Bangai-O Spirits Review

This isn't a review, as I had already written one before I put this together. It's instead a short piece I wrote for NTSC-uk at the end of 2008, as my submission for their "Game of the Year" feature. Unfortunately, it was never published, so this was destined to be left un-used and un-read. What a shame, eh?

Game: Bangai-O Spirits (NDS) - By Tetsuo

Unless you'd been anticipating it, import Nintendo DS title Bangai-O Spirits was easy to miss when it was released in Japan back in March. For many of today's gamers, it would struggle to stand out against current highly-proclaimed "Game of the Year" contenders on other HD, polygon-pushing consoles. But to ignore its diminutive charms on looks alone would be to naively overlook one of the years' most assured and devastatingly addictive titles.

Developers Treasure not only managed to deliver a carefully-considered portable translation of one of their most acclaimed console shooters, but in doing so they successfully expanded that manic concept with all manner of ideas and features not possible in the original game. Bangai-O's at-a-glance premise is simple to understand: fly, shoot and destroy everything in sight. It's only later when challenged to combine all this with close-range and bomb attacks; solving ingenious puzzles; battling unrelenting mecha and creating giant-mid-air-robot-smashing-mayhem, do you begin to understand the sum of its pixelly loveliness. Add in co-operative play, replay features, a full stage edit mode and the ability to upload and download levels via microphone, and it's clear to see there's plenty in the way of additional diversions, too.

That it sold in disappointingly small numbers (despite a commendable western translation with improved difficulty balance and controls), says more of the predominantly dire mainstream DS market than anything else. In a year when industry buzzword UGC began to seep into marketing consciousness, Bangai-O Spirits' stage creation mode alone contains a depth of gameplay the likes of certain avatar-based yawn-fests could only imagine. It's a unique celebration of the 2D form and solid gameplay sensibilities in a world all too easy to pander to graphical surplus and tired ideas. Oh, and it's blooming brilliant fun, trufax.