Culture

Platforms: XBLA (Dreamcast), (3/5).
Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury is arcade-y almost to the point of absurdity. Developer Treasure sets a mature example by presenting mecha that seem to run on carbon neutral bio-ethanol, regaining health from fruit. I guess they had to do all they could to offset the wastefulness of fully automatic tactical weaponry that fires missiles bigger than the robots themselves several times per second.

 
The idea that competing with a screen covered with a spider's web of projectiles is super-duper satisfying and bullet-hell shooters are nothing new. In fact, Treasure has attracted quite the cult following for that very masochistic reason. Bangai-O bears all the designer’s hallmarks from the games’s punishing difficulty to its oh-so-Japan style, to the on-the-fly geometric analysis of the predicted paths of streams of purple laser particles that I imagine must do wonders for your spatial reasoning.

 
The great, (or not so great, depending on how you look at it) thing about Missile Fury is that each level is really different. Fans of bullet-hell games take pride in mastering the narrow, but nuanced, set of skills and honed reflexes required to progress. Bangai-O provides an new challenge on every level which is great (variety is the spice of life), but you don't get the incredible sense of accomplishment that comes with slowly being taught a skill-set that it is your goal to master. On the other hand, the moment to moment level design is great, and you can't help but enjoy battering mechanic hulks with giant soccer balls.