My Played Video Games Review: Gaiares for the Sega Genesis

Gaiares is a horizontal-scrolling shooter developed by Telenet Japan and published by its North American subsidiary, Renovation, for the Sega Genesis in Japan and North America in 1990.

Here is one of those crazyy shooters with nice graphics but insane difficulty. This must be one of those reasons why flying shooters have never caught on with Filipino video gamers!

The Story

Our Earth has been turned into an environmental wasteland by foolish humans. Now, the human race has one final chance to save it... With your help.

The United Star Cluster of Leezaluth, the controlling empire of the Galaxy, has sent a warning to Earth: "To any remaining Humans - An intergalactic terror group known as Gulfer is planning to conquer your planet and use your polluted waste to build weapons. Humanity must stop Gulfer, or we will activate into a supernova your Sun and destroy the Earth to stop them. But if you stop Gulfer, we will grant you a new planet like Earth to settle in."

The last ultimate struggle for the survival of the Humanity and Earth has just begun... All our damn fates rest in you!

The Graphics and Sound

The game's graphics are very well drawn and colorful. It has highly detailed boss characters and great backgrounds and effects. This game had some of the finest graphics ever on the 16-bit consoles. In fact, it even compares positively to 2D shooters on the Sony Playstation (PS1) and the Sega Saturn.

The sound is excellent too. In fact, some of the music here would be nice to listen to on your digital music player. It is hard to believe they got the arcadey Genesis sound chip to make such cool music.

The Gameplay

Gaiares has innovative gameplay style for a shooter. Weaponry is plentiful. You are able to steal the enemy ships' fire power by shooting a capsule at them. This fired capsule can also be used to smash ships and grab the normal power ups. This makes the game better than other ordinary shooters.

The controls are nicely precise and you are able to control your ship's speed at will. Nothing bad about it, unlike with many side-scroller shooters.

The difficulty is hardcore. I cannot recommend the game to beginners. Casual gamers might complain of the game's difficulty level, however real harcore 2D shooter fans with skill won't complain about this.

Replay value is a mixed bag. Depending on you, you can either play until you beat it or give up. Luckily, there are awesome cheats to make you pass through the game if you feel the need for it.

My Verdict

Gaiares is a shooter that has good gameplay with nice graphics and sound. However, the one thing that this game is notorious about is the difficulty level. Beginners will hate it but the hardcore 2D shooter gamers will love it.

Go try this retro gaming classic on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive or play it on a good emulator for the better turbo rapid-fire button and save state feature.

Let's keep on gaming in the free world!