Developer: Masaya, Ratalaika Games S.L.
Publisher: Ratalaika Games S.L., Sega, DreamWorks
Platforms: Switch, Sega Genesis
Tested on: Switch
Gynoug – Review
Remember those times when video games were just simple games with pixelated graphics, a simple premise, and a lot of action? Then you’ll also remember playing games on consoles like the Sega Genesis or the Super NES. Originally, Gynoug was released in 1991 for the Sega Mega Drive and in North America, it was even released under a different name: Wings of Wor for the Genesis. Now, thirty years later, it makes its reappearance on the Nintendo Switch.
Story
In the world of Gynoug, the heavens are being attacked by the demons of Iccus. The demon army is led by a being only known as the Destroyer. In this game, as the angel Wor, it’s your task to save the heavens by bringing the fight to Iccus itself and stop the Destroyer’s evil plans. With this introduction, you’ve managed to learn the whole story of this game, as the story doesn’t progress in any way other than with a climax when you reach the Destroyer and end his evil ways by defeating him. On your path to the Destroyer, you’ll encounter many different types of enemies and two bosses in each level.
Graphics
As expected from games ported from the Sega Genesis, there are a lot of pixels to be seen in this game, but for the time it came out, this was a very good-looking game. Even now, a lot of new successful games are still being released with a comparable graphics style. In this version of Gynoug, you can change a lot when you turn the CRT shaders on. You can adjust the sharpness, mask type, intensity, and much more. The framerate of this version also looks like it’s a bit higher, which makes it look even smoother. When you play the game in the old-school 4:3 aspect ratio, you’ll see a background at the sides of the screen, which you can adjust as well. The game looks best on the Switch’s own screen due to its smaller size.
Sound
Gynoug has its own typical retro background music that immediately gives you a nostalgic feeling. Each level has its own track so you won’t be listening to the same track throughout the whole game. When a boss appears, the music changes for the length of the boss fight, making it even more exciting. When comparing it to the original, it sounds like they didn’t change anything in the sound department to keep the original experience intact.
Gameplay
Gynoug is a 2D scrolling shooter game that was originally released on the Sega Mega Drive. In this game, you’ve got the typical controls for movement and a few buttons for your attacking moves. In this game, you need to keep yourself alive by dodging a lot of incoming fire, while shooting a massive amount of bullets at your opponents to destroy them.
Like many games in the genre, one hit will instantly kill you. There will be a lot of enemies and projectiles coming your way and you need to stay alive by dodging all incoming fire. While being an old game, this doesn’t automatically mean it’s an easy game, as you’re literally overloaded with enemy fire at some points with projectiles and enemies coming from every direction. You need to keep your eyes peeled for incoming fire constantly or you’ll die before you know it. This also means there is no safe place in this game, so you need to keep moving all the time or you’ll be an easy target.
The boss fights will provide you with even great challenges. The bosses will launch projectiles from many different directions, with multiple types of movement for each projectile. Some will come from above while others come from the rear or in front of you. At some points, you’ll see more bullets than anything else.
The rerelease of Gynoug comes with some new handy functions. With a press of a button, you can now rewind the game after making a mistake to prevent death. You can also enter the settings whenever you want to adjust the shaders or activate and deactivate the new cheats that were added to the game. With these cheats, you can have unlimited credits, lives, and magic, or you can activate invincibility, making you impervious to all incoming damage. The game also features save states now, which allows you to save your progress at any time and reload again whenever you want to resume from that point. The game only really misses leaderboards to compete with your friends or others online.
While playing, you’ll find a lot of items that are power-ups for your weapon. The feather will increase your movement speed, and blue and red orbs will power up your weapon. Collecting blue and red orbs will add them to the appropriate meter in the HUD. The more blue and red orbs you gather, the more powerful your weapon becomes. When you lose a life, both will lose one charge. You can also collect spells, of which six are offensive and two are defensive. These spells have a limited amount of uses and will disappear when you used them all.
Conclusion
Gynoug for the Nintendo Switch brings you nearly the same retro experience it brought you on the Sega Mega Drive thirty years ago, but now on a handheld device. It’s a fun retro scrolling shooter, which also received some extra functions like the option to rewind, shader options, and cheats. Purists may find it quite hard to get far in this game, but those looking to finally beat this game may use the rewind option or save states. If you’re looking for a fun retro game for your Nintendo Switch, then Gynoug will give you a great scrolling shooter experience.
Gynoug - Review,
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