Big Box O' Pirated Booty: Game # 4 - B-WINGS

This week we dive back into the "Big Box O' Pirated Booty" once again and grab another game. For those unfamiliar with my "Big Box O' Pirated Booty" or BBOPB for short heres the skinny… Last year I got the box featured below from the Island of pirate games aka Thailand and in it were eight Famicom games seven of which were bootlegs and seven are also Shoot em ups or SHMUPS as they are commonly called.

             Now that we are all caught up lets move on to game #4 of the BBOPB: B-Wings !

Known in Japanese arcades as Battle Wings the game was released in 1984 by Data East, the game had no back story but set the player off in a space fighter against all odds to destroy a entire army. The game stood out due to its unique play style. The game had two buttons one the standard firing action but the other dropped the player to the ground level so he or she could avoid the aerial enemies and take on some ground based targets but only for a brief time period. This diving action also jettisoned the crafts wings and the player could then replace them upon return to the normal play field by grabbing one of eight different kinds as a power up. The eight power up wings each had a specific style of firing pattern and ammo. In 1986 B-Wings was ported to the Nintendo Famicom and would be the first of many Data East titles on the Nintendo home console. Data East had a rich line of games such as Burger Time, Heavy Barrel, Karnov, Vigilante & Bad Dudes.

Having never heard of B-Wings and looking at my beat up bootleg copy I had low expectations for this game…..

The Famicom version eliminates the ground assault portion of the game but keeps the diving action intact as it acted as a means to ditch your wings in the arcade so one might equip new power-up wings. Why programer didn't just have the B button drop your wings and not dive at all I don't understand especially as its so brief of an descent that no dangers can be avoided unlike the Loop de Loop in Capcom's 1941(Read Here). Hell why you just can't fly into the new wings you desire like any power up in a game is unknown to me as well.

The games intro screen is pretty plain but offers a nice musical piece as does the rest of the game. Starting off you are asked to chose one of TEN types of Wings Yes ! Not eight BUT ten, the game replaced a ground based wing with 3 other new ones and some hidden power ups throughout the game as I understand it.

The WINGS
Cannon- fires 2 bricks and a heart… strong but werid.
Wide- shoots a spread gun type pattern that is so so on distance
Multi-Rotaing turret allows 7 directional firing, cannot fire backwards...
Anti-guess what now you CAN shoot backwards
Van-like Wide but has less distance
Side-Ship will now fire horizontally….Sucks!
Hammer- 2 black spheres attach to your pink shaft of a ship making it look like ..well… yeah….
Jump-Exploding ammo, oooohhhhhh.
Dyna-fires shield like crescent beam, downside is the short distance but not bad.
Fire- Much like laser in Contra it stinks!

After pressing start and selecting you Wing Style you shoot off down a runway or at least it looks that way to me? Launching my fighter into the first area I'm impressed with graphics of the first structures I come upon and destroy the following set of enemies is so so looking but the game seems to scroll smoothly with many enemies and targets on screen at once. Speaking of scrolling this appears to be one of these game that allows you to pull left to right and scroll infinitely horizontally as the game scrolls you ever vertically towards our goal. The first enemies looked like large green A-Bombs and now the third set of  targets unimpressively resembles the throwing weapons of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman or aka G-Force. After another area of amazing looking structures I find yet more crappy looking ships, these look like a green smiley face with stubby legs…..yeah all crazy otto like. Just as I start to wonder if theres going to be any decent looking ships a alarm rings out and a volley of 80s style Nuclear warheads rain down on my ship which happens to look like a raging boner since you know I i just had to chose Hammer Wing at the start of the level. The Missiles continue their assault as the STage 1 End Boss moves its massive self on screen. The Boss is a pretty elaborate and kool looking ship with many weak spots you must target to destroy it.

SOILD DESIGNS HERE...

GATCHAMAN PROJECTILES

The second stage continues the visually lacking enemy ship theme while the structures like the bosses are much more creative and almost seem to belong in a different game. The game repeats this format although it doesn't mind throwing a curve ball adding in the occasional really outta place Boss like a Spider that seems it was designed for the Colecovision Smurf game or a Bipedal humanoid frog that creeps me the FU*K OUT !! Some stage are home to attacking fighters that graphically flash and twitch so bad I think I'm playing the Atari 2600… No exaggeration here…none! The game has so many of these weird quirks I can't even mention them all like how when you die you continue to control an explosion that can fire at the enemy for a surprising extended amount of time or when you start the next level the Wing/Weapon select screen is there but you can NOT select any Weapon until every fifth stage even if your starting a new life???. I didn't finish this game nor am I sure I wanted to… THATS A LIE !! I wanna finish every game out of curiosity but I didn't have the time or patience. The game does require time as I discovered it has 30 of the 45 stages from the Arcade intact…ouch!
I watched a Youtube Video of a Long play and the game seems to take an Hour on average I even watched a video where an individual used and Emulator with a Invincibility cheat which in interesting as the game offers endless continues as far as I could tell in my journey thru personaly playing the first 10 stages. I did see in the Videos that it offers no real ending just a lil scene where the B-Wing flies past several of the final bosses.

DESPITE THE WERID DESIGN I LIKE THIS WEAPON

WAS I WRONG LOOK AT IT !!! LOOOKKK !!

SERIOUSLY FREAKY MAN !

I honesty can't say how I feel about this game... Its inventive and unique in its genre but I found a lot of weird flaws in it…. but I may be over critical and lacking patience right now as Ive been potty training my son this weekend its like living with a mini Sid Vicious what with all the peeing on the floor and incoherent yelling. Having given all my patience to him I suggest downloading a copy or watching a YouTube Long Play to make your own opinion before buying. Just 4 games left in the Big Box O' Pirated Booty !!

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