GunDuel (Game Center CX 2) - ALL - 2.556.850pts

As you can see, coming back to Star Prince and Game Center CX is also an opportunity to try the second game and its fantranslation! I was aware of the Famicom Detective Club-style game in it that really needs you to understand the text to enjoy it, and while I had a good time with the fantranslated actual Famicom Detective Club game a while ago, I have to admit my top priority here was mostly of the shmup kind. This second GCCX compilation has a Score Attack version of Star Prince (which I'll likely focus on at some point) as well as a new game called GunDuel. Star Prince is fantastic, this...not as much to be honest. It's not bad but it's just kinda alright I guess? I already kinda knew what to expect since I heard it was Compile-inspired (oof), so no disappointment here. If anything it was still more enjoyable than the usual Compile slog since a run is pretty short and you've got some scoring bonuses, and it seeeeems like infinite boss milking nonsense is not a thing here? It's possible that this game is actually competitively viable for score! GunDuel's weapon system is very Compile-esque with eleventy billion weapon items vomited at you the whole time. You can stock up two weapons at once, with one acting as a main shot and the other as a side shot. You can freely swap between the two with a button press. My plan was to stick with a side W for the large waves and have either S, W, V, or H as forward. And as you can guess from the play count, this is basically first try 1CC after doing the 4 Story Mode challenges. Being on the easy side is not necessarily bad but I don't feel the drive to come back because the stage design feels haphazard/messy/randomly generated with no strong authorial intent, and the bosses are kinda tedious. That said, there's some scoring going on for those interested. Stages all have SPECIAL letters to unlock, and there's some technical bonuses like the Wipe Out bonus. I somehow also got a secret 1million bonus in the last stage...even though it was not on purpose hahaha. My guess is that you may need to unlock the golden tomato items in all stages or something like that to get access to this secret bonus. Side W shot makesit easier to accidentally uncover SPECIAL letters and other kinds of ground tiles so perhaps that did the trick. Another thing is that I thought you could maybe let the spy cameras leave on purpose and be in CONDISHION WED for extra points but it didn't seem like the mines give score? Not sure. Anyways, this was a kinda interesting detour, but my top recommendation when it comes to Game Center CX definitely remains Star Prince! melonDS 0.9.5 EN fantranslation