Gunlord X (Switch) Review
Release Date: 22 May 2019
Date Played: 12 January 2022
Introduction:
Gunlord X is an updated port of a homebrew Neo Geo game developed by NG.Dev in 2012. Created as a bit of a passion project for a insanely expensive and hard to find console, the game was later ported to the Sega Dreamcast before being refined and brought to modern consoles. It is clearly inspired by games like Contra, Metroid, and most importantly Turrican. It also has a very strong "Euro game" feel to it and looks and plays like a game pulled right off of an Amiga Computer from the 90s.
Story and Gameplay: You play as Gordan Gaiden, a super soldier, on his mission to rescue his missing wife on a hostile and alien planet from an evil being known as, "The Master." It's a basic story for sure, but that's nothing out of the ordinary for this style of game where narrative takes a backseat to non-stop action.
Gameplay is a 2D sidescrolling action platformer. You traverse the overly large and sprawling levels as you wipe out countless alien enemies, make precarious jumps, explore for items, and fight humungous bosses. You're given several shots to help you that include a power, spread, and a bounce shot. You can switch between these by collecting different colored tokens at several "terminals" dispersed plentifully throughout the stages. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but I feel like the bounce shot is greatly overpowered and would be the preferred weapon for almost anyone playing. You also have screen clearing bombs to help you out. They aren't overly strong, but several can be collected during each stage and you can stockpile a hefty amount of them. Sadly, the extra ones are lost if you die. Finally, you have your laser shot which is controlled twin-stick style with the right analog stick. It can be fired in 360 degrees and will make quick work of most enemies and was my main mode of attack. It also has the added bonus of destroying most enemy shots and being able to pass through the copious amounts of walls that will block your standard shots from being able to hit the insane amounts of enemies scattered around the levels. This laser shot is very reminiscent of Turrican's iconic shot type and has an energy bar tied to it. As you repeatedly shoot, the energy level goes down and decreases your range and attack power. Luckily, when you stop using the laser shot, the gauge refills itself. Finally, you have a morph ball similar to Metroid's that also empties your energy gauge. You won't be using it to find very many secret passages, but it is good to add some temporary vulnerability from an onslaught of bullets. I'm a little curious to know why they included the morph ball because outside of the novelty of it, doesn't really seem to be put to good use.
You'll notice right away that the movement and jumping mechanics of Gunlord X are a little stiff and awkward. It feels like an Amiga game through and through and there's just very little inertia and lift to your jumps. It almost feels as if most of the jumps need to be pixel perfect and you'll find yourself plummeting from a missed landing quite often. This isn't a grievous sin, but it does feel a bit clunky compared to some of the great run and gun platformers out there. There is little margin for error when jumping over pits and trying to weave and fight your way through the enemies while doing it becomes irritating quickly when you're also having to fight with controlling your character.
What sets this game apart from most other games of this type (excluding Turrican, again) is the gigantic size and maze-like structure of the stages. There is a ton of verticality to the stages and tons of nooks and crannies to explore as you make your way through them. There are also alternate paths, secret walls, and tons of dead ends as well. You'll encounter plenty of distractions as you work your way through these levels because the game could be better described as a 2D collectathon. I personally really dislike most collectables in a game, and Gunlord X, in particular, is one of the worst about this I've ever seen. Throughout the levels are an insane amount of crystals for you to uncover and find. Each level has a set number of large crystals and small crystals and collecting all of them in a level will grant you an extra continue to permanently help you out. You'll definately want to spend some time doing this because those extra continues are essential. The big problem with snagging all of these crystals in a stage is that you have to literally collect them ALL. And, I assure you, this is no easy task because some stages have like 800 crystals in them. If you miss a single one, you get NOTHING for your efforts and it feels like all of that time you spent exploring was pointless. Considering some stages took me around a half an hour to complete and the vast majority of that time was trying to find these stupid crystals, I was quickly discouraged. What makes matters worse is that the developers want you to explore everything while looking for them and it will often lead you to hazardous areas that will end up sapping your health. They will do things like leave little trails of crystals to lead you off course like a line of cookie crumbs leading a mouse to a trap. Or, they'll have a segment where you fall down a hole at the end of the level and there will be a random crystal placed in an awkward position that you have no way of knowing is there unless you've already played through the stage several times. At one point, I had like 497/500 crystals in a stage and I was nearing the end of the stage. The last 3 crystals sat on a platform across a little gap. I barely missed the jump and fell down below. Since there was no way to get back up to the platform, collecting those 497 other crystals was completely pointless. It's all extremely frustrating and pretty much ruins the entire game for me. Traversing these large and poorly thought out stages is an exercise in frustration and the only saving grace to this is that they put little exit signs all around the stages to help lead you to the end if you truly want to skip all of the collectables. But, unless you're a master gamer, you're going to need to complete at least a couple of complete sets of them to get the continues you need to beat the game.
The difficulty isn't terribly high, but has some really annoying aspects to it. Mainly, the enemy placement doesn't seem to have any thought put into it at all. There are just random aliens put all over the place and they will shoot you from off screen constantly and even kamikaze into you without you knowing they're coming. Since the levels are so large and sprawling, you're constantly having to make blind jumps and it feels like the developers ALWAYS put some enemy right off screen that you're guaranteed to take a hit from. It's just a constant bevy of "gotcha!" moments and I hated that it was basically happening all of the time. This leads you to have to slow your run and gun gaming down to a slow and methodical crawl as you whip your laser shot around you in 360 degrees every time you move forward a few feet just to clear the unseen path ahead of you. You'll also find yourself jumping upwards multiple times on platforms trying to get the screen to scroll upwards so you can see where you're going and what enemies are there to ambush you. You only have 3 hits before you die, so you can't be wasteful or to eager to rush ahead. Luckily, your continues allow you to start back right where you left off in the stage and are extremely valuable. There are also plenty of 1-Ups scattered around the level to ease the pain. Pleasantly, once you complete a stage, you can restart from there if you run out of continues. So, no matter how much you're struggling, you should be able to slowly work your way through the game. Of course, this is all a classic example of the sort of poor game design that "Euro" games were so well known for back in the 90s. Why bother designing coherent and well thought out levels with fair, but challenging, enemy encounters when you can just throw a bunch of random stuff at the player that they can't avoid and then give them a bunch of health items to try to balance it all out?
There are 8 of these huge collectathon stages to complete and I never enjoyed a single minute of any of them. In addition to this, there are a couple of horizontal shmup stages to add some variety. Much like NG.Dev's other shmups, these sections feel clunky and poorly planned and even though they're the best part of the game in terms of mechanics, still aren't very fun at all. The final stage is just the final boss fight, and when compared to the rest of the stages is very brief and rather easy. This makes it feel totally out of place.
Presentation:
This is the area where Gunlord X actually shines. You're greeted initially by a cutscene with retro inspired images to tell the story and the artwork on this is some of the best I've ever seen in a game and is totally awesome. I own an Neo Geo, and if I had seen this artwork on it, I would have been totally blown away. It's pretty impressive to think that this game originally ran on hardware designed in the mid 80s and still looks good today. You become quickly aware that the character and enemy design and spritework are top notch and look fantastic. Everything is colorful and has a nice pop to it that really makes it stand out. It has that hallmark "Amiga" look that so many games from Europe had during the 90s and is very charming. In addition to this, you're given several cool CRT filters to use on the screen if you want to make your game look like you're playing it on an old tube TV. As someone who plays a lot of games on a CRT even to this day, I prefer to just leave the game in its natural state and enjoy the striking colors without them getting clouded up by artificial scanlines.
As for the music, it seems to be heralded almost everywhere but I found it to be especially bad and was taken aback by how uninspired, monotonous, lazy, and repetitive it was. It has a sort of smooth Eurotrance style and it doesn't fit with the gameplay at all. I want some rocking music to pump up the action, not two chords repeated back and forth with a sampled drum beat. I can't remember much of a melody, hooks, or clever ideas anywhere during the soundtrack and was unable to find any musical themes to grab onto. I splurged on the limited edition of this game because it came with a soundtrack because everyone out there said how I had to hear it and how "rad" it was. And, to tell you the truth, I feel totally ripped off and never want to hear any of this music ever again. The only exception to this is the final shmup stage which has some great music and is quite possibly composed by a totally different person. It doesn't fit with the rest of the game in any way... and that's a blessing.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts:
Gunlord X is a pretty bad game that looks pretty good. It took its inspirations from better games and completely dropped the ball when it came to execution. The stages are meandering, poorly thought out, and full of frustrating and nonsensical enemy placement. The game wants you to focus on collecting the hilariously large number of crystals in each section, but trolls you pretty badly by making a large percentage of them obtusely difficult to grab. Compounding this, if you miss even one crystal in a stage, all the rest of your work is basically worthless because you don't get any benefit from the rest of them. The controls, combat, and platforming don't feel fluid and are clunky and awkward. The final nail in the coffin is that all of this frustrating and soul crushing gameplay is accompanied by a very mediocre soundtrack that literally only has one good song.
At no point during my time with Gunlord X was I having any fun and spent the whole game frustrated and hoping for it to end soon. The only part of the whole experience that was above average was the art direction, bright colors, and stunning work on the cutscenes. I feel like the people at NG.Dev are just a bunch of artists that want to make a game, but don't really understand what makes a game good or fun to play. I've beaten 3 or 4 of their games up to this point, and every single one of them has been pretty bad or very mediocre at best.
Final Status: Beaten (11 stages)
Final Score: 4/10 (Pretty bad)
