Bangai-O Spirits

"Bleeding Thumbs Never Felt So Good!"

When was the last time you played a game to the point where your thumbs were sore? How about until they were bleeding? Did you enjoy the pain? Bangai-O Spirits is pain, but a good pain. When you put down this game after you beat a level, you will feel like you accomplished something beyond what a normal game can offer you.

I'm a latecomer to the Bangai-O party; I never heard of its predecessors, nor of its strange and quirky history: dying on the N64 in Japan before being brought back to life on the Dreamcast is a very odd way for a game to secure a sequel. Along the way it dropped a few things, namely a story (cutscene and character interaction are limited to the tutorial, you will forget they even existed as you play on.) and added a few as well (new weapons, the ability to dash, etc).

Bangai-O plays like a lot of things at once depending on the level you are on. It could be a vertical or horizontal shooter, you could be confined to small corridors for a whole map or it might be totally wide open, it might act like a puzzle game where you need to move or arrange blocks in a specific pattern to move on, or it could be a race-like game where a fuse is burning and you need to reach certain points in the map or be forced to restart.

Ah yes, restarting. You are going to do that. A lot. Bangai-O Sprits is so blisteringly hard that if you don't restart a level at least ten times you can consider your strategy to be perfect. Some are easier then others, yes, but all of them are harder then what you'd find in a normal shooter. Even the great Touhou games with their legendary difficulty can be bested by Bangai-O for it has no pattern. The levels are designed to be fun even if you fail, because the developers want you to try again, even if it is just to get a faster time. They want you to try every possible weapon combination twice before you give up and move on. And don't feel bad if you have to, all the levels are unlocked at the start so you can hop to whatever you want right from the beginning. The levels themselves are populated by all sorts of enemies and puzzles to the point where you can feel overwhelmed. Expect to have hundreds of missiles aimed at you by robots that can be triple your size. Often times the game will lag terribly or missiles will not show up when fired due to the sheer number of them on screen at once. (The characters even reference this "bug" in game) So what type of impossible-to-stop war machine do you pilot?

The Bangai-O itself is at first glance...disappointing. I actually thought it was part of a joke when I first saw it. I was so small and the missiles were everywhere, but that just teaches you to never judge a book by its cover. Its normal attack can be customized (you have two slots for normal attacks) to utilize different types of missiles, a shield that automatically rotates to block enemy fire, or two melee weapons: a sword or a bat. Both reflect projectiles, but the sword is quicker then the bat which has longer range and the ability to reflect actual enemies away from you. The bread and butter of The Bangai-O's survival is the EX attacks. Like normal weapons, you have two slots for EX attacks that can be customized before any level. They are mapped to the L and R buttons, which after seeing them in use I quickly dubbed the "win buttons" due to the sheer amount of missiles each attack puts out, although often times you need to use them just to survive a few moments longer. There are other, non-missile types that I'll get to later, but for now let me explain the mechanics of a normal EX attack.

EX attacks grow in strength when you have more missiles closer to you. The more missiles fired and the closer they are will make the difference between a good enemy killing attack and a room clearing (potentially level clearing) attack. By holding down L or R you can charge the attack up to 100 missiles and never any more. The genius lies in the way those enemy missiles are factored in. If you charge to 100 and release when a few shots are around you, it will halve the number but DOUBLE the size of the projectiles you fire. Then if there are more still around you, it will start adding more double sized missiles to the volley. Still more projectiles and once you reach 100 again it will TRIPLE the size of your projectiles and halve the number again. The maximum is 100 4x sized shots which I have reached only once; just prepare for massive game lag while your shots finish a level for you.

There are two other types of EX attacks, Reflect and Freeze. Freeze is self-explanatory: it stops time the longer you charge it, but it isn't perfect so it only affects what's currently on the screen. Reflect turns enemy missiles against their owners, perfect for when you start fighting robots with their own EX attacks. It also throws objects in the stage around, good for setting up combos.

One of the biggest selling points is the level editor, and I don't think it is an exaggeration to say this is one of the most customizable games ever created. You can edit any level already pre-placed in the game or create your own from scratch. You can change the size of anything, you can designate any enemy as a target, you can make your own puzzle levels or add items to help you complete some of the tougher stock levels. It's like the designers shipped their dev tools with the game. You can "send" maps to a friends DS or "upload" them to the web to share with the world.....let me explain those quotes.

I'm not exactly sure who ok'd the idea, but I know where it came from. Yoshiyuki Matsumoto, the game's designer, first learned how to program on an old Sharp X1 computer. Back in those days computers used data cassettes to back up information....can you see where I am going? No? I couldn't believe it either. Bangai-O uses SOUND to transfer data. Literally. You hook up a pair of headphones to one DS and put the microphone of another DS to the speakers to send over data. Works the same way if you want to upload or download a map from your computer. It sounds strange, but it works surprisingly well. I've never had a problem with it even though I thought of a few ways it could fail before I bought the game.

One last note before I break down the scores: This game has up to 4 player co-op, but it is local only. This is the ONE time I can agree with a decision like that; there is just too much going on at once. Even the best netcode would fall to pieces under this assault.

Now for a quick breakdown:

STORY: 4/10

I learned after I bought the game that the original had all of these ridiculous characters (like a lady with a tree for a head) so I was disappointed to learn that Spirits had none of that. In fact, it only has three characters that serve as pure tutorial mechanics. With that being said, there is some fourth wall breaking humor and jokes about the DS's limitations. It could have been better, seeing as the original story was a big talking point.

Visuals: 8/10

This category should get a five: the missiles don't look like missiles at all (often times it's just a white ball), characters are grainy, etc. But the sheer amount of moving objects on screen makes me wonder how they have even these admittedly limited graphics.

Sound: 7/10

The music isn't memorable, but it's not grating. Often times you can't hear it over the explosions, The effects are nice if repetitive. What do you want? You can only make an explosion sound in so many different ways.

Gameplay: 10/10

Blisteringly hard but never frustrating. The action is addictive. Beware of massive sprite lag or minor graphical glitches when approaching numbers in the 1000s of missiles. How can take away from a game like this? Never before have I seen a DS punished this badly. But the lag is half the fun, you know if you didn't cause it you'd better start dodging. With the level editor allowing for infinite customization and 150+ stock levels to start with along with co-op you will run out of thumbs before you run out of things to do.

Replay Value: 10/10

You will never be done with this game. You can always go back and build another level, download another map, make another cool replay, or try and get a quicker level clear time. Then do it all with your friends in co-op. If you run out of ideas, it isn't the game's fault.

Overall score: 9/10

The score doesn't have to be perfect for me to declare it's my favorite game on the DS. Mario Kart is collecting dust next to a fully completed The World Ends With You cart. They ran their course, I fear this game never will.

Buy or Rent?

If you can find it, buy it. Out of 5 stores, only one even knew of the game and even it only had three in stock. Even if you don't think you could take the level of difficulty, you can edit everything to tone it down. Take the plunge, you won't regret it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/20/08

Game Release: Bangai-O Spirits (US, 08/12/08)