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The fact that this even exists and is as playable as it is shows just how good M2 was even before most heard of them, myself included.
There are some omissions and changes, as to be expected, but quite frankly I preferred some of these changes to what was going on in the Genesis game. For instance, in Green's level, you pilot a sort of jetpack/helicopter instead of the anti-grav minecart which I always found awkward as hell to control. Black's level is also completely gone, and while I know it probably has its fans, it was my least favorite part of the Genesis original. I kind of wish they would have put a unique stage in here (similar to how GG Ristar had an exclusive pirate ship stage and boss), but oh well.
As far as enemy AI goes, I feel like soldiers and bosses were more apt to try and throw me around- especially Green during his second encounter. As a whole, though, the same weapon combos (homing+laser, force+ fire) work incredibly well and the final boss is definitely a lot easier.
The biggest knock against the game would probably be the amount of slowdown and flicker. There is one portion exclusive to this game in place of the shm'up stage where you pilot a walker that shoots an infinite array of lasers that bounce around the screen. The game absolutely chugs here and there is literally zero challenge or strategy involved. Just hold the fire button down and go straight- you won't even take a hit. I'm not sure why this is even here- it couldn't have been that hard to come up with a shm'up stage even if it wasn't 1:1 with the Genesis.
Still, keeping in mind that they were trying to port a 16 bit game to 8-bit hardware, this is impressive stuff. I just think perhaps M2 pushed it a little too much in spots.
There are some omissions and changes, as to be expected, but quite frankly I preferred some of these changes to what was going on in the Genesis game. For instance, in Green's level, you pilot a sort of jetpack/helicopter instead of the anti-grav minecart which I always found awkward as hell to control. Black's level is also completely gone, and while I know it probably has its fans, it was my least favorite part of the Genesis original. I kind of wish they would have put a unique stage in here (similar to how GG Ristar had an exclusive pirate ship stage and boss), but oh well.
As far as enemy AI goes, I feel like soldiers and bosses were more apt to try and throw me around- especially Green during his second encounter. As a whole, though, the same weapon combos (homing+laser, force+ fire) work incredibly well and the final boss is definitely a lot easier.
The biggest knock against the game would probably be the amount of slowdown and flicker. There is one portion exclusive to this game in place of the shm'up stage where you pilot a walker that shoots an infinite array of lasers that bounce around the screen. The game absolutely chugs here and there is literally zero challenge or strategy involved. Just hold the fire button down and go straight- you won't even take a hit. I'm not sure why this is even here- it couldn't have been that hard to come up with a shm'up stage even if it wasn't 1:1 with the Genesis.
Still, keeping in mind that they were trying to port a 16 bit game to 8-bit hardware, this is impressive stuff. I just think perhaps M2 pushed it a little too much in spots.
The fact that they crammed a near-complete version of Gunstar Heroes onto the Game Gear and nothing explodes besides what's on the screen...leaves me absolutely gob-smacked.
A very ambitious port at putting Gunstar Heroes on the Game Gear. Now I'm not an expert at this game in fact I suck at it. Can't even do a no game over run on easy mode. This version of the game is missing the dice maze level and the shmup level. Almost everything else is here though.
I did notice some changes with this one like the seven force level having you ride a jetpack rather than a antigravity cart. The shmup level is now replaced with a level where you ride this walker, it honestly really sucks. Though I do like the touch that you can see the boss fight for the shmup level and the ship shooting at it in the background to at least have it there in spirit. You also have this boss where you can only use your fists on stage 4 (or 5 if it was the MD version.) Was that one even in the MD version? I can't remember. Oh also the beginning of stage 3 is different too.
It does sadly have a lot of flicker and slowdown but I don't really know how they could have prevented that. The graphics still are very impressive for the GG. The music is good but I much prefer how it sounds on the MD. Honestly it feels like this port was made just for people who only had a GG though maybe there is an actual reason I'm unaware of. This port was actually done by M2 and they should be proud they even got this being good, let alone playable. I kind of wish other people played this on this site but considering how almost no one even has this version on their backlog, it'll probably stay just being me. If you love Gunstar Heroes on the Mega Drive, give this one a try someday. It may not be as good as its console counterpart but it's still enjoyable and one of the better Game Gear games.
I did notice some changes with this one like the seven force level having you ride a jetpack rather than a antigravity cart. The shmup level is now replaced with a level where you ride this walker, it honestly really sucks. Though I do like the touch that you can see the boss fight for the shmup level and the ship shooting at it in the background to at least have it there in spirit. You also have this boss where you can only use your fists on stage 4 (or 5 if it was the MD version.) Was that one even in the MD version? I can't remember. Oh also the beginning of stage 3 is different too.
It does sadly have a lot of flicker and slowdown but I don't really know how they could have prevented that. The graphics still are very impressive for the GG. The music is good but I much prefer how it sounds on the MD. Honestly it feels like this port was made just for people who only had a GG though maybe there is an actual reason I'm unaware of. This port was actually done by M2 and they should be proud they even got this being good, let alone playable. I kind of wish other people played this on this site but considering how almost no one even has this version on their backlog, it'll probably stay just being me. If you love Gunstar Heroes on the Mega Drive, give this one a try someday. It may not be as good as its console counterpart but it's still enjoyable and one of the better Game Gear games.