The first time I saw Bangai-O was for the DS, in the shape of Bangai-O Spirts by Treasure. The game followed these two kids named Masoto and Ruri and some random scientist that I can’t remember the name of. There was no plot, just breaking the 4th wall, missile spam, baseball bats, beam swords, tons of fruit, and plenty of slowdown. They would repeatedly lampshade the fact that the DS could barely handle the game. But it was fun, even though half the time I had no idea what the hell was going on during each level. The basic goal of each level was to kill everything or kill the enemy spawners (with a good mix of puzzle solving mixed in) as fast as you could while getting the highest score possible. I still haven’t beaten the DS version, there’s just so many levels as well as a level editor where you could share levels by sending sound waves to another DS’s microphone…it was weird, but it worked well enough.
I did some research and the basic plot behind the Bangai-O series is that these two kids named Riki and Mami pilot the giant mecha Bangai-O and battle against the Cosmo Gang. What’s the Cosmo Gang doing that’s so evil? Smuggling fruit…Yeah. Smuggling fruit.
So, now Treasure has released a new version of Bangai-O, called Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury for the Xbox Live Arcade.
There’s no unintentional slowdown, graphically it looks pretty, and you can spam so many missiles that they just cover the screen. I’ve been playing the demo and its pretty much as advertised. There seems to be some kind of storyline…I think…The trial version doesn’t let you play that far, but the levels are fun and the action is fast paced. I wasn’t able to see if there were any of the awesome puzzle levels, but there’s supposedly over 100 levels, so I’ll find out eventually. There is online cooperative as well, I’m going to keep messing around with it, but I’m hoping there’s some kind of split screen, however, with all the action going on, I’m not sure if its possible.
I’m probably going to buy this game soon, so if anyone else gets it, send me a message and we can go fruit collecting.
Flavor Grenade 