March 12th
Today's challenge is: Game you always come back to.
Halfway point of the original challenge image! And another tough one.
I had no problem coming up with games I “always come back to”, but when factoring in some of my personal rules, it becomes considerably harder. An obvious answer could be Stepmania/Flashflashrevolution, but I'm hoping to avoid resorting to games that never had a physical release. Then you have some of the classics I kept playing here and there either from a young age or since their release, like Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64 or Super Smash Brothers (Melee or 64), but I find those to be extremely disappointing picks, as there's not much to say about those games anymore. There's another game I could name that would work fine, but it's a little too recent, and there are already 5 tiles it would have to go in, and I'm already having issues deciding where it's gonna go (can't spoil it yet!)... So I need to pick a title I keep coming back to, that there's something to say about it, and that saw a physical release. I'm finding out that there aren't that many obvious ones then.
Anyway, under these circumstances, the best one I could think of is
Wild Guns, for the SNES. I played it for the first time as a kid during daycare (and played it quite a bit), then played it on emulators during most of my high school and early college days out of nostalgia, then it became the first game I've ever bought online on the Wii's virtual console, then bought a reproduction cart online as an adult (after finding out that it costs a fucking fortune nowadays), then bought the remastered version on PS4 as one of the first games I bought for that system, and I still played it recently on the Switch's SNES emulator. Therefore, I think it ticks all checkmarks.
So what is Wild Guns? Well, it's something that I'd classify as a Gallery Shooter. It's not quite a shmup or a rail shooter, because the screen is static, though it does feature similar mechanics. You must also control your character while also controlling the reticle. You can jump, double jump, roll and walk left and right. If you've played Contra on the NES, it kinda works like the middle sections where you see your guy from the back. Oh, and it supports simultaneous two-players mode!
The game is made by Natsume, which in my opinion are by far the best 3rd party developers on the system. They haven't made a ton of games, but holy fuck are all of their products amazing. Gundam Wing, Wild Guns, both Pocky and Rocky games, Ghost Sweeper Mikami, Ninja Warriors, there's some really good arcade stuff here. But let's focus on Wild Guns a bit more.
There are 2 playable characters in the game, and 4 in the remastered version, though I don't like the new ones. Those characters are Annie and Clint, and despite what you'd think, Annie is actually the main character. She's setting out to avenge the massacre of her loved ones by the goons of a big time crime boss. Early on her journey, she meets Clint, a bounty hunter, who offers a hand since he's after his “wanted: dead or alive” bounty anyway, and she agrees to let him tag along so long as he stays the fuck out of her way.
Wild Guns is also Spaghetti Western themed, with a special twist in that it also features futuristic robots, cyborgs and other machines coming straight out of Japanese sci-fi, which is a really odd mix that actually works really well. You also have infinite ammo when firing your old school rifle, but you can also pick up a few power ups along the way. Once you get them, your firearm is replaced by the “stronger” one until you run out of ammo. These are the grenade launcher, the shotgun and the heavy machine gun (in the original version at least, there are a few more weapons in the remastered version). There is also the peashooter, which does no damage, but you still have to go through its ammo in order to be able to hurt things again. Lastly, you can also obtain the mighty Vulcan gun, which is a damn minigun. It has infinite ammo and renders you invincible for a while, and you can get it by fully charging a gauge that's powered by intercepting enemy bullets with your own projectiles. You still have other means of attacking however! You have your laser lasso (which freezes enemies for a while, which you can then shoot down safely), you have the butt of your firearm, which you can use as a melee attack, you can also throw back the dynamite sticks enemies throw at you, and you can also use a screenwide attack, which you have a limited number of. Clint's screenwide attack is a TNT box that blows up everything, and Annie uses an overpowered mortar to achieve the same result. In the remastered version however, Annie's mortar attack covers only half of the screen, to balance out the fact that she's been buffed a lot over Clint with her movement.
The game isn't very long, and a playthrough consists of 6 levels total. A playthrough takes about half an hour to complete. The first one is Carson City, then you can do the next 4 in any order you want (Megaman style, and bonus stages will be triggered after beating 2 and 4 of these stages respectively, so long as their respective criterias are met), then the final stage. The remastered version has different stages available depending on what difficulty you are playing on, but still has only 6 stages per playthrough.
Last but not the least, the music and visuals are simply mindblowing, both in the original and remastered versions. Like I said before, the two themes going on are a little unrelated to each others, but they managed to blend the two perfectly in the more aesthetical department. I still don't know if I prefer the remastered style or the original game. I'm playing both versions of Carson City and they're both perfect efforts. I might like the original a bit more because, well, it's the original and its music is, in my opinion, hands down the best there is on the console, but the optional remastered music and the way the first boss blows up in the remastered version also gives me the manliest of boners.
As a bonus last note, I'd like to say that this is one of VERY FEW games where I'll occasionally play the dude instead of the girl. Their playstyles are only very marginally different, so the change is mostly in their appearance.
I'm likely to keep coming back to this one until the end of time, on whatever platform it's available on. The original version is exclusive to the SNES, virtual console versions are available on the Wii, Wii U and Switch, and the remastered version is available on PS4, Switch and PC.
