As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #52, September 2008.

During the golden age of the arcade one of the most important themes of game design was variety.  If you were creating a game that was based around a concept yet not previously created then it was more than likely approved and produced.  On the other hand it became nearly taboo to create a game similar to a title that already existed, unless you were cloning a rival company's blockbuster of course.  Indeed, variety was truly the spice of life in the early 1980's but Gyruss would go a different route to establish its own uniqueness.  A year after designing Time Pilot, a classic in its own right, Yoshiki Okamoto created Gyruss for Konami.  A shooter in the truest sense, Gyruss borrowed elements from two of the greatest arcade video games of all time - Tempest and Galaga.  Imagine taking the vertically oriented gameplay of Galaga and wrapping it around a cylinder with an open center like the basic playfield in Tempest.  Stars quickly scroll by from the center of the screen to the edges where the player's ship rotates around the perimeter, shooting toward the center.  Enemy ships swarm in from the sides before flying off into the deep space in the center of the screen and settling into circular formations.  After formed up, the enemy ships break off and charge back up toward the player, attacking both with laser shots as well as kamikaze maneuvers any Galaga player will be quite familiar with.  Each completed wave brings the player closer to the next planet, beginning two warps away from Neptune and ending once reaching Earth.  After each planet is reached a "Challenge Stage" begins, which is again very similar to the "Challenging Stages" found in Galaga.  After reaching Neptune for the first time, all planets lie three warps apart, including the wrap around to Neptune after reaching Earth.

The NES port of Gyruss is one of those odd rarities where a retrogaming console port was actually designed to surpass and enhance the original arcade title.  However Gyruss on the NES doesn't throw away anything from the original version, rather it increases the variety of gameplay, reestablishes the core game functions and pumps up the audio to insane levels.  Let's start out with what remains the same - the basic gameplay.  Although arcade Gyruss used a vertical monitor nothing is lost on the standard horizontal display of the NES version.  This is because of the circular playfield, it's pretty much exactly the same regardless of the screen orientation.  Stars stream from the center of the screen toward the edges and the sensation of speed is exactly as it was in the arcade.  Enemies start on the outside, head into the distance and then charge the player just as they originally did as well.  The double fire powerup is present and is obtained just as before, by shooting the capsule enemy that appears between the pod enemies on the outer boundary.  That's about where the similarities end with everything else getting, at the very least, a slight enhancement.

Ship movement from the joystick is replicated exactly to the directional pad although an alternate control setting is also made available.  The player's ship in Gyruss is controlled by swirling the joystick in the direction one would like the ship to move, based upon its current location in the outer circle.  Imagine a clock face with a joystick in the center.  If you move the joystick up the ship moves to 12 o'clock.  If you move the joystick down the ship rotates around the clock face to 6 o'clock.  If you move the joystick in the direction of 3 o'clock the ship travels around the clock face to that point.  Now replace the clock face with a circular star field and you have Gyruss.  In this way joystick movements are often at the edge of the joystick throw for the entire game, think Tempest with a joystick.  A spinner would make more sense to a lot of people but I've always thought the joystick was in place to make the game feel more accessible.  Still, I always did feel bad for the maintenance technicians that would have to service the joystick leaf switches on the Gyruss machines.  The standard control method on the NES is the same as it was in the arcade while the alternate setting more closely replicates how a spinner would provide input.  The secondary control method changes ship movement to left and right on the directional pad.  Left sends the ship around clockwise while right sends it around counterclockwise.  If you can get used to it I'm sure the alternate controls are very fluid but I tend to stick with the original setting.  Shame the Vaus paddle controller bundled with Arkanoid doesn't work here!

Graphically things take a slightly different approach.  Originally the enemy ships had a lot of rotation to them: the tail ends being show as they flew toward the center, rotating side views as they spiraled back up the star field and head-on when they were changing direction.  Although there is plenty of scaling for perspective in the NES version, the enemy ships always face one direction.  Nice graphic detail and a variety of colors make up for their static sprites, so they still seen very fast moving and fluid.  Yet the biggest changes come in the form of gameplay tweaks starting with how each stage is structured.  The formula of three warps per planet is maintained but instead of featuring a quick run from Neptune to Earth, Gyruss on the NES traverses the entire solar system from Neptune to the Sun.  The first warp between each destination plays out much as it did in the arcade, with waves of enemies and other debris that must be destroyed or negotiated.  The second warp adds four small mini bosses to the center of the screen which slowly move in a circular fashion.  Standard enemies and debris still populate these stages and it can become difficult keeping track of them since the mini bosses block the center of the star field.  Once the mini bosses and any other enemies are destroyed the warp is completed.  The third warp begins much as the first one did with standard enemies appearing in formation.  However after they are all taken care of the music goes down and changes as a planet specific boss appears.  Most bosses are large pods that remain in the center of the screen, attacking with small appendages which must be blown off.  The most challenging bosses are those that move about the screen and require careful timing and strategy to defeat.  Even the most veteran Gyruss player will find these bosses to be quite a challenge.  After the boss is completed the next planet is reached, followed by a rework of the Challenge Stage.  The bonus rounds play almost exactly as they originally did, however shooting enemies that are of different color than the majority of the formation will cause bonus capsules to appear.  These contain a number of powerups, many of which are new to the game.

While the double fire powerup is obtained in the same way and functions as it did in the arcade, the NES port features a couple new enhancements for your trip across the solar system.  Without a doubt the biggest change is the addition of special bombs that work like a super powerful shot.  These are picked up by shooting open special capsules, same as how double fire is gained.  There are also capsules that add bonus points and those that destroy all enemies on the screen once shot open.  1up capsules also make appearances rarely, which unsurprisingly grant the player an extra ship if you can hit them.  The bombs come in handy for making quick work of the bosses but don't expect to blow through them with your increased fire power.  If anything it feels as if the game was designed to simply give you a fighting chance, even with the increased arsenal.

Music is almost as big a part of Gyruss as the gameplay, it's one of those things the game has always been remembered for.  The familiar rock remix of Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor plays in the background although it is enhanced over the arcade version.  The NES sound hardware really shows its strength here, creating a soundtrack that in my opinion is every bit as memorable as Life Force, Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda.  It doesn't just stop at a remix of the arcade music however.  Since each warp has a different objective on the NES, each warp has a different musical track.  The mini boss warps have their own music, boss battles have an epic tune that fades up as they appear while the standard stage music fades down, you can tell Konami went all out with this port.  The music almost makes the game feel like a circular version of Gradius, it's that effective.

As I mentioned last month in my California Extreme show report, I love Gyruss, enough to want to own the full size arcade upright.  It's obvious those who worked on the NES port loved the game as well.  The NES version was adapted from a Japan only Famicom Disk System port, the only big difference being the ending sequence.  As usual the Japanese release features a full ending sequence while the NES release only has an ending screen.  Don't let that push you away from owning the NES version, the gameplay is what is important here.  Gyruss rises from simply being an excellent port of an arcade masterpiece to becoming an amazing NES game in its own right.  It's a title that seems to have always been passed over in the wake of other, more popular games, both in the arcade and on the NES.  Gyruss on the NES is a classic arcade shooter fan's dream come true.  It's so full of content, refinements, enhancements and perfect gameplay that it should be recalled as one of the greatest NES shooters ever released.  Without a doubt it is and has always been one of my favorite games on the platform and a spectacular arcade reimagining.
 

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi

BACK to RTM Archives