Your guess is as good as mine.
PLAYERS: 1
PUBLISHER: ASCII Entertainment
DEVELOPER: Compile
GENRE: Shoot-em-up
RELEASE DATE: September 1991
I’m going to go ahead and assume that there was no English translator between the release of this game in Japan and America. Hence the awkwardly titled, mildly entertaining Gun Nac. If you’ve followed my blog for awhile now, you know that I love almost all shoot-em-ups. It’s not that shmups are even my favorite genre, but rather, they are my favorite genre to play for this quest. Turn on, kill kill, turn off, what’s not to love?
The good shmups are never that simple, though, and neither is Gun Nac, although its decided value depends on your fondness for old shooters. Like many other NES shmups, Gun Nac starts off slow to get you used to the various weapons dropped by enemies, but by the second level, the difficulty ramps up quickly. I acquired four lives (for a total of six) and a bad mutha ship in the first level, only to have it all steam rolled away from me by the denizens of the horrible Lava Planet i.e. the second level. The difficulty level, the relentless speed, and the variety of weaponry make this game a solid shmup, but outside of those standard “solid” requirements, there’s nothing here that sets this shmup apart from, say, Gradius or Life Force. The different planets you visit are all pretty bland, graphically speaking, as is the design of the ship and the enemies. Granted, when you have your favorite weapon charged to the max and you have two additional wings blessing you with extra firepower, all that matters is blowing things to oblivion. Similar to Gradius, though, should you die in the heat of battle, good luck regaining your ground. Pea-shooters don’t cut it when you’re trying to fight volcanoes, oil refineries and random flying monstrosities. Despite the sub-par visuals, all classic shmup fans should try this game, if only to say “Huh. Now I can say I’ve played a game called Gun Nac.”
B-
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7 replies on “#275 – Gun Nac”
I discovered this game about two years ago and loved every minute of it. Definitely a zany shooter with some worthwhile gameplay to check out.
“the fast-paced speed”
lol!
You’re making this look worse than it is, an a-minusly-awesome game and the visuals are among the best on the NES. Good music too.
How can I make it look worse than it is? I work with what the game gives me.
I was surprised when I read this, its easily the best NES shooter IMO 🙂 I thought that it was a bit on the easy side unless you turn on bullet ricochet. It gets really hard really fast with that turned on on expert mode. I love how much stuff flies across the screen constantly without slowing down, I think that’s probably why the graphics aren’t quite as detailed as some, like Life Force
A B- isn’t a bad score, by any means. I just wasn’t as impressed by this shooter as I was some others.
B-??? We must not have played the same game. As far as NES shooters go, it’s an A+, along with Gyruss. And I don’t understand how you can say the design of the enemies is bland, when it’s actually quite creative; bunnies? Crazy. Love it.
I don’t often revisit games, but it looks like I’m gonna have to with this one. It’s not often I’m universally called out on my score.