Bangai-O Spirits Review
Buy. Play. Treasure.
Version tested: DS
So, Bangai-O Spirits. I think it's amazing. I sort of suspect that if you didn't play or love the first one, it'll probably leave you baffled for a long time. And then suddenly you'll have an epiphany, in which you utterly understand it and what it's trying to do.
Some of the time it's like WarioWare; some of the time it's like Gradius; some of the time it's like Brain Training. But you never know what to expect. You never know if a map is going to be over in two seconds, or if you'll be dodging bullets for five minutes. And there are so many nuances, like the counterintuitive process of putting yourself directly in the path of danger because your bombs increase their power in proportion to the number of incoming projectiles, or grasping the need to switch bullets to solve particular puzzles.
It's glorious; eclectic, furiously inventive, dizzying, baffling, confusing, witty, clever and beautiful. There are mazes, there are races, there are block puzzles, there are platform games, there are sports games, there are playful tributes to videogame classics from Pac-Man to Mr. Driller, there's pachinko, there are giant robots, there are giant giant robots, there are Lilliputian giant robots, and there are screens and screens of bullets.
There is perfection, there are flaws, there are moments that test your patience, there are moments that test your endurance, there are moments that test your timing, there are moments that test your intelligence. But, above all, there are moments that send you soaring skywards.

Even just the screenshots are full of joy. And bullets.
In essence, it is simply a 2D side-scrolling shoot-'em-up. The original Bangai-O (or Bakuretsu Muteki Bangaioh to give it its full name) appeared on the N64, and, in slightly modified format (and as Bangai-O), on the Dreamcast. It featured a brilliantly incomprehensible storyline in which you piloted a big robot (that was tiny on-screen) across 44 levels. It did three important things. The first was that you could choose from either bouncing bullets or homing missiles. The second was that you had bombs, and they increased in power in proportion to the number of enemy bullets that were about to hit you. And the third was that each of those 44 levels was essentially some sort of a puzzle that you had to solve using the first two things.
One map might be balls-out bullet hell to test your reflexes; the next might be an elaborate maze. One level might see you bouncing bullets round corners; the next might see you unleashing waves of homing missiles in large, open spaces. Several missions saw you racing against a fuse; others saw you taking on bosses who didn't actually fight back. Although it was cruelly overlooked by the majority of gamers and critics, it was a game that was brimming with wit and invention - not to mention screens full of explosions and, rather curiously, fruit that recharged your bombs. It was so brilliant, in fact, that it was even elected one of the top 50 games of all time in Hodder Headline's Game On!: From Pong to Oblivion - The Greatest Video Games of All Time. Widely recognised, at least by the authors, as the definitive selection of best ever games ever. [I suppose we did let Ellie get away with the Guinness stuff. Pass. - Ed]
Bangai-O Spirits picks up where the original left off. It does the above and throws in loads more. There's a wider range of weapons. Instead of a fixed choice between bouncing and homing bullets, Bangai-O Spirits lets you pick your payload at the start of every mission. You can use a baseball bat to wallop your enemies or their missiles, sending them rebounding to carve out a destructive arc; there's a sword; a shield; napalm; 'break' bullets that cut through enemy attacks; bombs that reflect bullets; bombs that freeze opponents; and, of course, the original two weapon types for good measure.
The next new feature is the greater number and wider variety of missions - made possible by all those new weapons (and enemies). The crazy (and generally amusing) narrative continues to send up videogame conventions, just like the first one did, but this time it's restricted to just 17 levels. Disappointingly, that that means the game contains far fewer boss-style encounters than the original. To compensate, the remaining 143 missions contain a variety even more boundless than the original.
There are even more complicated mazes, and races, as well as ball games, and videogames (Pac-Man, Mr. Driller and R-Type, for example). There are levels that spell out words, or levels that just make pretty patterns. One level is a variation on the buzz-bar fairground game, where you have to move a loop along a wire without touching the two; another is modelled on an ant farm; another is actually modelled on the DS itself. Between them, they will tax your brain cells as much as your reaction speed, and sometimes even your patience, and they will confuse, perplex, entertain and delight.

Joy, and bullets, and balls.
Beyond those 160 maps, there's also a multiplayer mode, which allows you to compete with friends, or to create and trade maps or replays - sharing them as audio files. Audio files! That you play to your DS! At once, it is an homage to both videogame history and Nintendo's cutting-edge handheld technology, as well as being so much more fantastically haptic than the act of downloading. If you'll allow me to get all poncy: it is yet another example of Treasure's unique understanding of the videogame medium, transforming an otherwise banal element into entertainment. And yet, it is also a means of extending the range contained within a DS card that is already bursting at the seams - extending it infinitely, in theory.
This infinite variety brings us on to the problem with just listing and describing Bangai-O Spirits: as with so many things, the journey is so much greater than the destination. So much of the pleasure of playing Bangai-O lies in discovering that enormous variety, and getting to grips with the twisted logic that underpins it all. As you work your way through the 160 levels, that perplexing logic gradually reveals itself until you succumb. It's when you start to pick up on the jokes, or the tributes, or the experiments, that you'll begin to realise why Bangai-O is so utterly amazing. That's when you'll start to forgive its imperfections and its flaws - because when Bangai-O fails, it fails gloriously, or bafflingly, or interestingly.
That's when you realise that although Bangai-O is just a shooting game, it's far from just a shooting game. Playing Bangai-O Spirits is a pleasure. If I could, I'd play it for every waking moment.
10 / 10
Bangai-O Spirits is out now in Japan.
You may also like...
-
Happy Action Theater Review
-
ModNation Racers: Road Trip Review
-
Sony confirms PS Vita 1st Party digital only game prices
-
Call of Duty: Black Ops has best game ending ever, says Guinness World Records
-
Mass Effect 3 Demo: The First 20 Minutes
-
Why Devs Owe You Nothing
-
DICE working on multiple Battlefield 3 fixes
-
Halo 4 Master Chief action figure flaunts new suit design
-
Tim Schafer: publishers aren't evil
-
EGTV: Eurogamer playtests PlayStation Vita
-
Apple begins Foxconn factories inspections
-
App of the Day: Monkey Bump
-
Face-Off: Final Fantasy 13-2
-
UK Top 40: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning beats Darkness 2
-
Sony's $50m Vita marketing campaign targets PS3 owners
-
Fallout: New Vegas dev asks fans what game they would like it to Kickstart
-
Activision: games are relationships, "brands in people's lives"
-
Digital Foundry: PS3 Skyrim Lag Fixed?
-
Retrospective: Star Wars Episode I Racer
-
Metal Gear Solid 3D demo on eShop this week
-
Metal Gear Solid 5 expected between April 2013 and May 2014
-
Making FIFA Street in the FIFA engine's image
-
Gotham City Impostors Review
-
FIFA Street footage pits France vs. Germany
-
Ridge Racer Unbounded delayed by four weeks









Comments (69) Latest comment 4 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Loved the DC version. Sold!
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
/buys
/again
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Makes me want to find where I put the Dreamcast. Good year for the DS, innit?
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Here it comes ...
As good as GTA IV then?
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
"HEY, I CAN STILL..."
and a picture of your character dancing naked with the klu klux klan and a massive anime style grin on his face. WTF?!
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Most 7/10 games are better than GTA IV.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Perhaps we're coming into the second wave of decent DS titles after a rather long dry patch'.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
And although I still don't entirely understand what type of game it is, I'm happy to take that recommendation.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
i barely speak a word of japanese and i've had more fun with this than anything else this year. it's arguably the best thing treasure have ever done, and certainly the best action game on DS.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
I thought it'd be a review to something like Haze, but instead it looks like its for something alot more interesting! Just a shame it'll probably be another year before we get to play it over here...
Comment below viewing threshold Show
/joke btw.
/edit: well, the entire post wasn't a joke.. just the GTAIV part.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
so, better than halo then?
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Have the Jap version.
Good.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
http://ww w.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/DS/Bangai...
Comment below viewing threshold Show
There were even FAQs for Apollo Justice and Professor Layton before their E/U release and these games make absolutely no sense if you don't know the language and get the solutions to all the puzzles in advance.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
"
Edge gave it a 9.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Some of them are too tricky though, like when you shoot a blob and have to get to the end of the course before the end of the chain reaction.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
at least learn Japanese before you try to show you know it.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
this game has BARELY ANY text necessary to play
i speak BARELY ANY japanese and i'd say it's worth 10/10
anyone who can't play this game because of some nonexistent language barrier has BARELY ANY brain cells
there is more gameplay packed into the cart than any 2008 release thus far. you don't play bangai-o for the plot! by all means wait for the western release, but the comments about how this can't be 10/10 because the european audience won't get it are flat-out wrong. would i lie to you?
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
This is absolute rubbish, I'm afraid. All the options (and there are lots of them) are in Japanese, and you need to use the weapon-select menu - which is VERY confusing - before every stage. You can muddle through quite a lot of levels, particularly the early ones, just by sticking to the same couple of weapons, but as you progress you'll find more levels where you really need more specific ones, and finding those on the menus is a major trial-and-error chore, which in many cases can take several times longer than actually playing the level.
It's only a couple of months - wait for the US release, which will be far more enjoyable, and genuinely worth 10/10.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
http://ww w.eurogamer.net/forum_thread_po...
Comment below viewing threshold Show
the 17 tutorial stages explain how everything works via their level design just as well as words could.
though yeah, the level editor would be a bit much i guess, that's the strongest argument for waiting to pick up a western release. that's sensible behaviour for sure, but i'm only taking umbrage with the idiotic comments assaulting the reviewer for recommending a game they'll never bother to play.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
I had the original on the Dreamcast. Has to be in my top 5 games. Utterly incredble.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Ok, what is it with comments like this? How in the hell is a game any worse just because it hasn't been translated yet (which it will be)? What the fuck? Do you do this with every game that comes out in Japan first? Utterly nonsensical grasping at straws is what this is.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
You have to play it to appreciate it...
The game is also very small - 7 MB after trimming. Indeed Treasure have lots of space if they want to add more features to the US version as they announced. I'll be picking up the US version for sure - without an "import".
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
The book does suffer slightly by being about hardcore videogames generally (Bangai-O itself, Warcraft, Oblivion) yet aiming the prose at total non-gamers with not even entry-level knowledge of games. Good for the coffee table (read: toilet) to entice the unenlightened.
My thanks for the review monsieur!
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
@riz23- get. a. clue.
First of all the 10 was just McCarthy's opinion, but I'm not sure you really read his review. For example he said about the DC version,
"It did three important things. The first was that you could choose from either bouncing bullets or homing missiles. The second was that you had bombs, and they increased in power in proportion to the number of enemy bullets that were about to hit you. And the third was that each of those 44 levels was essentially some sort of a puzzle that you had to solve using the first two things."
None of this has anything to do with jokes or a story, dipshit, and if you don't have the patience to figure out the controls, that's your problem, not a problem with the game. One more thing, about calling that dude a twat, look who's talking - douche
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
The bat can be considered the most amazing weapon in any game ever.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
I know the slowdown is meant to be ironic (or something) but this really really kills the DS, theres a level called Longai-o in which it literally locks up for about 5 seconds every time you launch a burst attack, its quite funny.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
That USK rating logo is the size of all age rating logos now in Germany.
It's crazy big!!
Absolutely loving this game by the way. Good tip if you're stuck on Training Level 17 - press B a few times on the main menu and you'll see a demo of the level and how to play it. As a Bangai-O novice this really helped me out for the mad levels to come...