Overview
Since 1995, The powerhouse company Cave has produced challenging,
yet dynamic shooters. Their games have the following traits:
beautiful graphics and amazing detail, and a learning curve that
almost demands a lot of practice. Known for making some of the best
vertical shooters ever, Cave decided to do a few things differently:
1) Keep all of their key elemnts in place, but make the game vertical,
and 2) Get Capcom to publish Progear, which is definitely one of the
best games to grace the CPS II.
A long time ago, in a faraway place known as Parts Kingdom, the elder
Statesmen have started a deadly revolution that have caused many to
lose their lives and will ultimately destroy the Kingdom if they are
not stopped. As two of the five "Gunflyers", you must take to the skies
in your plane and save what's left of the Kingdom from certain doom. You
choose a pilot and gunner combination to take on your mission. Choosing
the pilot affects your main shot type and you choose your sub-shot when
your gunner is selected. The pilots are Ring, whose fighter has a wide
shot and slower speed, and Bolt, has faster speed but weaker, more
focused shots. For the gunners, you can
choose from Chain
Graphics 9/10
Like most other games by Cave, Progear definitely delivers with beautiful, nicely
drawn sprites that span a variety of forms and sizes. While everything in-game is
is mechanical, it animates quite well. Who would ever think that propellors turning
looks good? You also get some very brief cutscenes when you encounter or
destroy a boss (you see a last snapshot of its pilot), and the trademark character
art by Junya "Joker Jun" Inoue. Everything is as close to period as possible, even
if some of the enemy machines look a bit abstract. By period, I'm guessing around 192X...
Gameplay/Controls 8/10
Those familiar with any of Cave's games will immediately recognize the
functions when the fire button is held down. For those new to this,
it works like so: tapping the fire button causes your fighter to shoot
normal shots. Holding down the fire button makes your side fighters go
into a full-auto, auto-targeting mode. This is handy to taking out the
larger enemies when normal shots are not enough. Many may think that
this is mindless shooting, there is a lot of strategy involved here.
Destroyed enemies leave behind jewlrings that add to your bonus
multiplier. Killing enemies with normal shots, called 'fighter' mode
will leave behind rings (enemy shots caught in the explosion of a downed
enemy add to this) and taking out enemies when you're in 'gunner' mode
(When you hold down the shot button) does the smae thing except you're
rewarded with gemstones, which are worth a lot more points. The big incentive
is to build up your jewel level by using normal shots and then use gunner
mode at an opportune time to rake in a lot of stones. Holding the shot
button also cuts your speed in half, which is good for nameuvering those
really tight holes in bullet patterns. Your hit area, or conatct point in
the sprite which causes a miss, is small. You also have bombs at your disposal.
They cause big damage, but hurt your total Jewelring count by depleting it at
a very fast rate. Novice gamers are likely to be intimidated by the
sometimes obscene number of enemy shots on the screen and seasoned veterans
may find this to be a decent challenge.
Sound/Music 8/10
While it's not of big-band quality, the psudo-modern music is good. Each stage has it's
own feeling of impending action. It almost sounds like your playing a scene from
a movie. The sound effects are ok, though you really can't expect much variety there. There
are also voices, but those are all limited to the Japanese version. It gave Progear
just a little bit more personality-even if you can't understand Japanese.
Replay Value 7/10
For those new to the shooting genre (or Cave games in general), be prepared for a fairly
steep learning curve. The Jewelling system can be confusing at first, but mastering it
the key to getting out of a pinch as well as a big score. It's really tempting to credit-
feed this game and end it, or you can play it well enough to do it all again. By the
way, the second loop (if you make it that far) is far less forgiving with enemies that
shoot back when you kill them and those dreaded restart points. You'll definitely have
to do your homework on this one.
Overall 8/10
Cave's first (and only so far) attempt at making a horizontal shooter has yielded positive
results. Like Cave's vertical shooters, you once again get the same feeling of challenge
as well as beauty. While arcade shooters may far and few between, it's definitely worth a
try just because it's an unequaled experience that's not disappointing.
- by eight one
