Giga Wing
A vertical shooter with a horizontal monitor and a medallion.
Giga Wing is a 1999 vertically scrolling shooter developed by Takumi Corporation and published by Capcom for arcades and the Dreamcast. The arcade version is notable for using a horizontally aligned monitor, a rare choice for a vertical shooter. The Dreamcast version was later included in Capcom Arcade Stadium.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Takumi Corporation
- Genre
- Scrolling shooter
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
- Platforms
- Arcade, Dreamcast
- Designer
- Kei Toume
- Composer
- Yasushi Kaminishi
- Arcade system
- CP System II
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay and plot
Giga Wing is set during a fictional war in a steampunk setting. The player chooses one of four futuristic aircraft—piloted by Sinnosuke, Ruby, Isha, or Stuck—each with an individual storyline, and fights through seven stages using guns, missiles, and a limited supply of bombs that clear the screen. The core objective is to destroy a powerful medallion, which many bosses wield as a weapon. The true antagonist is an evil man piloting a ship called the Stranger, who controls the medallion and is revealed to have caused the war as well as past conflicts including World War II; the player fights him three times, including as the final boss, and he appears to be a friend of Stuck from 30 years earlier. Each ship has three attacks: a normal shot, a reflect that deflects enemy bullets and damages foes, and a force bomb that nullifies all on-screen bullets. Power-ups drop from defeated ships, and players can collect up to seven bombs, with each bomb left after a boss fight granting a bonus. Medals dropped by enemies increase the score multiplier, and the game adjusts difficulty based on the player's rank at the end of each level. In team play mode, two characters are used simultaneously, creating a new storyline. Each storyline has two endings: in the bad ending, the player's character sacrifices their life in a kamikaze attack to destroy the medallion; in the good ending, they survive. The seventh stage is only accessible if no continues are used.
Reception
The Dreamcast version received mixed reviews according to GameRankings. Game Informer gave a favorable review, while Electronic Gaming Monthly gave a mixed review, both while the game was still in development. Jim Preston of NextGen remarked that the game should be packaged with both Visine and Excedrin. Famitsu scored it 28 out of 40. In Japan, Game Machine listed the arcade version as the tenth most-successful arcade game of May 1999.
More in Capcom Games of the 1990s
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