It's been three years since Ageha and Tateha took to the skies and singlehandedly toppled the forces of Shinra, a powerful kingdom led by their very own creator, Jakou. Little did they know that the legacy of Jakou still loomed in the shadows and another country would eagerly take his place in hopes to continue where his experiments with the powerful Galuda left off.
And so the kingdom of Soma would rise, utilizing the Spirit Engine to once again attempt to release the full power of the Galuda. With technology more refined than their predecessors, Soma would follow in the footsteps of Shinra and invade its neighboring countries, holding them at their mercy with its superior military strength.
The forces of Soma have also created another Galuda, just like Ageha and Tateha, but unbeknownst to their knowledge, this third Galuda has long since defected, and is now joining the ranks of a tiny, but immensely powerful resistance against the kingdom of Soma...which is all that stands between Soma and the rest of the world.
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Espgaluda II is the first game made by Cave that is a direct sequel (excluding the Dodonpachi series). From the looks of it, there is absolutely no chance this game will be ported to a console, and will remain as an arcade game in Japan...until it gets emulated on MAME--which most likely will not happen in at least several years (the first one isn't even available on MAME yet either). But who knows? Maybe it might come out sooner than expected or may even end up on XBOX Live Arcade or something.
So I fired up Galuda 2 in the cabinet last week just to test it out. At first, I was like, okay, just a couple of credits...I just want to hear the music, see what it's like, and then go back to Ketsui. Little did I know I ended up getting hooked. I've been playing it almost everyday since it's been inside the cab. The game was pretty addicting. It's one of those games where the better you get at it, the more fun you end up having with it. It is a really complex game that is fun in a different, more slower way compared to other intense shooters like Mushihime-sama or Ketsui.
I know, after I was gushing over Ketsui in my previous posts, I go on ahead and spend time on Galuda 2, and to add insult to injury, I still haven't beat the first game either, even though I've come really close to.
Just like in
icycalm's review, Galuda II is such an improvement over the first one in almost every way, it makes the original feel boring. Although I have to point out that I enjoyed the music from the original more. The sequel's music, while also great, isn't as memorable as the first one--I mean, in a couple of the stages, it relies on referencing the original's tracks by playing remixed versions of them. Plus, I don't like the music for the fourth stage.
While overall, I think the artwork (new artist and all) is better than the original, I miss how the last game's artwork looked. While it wasn't great, and at times it even looked horribly generic, at least it felt like a dark anime at times. For the new one, it looks somewhat fruity and feels like a children's storybook lifted from Reading Rainbow. But to be fair, I love the character designs for the enemy bosses. Maybe my reaction is mostly directed at how elfish and Peter Pan-like the main characters look compared to the first game. The graphics are a totally different matter, though. The game itself looks absolutely gorgeous.
I am currently sitting at 80 million ending at the boss of Stage 4 using Ageha. I don't have any set goals, outside of enjoying the game through scoring with its new Kakusei Zesshikai mode and making it as far as I can. It is a lot of fun dancing around 500's while bullets chase you. I plan to play it for a few more weeks before diving back to Ketsui.
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