Sega Golden Gun (Arcade)
Developed/Published by: Sega (Shanghai) Software, Sega AM1 / Sega
Released: 2010
Completed: 12/03/2023
Completion: Finished it!
Trophies / Achievements: n/a
Surprise entry here of a surprising game. Not surprisingly good or anything, simply surprising because here we have a Sega arcade game that I’d never even heard of before I saw it in a overpriced and tiny (but free-play once you’re in) retro arcade I was just in. It came out in 2010!
Anyway, this is an early(-ish) release of the largely unheralded Sega Shanghai, who look like they debuted with the PS2 version of Altered Beast (which I’ve never played, but it was never released in North America making me willing to assume that it’s pretty bad). Mobygames has them listed on things like Sonic Adventure in 1998, but I’d be willing to gamble that’s related to later ports as the company seems to have largely transitioned to being a “port and support” developer for Sega. However, when not doing that, Sega Shanghai has a weird history of overlooked Sega arcade titles that seem to mostly exist as a way for Sega to get a bit more out of another engine they’d made. With Sega Golden Gun, it’s an extremely transparent recycling of House of the Dead 4, but in 2007 they put out “Asian Dynamite” which is a reskin of Dynamite Cop (aka Dynamite Deka 2) that includes a character called “Jennifer Genuine”???
Sega Golden Gun is… not good. Here’s what I’ll say for it: I think it’s neat that Sega Shanghai got to use Chinese history and mythology for the setting, and Shanghai as the location–the game even ends at the “Sega Building”–but unfortunately this is about as braindead as a shooting game gets. Your pistols are fully automatic (including reloading) meaning that you pretty much just hold down the fire button and wait for your arms to get tired (which they will) while attempting to headshot the swarming enemies for the bonus. There’s no branching (while you can select which level to play next, you have to play them all) and while there’s a Resident Evil 4-style shop… guy… the stuff he sells costs you score (?) and isn’t that useful (anything with limited bullets you’ll use up immediately because you can’t save it for later, so you’re better off just going with restoring lives; I’m not even sure if raising your attack power or magazine size helps that much.)
The game is, unfortunately, like an amalgam of the things I didn’t like about House of the Dead 3 and 4: the linear boredom of 3 and the impact-free shooting from 4. You just never really feel like you’re doing anything. I know this is real grandpa material, even when discussing a game from thirteen years ago, but man, remember when arcade shooters you had to like… do stuff? Reload your gun? Aim? Pull the trigger more than once? Even use a cool foot pedal to dodge in things like Time Crisis?
Will I ever play it again? No, and I was bored by the second level and I only finished it the first time out of sheer “I should get value out of my paid entry” bloody mindedness.
Final Thought: Probably the most baffling thing about this game is there’s a huge glowing logo in the middle of the arcade machine that feels like it should do something–like it’s a giant touchpad, maybe–but it doesn’t do anything at all. It figures, actually.
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Golden Axe - The Revenge of Death Adder (JP, USA) (1992) (Beat Em Up) (Arcade)
Golden Axe – The Revenge of Death Adder (JP, USA) (1992) (Beat Em Up) (Arcade)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Axe:_The_Revenge_of_Death_Adder
ROM (JP) : Golden Axe – The Revenge of Death Adder (JP, USA) (1992) (Beat Em Up) (Arcade)
ROM (USA) : Golden Axe – The Revenge of Death Adder (JP, USA) (1992) (Beat Em Up) (Arcade)
PLAY ONLINE : https://archive.org/details/arcade_ga2
VIDEO LONGPLAY : https://archive.org/details/goldenaxedeathadder2players
CONVERSION MANUAL…
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Valkyria Chronicles
Bought for: $7.99
Played on: PS3 & PS4
Release date: April 24, 2008
Developer: Media.Vision, Sega, Sega AM1
Publisher: Sega
Game Type: Tactical role-playing game, Adventure game, Third-person shooter, Real-time tactics, Tactical wargame
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3
ESRB Rating: T for Teen - Animated Blood, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Use of Tobacco, Violence
Pros & Cons
A war based tactical rpg that lets you control a military squad.
Beautiful graphics that look like pencil drawings.
Incredible characters with both english and japanese voice acting.
Great music and sound effects.
An awesome war story with some side stories to enjoy.
You can drive a tank, use rifles, lance looking rocket launchers, grenades and sniper rifles.
Command Points, these are used to control one character at a time. You can either save them up or use them all in one turn.
Characters have a meter that lets them move to a certain distance.
Duck and cover system that helps reduce damage.
Careful your health can reduce fast if you take enough damage, also your health pack only heals you to a certain amount.
Some chapters are quite difficult, it will require you to play the side missions over and over again to gain exp.
Some characters will randomly duck upcoming attacks.
While targeting, the game will tell you how many shots it will take to defeat your enemy.
My Experience
I like to play chess every once in a while. Nothing than having your best pieces going up against a good opponent. You need to come up with a strategy to outsmart and defeat your enemy. The exact same scenario you get when you play Valkyria Chronicles, you have your troops as your pieces and your king is a tank. I found out about this game thanks to youtube related videos, watched the first part of the walkthrough, mainly the tutorial part. I was so intrigued of this game that I had it in mind to get it one day.
….well that one day turned out to be the following morning I watched that video. *nervous laugh*
I usually don’t care for tactical strategy games, but since Valkyria Chronicles had this great looking anime graphics to it, I had to play it. The cast of characters is great, from the main characters that the main story is about to the side characters you get to be on your squad. The coolest thing for me about this game is the characters, they are all with their unique personalities, special attributes and voices. You read that right, every character has a different unique voice. All these characters have different ranks from scouts to snipers; they also have special abilities that can help or completely mess up your chance of victory.
You can recruit a soldier, this soldier may have a pollen allergies attribute, so if they are close to anything floral their stats will drop. With those stats dropped, an enemy that can easily be defeated, your recruit might not succeed. Now if the recruit is a nature lover, the stats will grow and be an easy win. The soldiers have others that they rely on, put them together and they will all fight together. But just like they have those they rely on, they also have those they despise.
The worst part is that this game shares the most difficult/frustrating quality of Fire Emblem, if your characters are taking down and the enemy reaches them or certain time passes. Your soldier will be permanently dead, all except the characters that are important to the main story, if they fall you won’t be able to use them until the next mission. Even if those important characters die, you are penalized with losing one CP point. But if you kill an enemy soldier that has a CP point, they also lose it too.
I can go on and on about these characters but I’ll eventually start to repeat myself. In short this game is absolutely amazing, I would recommend this game to anyone who is looking to find something different in the war game genre. Valkyria Chronicles is a game that will make you laugh, cry and enjoy from start to finish. It has some beautiful graphics, a solid gameplay, great story, great characters and hours to play. If you have a chance, try it out!
SQUAD 7 MOVE OUT!
A FULL DOLLAR Score!
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Golden Axe: the Duel
Developer: Sega AM1 Publisher: Sega Release: 06/27/96 Genre: Fighting
Once the Saturn was released the expectation was that we would receive 32-bit updates to all of Sega’s intellectual properties. Streets of Rage, Vectorman……Sonic. Oh how naïve we were. In truth only a few would make it to Sega’s next generation console and most would disappoint. That would also include Golden Axe. Golden…
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House Of The Dead
House Of The Dead is a 1996 horror shooting game made by Sega AM1. As the image shows below, the horror game has many zombies and enemies for you to shoot.
This game used a physical plastic gun as a controller so that the game is a lot more immersive for players. I think this feature works well as it makes the game a lot more appealing to players and a lot more fun to play.
As you can see in the image above, the art style is a lot more realistic and this is an art style that can make the game a lot more immersive because it looks like the real world the player is in. My art style will be pixel art so very different to this.
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