Take 'Operation Wolf' add the plot, characters and mecha from Gundam 008 and you've practically got this game: Mobile Suit Gundam Final Shooting.
One or two players mow down Mobile Suit after Mobile Suit with the cabinet mounted laser rifles. The enemy onslaught is unending so you'll need a good aim, a strong arm and a lot of concentration. Power-ups are few so it's more than welcome when, at the middle of the stage, your Mobile Suit is repaired and supplied with a limited but powerful sub-weapon. Boss battles round off each stage and involve blasting away at a large enemy craft while simultaneously shooting down the oncoming swarms of missiles and bad guys.
The graphics are entirely made up of well animated if slightly wobbly 2D sprites, zooming in and out of the screen or popping up from the bottom or rushing in from the sides. As you may have gathered the action is non-stop. Gameplay consists of little more than squeezing the trigger and wildly swinging the sight around the screen. I imagine the exciting visuals alone will have robbed many a player of their ¥100 coins back in the day but the simplistic nature of the gameplay has lost some of it's appeal over time. With the advent of Coin-ops like the 'Virtua Cop', 'House of the Dead' and 'Time Crisis' series Final Shooting seems quite tame and with little in the way of variation.
Gundam fans will still no doubt lap it up and the close adherence to the plot and style of the series is admirable. |
