Bangai-O

About Bangai-O

Bangai-O (1999) is Treasure's frantic multidirectional shooter for the Nintendo 64, in which a hovering mech fills the screen with up to 100 missiles at once, released in only 10,000 copies before a Dreamcast port took it worldwide.

Bangai-O in Depth

The player controls a weaponised mech piloted by Riki and his sister Mami, who are trying to stop criminals smuggling fruit contraband to fund their evil deeds. The mech flies freely around each of the game's 44 stages, and the boss must be found and destroyed to advance. It shoots in eight directions, and the pilots can be swapped instantly: Riki fires homing missiles and Mami shoots projectiles that bounce off walls. Stages are full of destructible buildings and obstacles, walls opened by switches, gun turrets and enemy mechs. There is a health meter but no invulnerability after a hit, so a barrage can kill instantly.

Destroyed enemies and objects release fruit that fills a meter powering the "scatter bomb", which can be charged to fire up to 100 shots in every direction at once; landing all 100 opens a portal to a shop selling upgrades. The Dreamcast version, released three months later, streamlined the game: bullets are stronger, destruction itself fills the bomb meter and fruit only adds to the score, the bomb fires up to 400 missiles depending on how close enemy fire is, and the shop is replaced by power-ups hidden in wreckage, with more enemy types.

Making Bangai-O

Treasure programmer Mitsuru Yaida, known as "Yaiman", remembered being amazed by an old shooter that put huge numbers of bullets on screen, almost certainly the 1984 Japanese computer game Hover Attack, and set himself the challenge of handling the collision of that many bullets. Company president Masato Maegawa let him gather a team, with Yaiman as main programmer and "General Manager". They focused on fast, addictive play over graphics, using large, fast 2D effects and anime artwork; artist Koichi Kimura, fresh from Guardian Heroes, wanted to test the limits of 2D.

Announced in June 1999, it was released on 3 September, and ESP shipped only 10,000 copies, believing it a niche game. The Dreamcast version, with reworked sprites and CD-quality music, followed in Japan on 9 December 1999, and after rights passed between several publishers, Conspiracy Entertainment released it in North America in March 2001. Critics praised its manic, retro gameplay and varied level design, IGN calling it "a game that you either love, or just don't understand yet", though Dreamcast reviews were more critical of its graphics. Sequels followed on the DS in 2008 and Xbox 360 in 2011.