Gunbird

About Gunbird

Gunbird (1994) is Psikyo's comic vertical shooter in which a cast of manga misfits race to collect the pieces of a magic mirror and make a wish, localised for the PlayStation as Mobile Light Force.

Gunbird in Depth

Players choose from manga-style characters who fly as their own craft, and a story told between levels and before boss fights follows their race to collect the pieces of a magic mirror. Ash is a 28-year-old German inventor with a jet pack; Marion a 13-year-old English witch on a broomstick, fun-loving and selfish, who mistreats her talking rabbit Pom-Pom; Valnus a Russian robot built six months earlier, with some of the game's best firepower, who secretly wishes to be human; Yuan Nang a courageous woman modelled on Sun Wukong from Journey to the West; and Tetsu a strong 60-year-old who flies a man-powered helicopter. Their rivals are the sky pirates of the Trump, Ace, Claud and their leader Rouge. Cut-scenes in co-op play are packed with comic dialogue, a recurring feature of Psikyo games.

Colliding with an enemy costs a level of shot power, which flies around the screen as a power-up until it reaches the edge, or a bomb if the shot is already at its lowest. Each of the two loops has seven stages, the first three picked at random from four; the second loop has denser, faster bullets and swaps in a stage unseen in the first. A solo player who clears the first loop chooses between two wishes with their own endings, and pairs get endings specific to their combination.

Making Gunbird

Psikyo developed Gunbird for arcades in 1994, with Jaleco publishing it in the US. Game Machine listed it as the ninth most popular arcade game in its 15 November 1994 issue, and Micom BASIC Magazine ranked it eighth in January 1995. PlayStation and Saturn versions came out in Japan on 15 December 1995, receiving mixed and average reception; Saturn Fan readers gave the Saturn version 22.2 out of 30. XS Games released the PlayStation version in North America as Mobile Light Force. Gunbird Special Edition, based on the arcade version and including Gunbird 2, came to the PlayStation 2 in 2004 and 2005, and it was included in Psikyo Collection Vol. 1 for Switch in 2018 with Strikers 1945, Samurai Aces and Sol Divide, which received mixed reviews. Hardcore Gaming 101 found it very enjoyable but less polished than later Psikyo games, and the mook Play This Retro Game! said its flashy power-ups made shooting fun.