Gunbird

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Description

Gunbird is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up developed by Psikyo. It hit the Japanese arcade in 1994 and was followed by a Japanese release to the Saturn and the Playstation in the following year.

The game is set in a fantasy setting with steampunk elements. Lush forests and medieval castles meet steam trains and mech robots. Instead of piloting the genre-traditional space ships, Gunbird lets the player chose between five different characters (Ash, Marion, Valnus, Yuan Nang and Tetsu) who traverse the game world on broomstick, jet packs and pedal-powered helicopters on a quest to find the pieces of a magic mirror across seven stages.

Unorthodox vehicles aside, the gameplay follows traditional genre standards. The main goal is to dodge all bullets that fill the screen while collecting power-ups to make the character stronger. Gunbird features one power-up that incrementally increases the firepower of the standard weapon (P-items) as well as additional ammo for the screen-clearing special ability (B-items). Standard weapon and special ability differ from character to character. Where some characters excel in high firepower in a straight line others allow for a wider spread of bullets or additional homing missiles.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "Mobile Light Force" -- Playstation / Steam title
• "ガンバード" -- Japanese spelling

Part of the Following Groups

• Genre: Scrolling shoot 'em up
• Gunbird / Mobile Light Force series

User Reviews

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Critic Reviews

The Video Game Critic	SEGA Saturn	Nov 20, 2009	B	75
GameFan Magazine	SEGA Saturn	Feb, 1996	71.6 out of 100	72
Switch Player	Nintendo Switch	Dec 18, 2017	3.5 out of 5	70
Video Games	SEGA Saturn	Feb, 1996	69 out of 100	69
Video Chums	Nintendo Switch	Dec 22, 2017	6.9 out of 10	69
Super Play (Sweden)	PlayStation	Feb, 2004	4 out of 10	40

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Trivia

Version differences

The European and US PlayStation version of Gunbird (titled Mobile Light Force) contains none of the original cinemas, dialogue or bonus material. In fact, all the characters' individuality has been cut out in this release.