locked to certain terrains by physical limitations such as walls, water and the like, your spirit can move freely throughout the environment - and yet even still times will arise when you will want the two to move in separate directions, cursing your inability to do so in the process.
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    This game is hard – very hard at that, and as anyone familiar with ‘bullet hell’ games will assure you, there are plentiful quantities of both enemies and bullets, and it’s soon evident that it's enough work focusing on one character without a second vying for your attention. Yet in spite of this, the challenge is one of the game’s strongest assets – there are excellent practice facilities present, and if you make the commitment here there is little else in the gaming world as satisfying as feeling in complete control whilst all kinds of chaos unfolds around you.
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    The longevity of the game is derived not only from the struggle of survival but also in mastering the scoring system – in a nutshell, killing enemies generates coins, the amount of which being dependant on your skull gauge; to maintain this requires matching specific shot types to certain enemies and keeping the time window between these kills as brief as possible. Whilst admittedly quite generic as far as scoring systems go, it works well and is emphasised by solid leaderboard support, allowing you to download replays of top players in action to study, or merely ogle in slack-jawed wonder.
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    As a digital download one could almost excuse Cave were the production values and content to be scaled back in a fashion similar to the price, but this is not the case. Both audibly and graphically, Guwange is strongly and fantastically bound to its theme, and along with a huge number of disturbing yet brilliant character and enemy designs (personal favourite being a particularly nightmarish giant spider with a cat’s head) the sound is just as tight, with very punchy yet authentic-sounding instruments punctuating the score throughout.
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    Despite its age and lack of a high-definition update, the theme and attention to detail stands up fantastically and gives it a distinctive style and charm - this is a real triumph of timeless design quality over pure graphical grunt. From a technical perspective, the vertical alignment of the game leads to a number of available display options to comfort those who have a setup that can provide a more appropriate solution than the border-heavy display that comes as default, yet the most obvious of which – rotated low resolution 4:3 – is bizarrely not present, much to the frustration of many die-hard fans.

    As well as the to-be-expected Arcade mode, there is a conversion of the rare and highly coveted 'Blue' arrange, as well as a third, Xbox 360-exclusive mode. Whilst generally the game plays in a similar fashion across all three, these each offer a variety of slight tweaks to the mechanics, the most radical departure being the console-specific arrange. In this, full control of the two characters is split across the two analogue sticks – and whilst this is undeniably more logical, with little done to re-balance the game it ends up diminishing the challenge - and thus the longevity - almost entirely. As a gateway drug to the other modes this serves a purpose well, but it is hard to see it as little beyond this.

    Whilst far from the polish of many XBLA titles, as a whole it’s an enjoyable package and one to be recommend to those with even a slight interest in the genre – taking factors such as hardware, price, and availability into account there has never been a lower cost of entry, and even the most casual of gamer has been catered for with the diversity of modes. Whereas many will happily credit-feed through a 30 minute playthrough and forget it shortly thereafter, there is enough depth in chasing the game's milestones to last an age, and enough enjoyment in doing so to entice players to it.

    Add Guwange to your queue here

    Score: 7/10

    • mattyr64
      #1
      mattyr64 commented
      Editing a comment
      Been wondering when a review of this gem would pop up, really lovely game. Some nightmarish bosses though, both difficulty and looks-wise. Definitely more grim and gritty in style than Mushihimesama, DoDonPachi and Akai Katana, a refreshing change.

      Similarly to all the other Cave games I'm after friends to bolster my leaderboards, my gamertag is wulfie83

    • englishbob
      #2
      englishbob commented
      Editing a comment
      Great review. the great un-answered question of the release (for me) was "apparently" Caves original application to Microsoft to release all of their wares on Arcade was rejected, forcing them to go box retail.

      And then this turned up. Original bull****?
    Posting comments is disabled.

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