Return to the Review: Gunstar Super Heroes on the GameBoy Advance

I wrote this for IGN's reader review section back in 2005. I was actually excited to play this game, as I loved the first game on the MegaDrive. Turned out that what was advertised as a sequel to the game, would turn into a so-so remake with a dusting of GBA quality 2D graphics minus the awesome gun combos from the original. It's an all-right game, but the original is superior! Which you can now download on the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360.

In the US and Japan it's called Super Heroes, and in Europe it's called Future Heroes.

I own both the Megadrive/Genesis game and now the new Gunstar Future Heroes (Gunstar Super Heroes in the US). Playing this game has brought back some good times, however in some cases it's not as I though it would be. First off I'll give some Pros about this game so that I don't sound like I'm biased...

First off, there are some added extras levels that haven’t been seen in the old game. The first level is Earth, although the old game was meant to be based on Earth anyway, it felt like something new, as the rest of the game I felt were just copies of the old Megadrive game. New stuff on the GBA game also includes levels where you're on top on an aircraft shooting enemies; crazy little mini games were you collect chicks that felt very much like the classic Sega arcade game "Flicky". And you fly in a helicopter in a top-down arcade shooter style with controls similar to Xevious where you can drop bombs to enemy ground vehicles. 

Another thing I found that was cool in this game was that you can play as either Red or Blue independently, unlike the Megadrive game where Red was always Player 1 and Blue was always Player 2. This gives people the opportunity to play as both characters. However despite the game being several decades after the old game, all the characters still have the same name from the old game, would've been nice to see something new.

And now onto the bad things...

Regrettably the game really isn't to much of a sequel, it's more of a remake. The Game itself pretty much has the same levels, characters and bosses from the previous game (all except the first level). This is a same because I really wanted to see something new, after playing the first level with the huge mecha, it just seemed to play in the same way as the old game did. Onto bosses again, if people remember, the second mid-boss of the Pyramid level, Braavoo Man, was generated out of polygons on the Megadrive game, OK so they were all cubes, but for a Megadrive game that was impressive. However in the GBA game, even though the intro uses some polygons, Braavoo Man is just a collection of 2D sprites, Yet again is a shame because I was expecting Braavoo man to use the same 3D polygons he did back on the Megadrive game.

The old game had the facility to mix and match weapons, for example you can Mix a force beam with a chaser or a Chaser with a blaze beam. You can also mix two of the same beam to give yourself a really powerful weapon. However in the new game, it doesn't exist. Depending on who you play as, you only have the ability to swap weapons, you can't mix them. If you play as Red you get Force, Blaze and Chase, and if you play as Blue you get Lighting, Chase and Blaze. Again, as I played the old game before, I'm disappointed about this because I had loads of fun experimenting with the mixed weapons in the old game.

On to my conclusion...

The game is very fun to play, however if you played and loved the old game, you may be disappointed. However some aspects of the game still makes it fun to play, and even if it is a remake, I still love Gunstar. It would've been nice to see new stuff in the game. If you haven’t got the old game or haven’t played the old game, you really should get this game so you get a taste of the Gunstar game. It's just that if you're a hardcore Gunstar fan, don't expect fireworks to go off.

Bright or Dull? Well lets says it's a fluorescent bulb at best...