You know, the original Wild Guns was pretty alright, but you know what it was missing this whole time?... A DOGGO!

I don't think that saying the original game was pretty stellar would be a hot take; Wild Guns is a pretty damn fun and interesting take on shooting galleries, combining them with the platforming genre and delivering an outstanding visual style and setting —I've always had a weakness for the idea of robots and giant floating ships in the Wild West, and this game takes insporation from all kinds of works based on that idea— resulting in a game that the only reason I haven't ever returned to it being because I'm terrible at it.

While I can't think of anything particularly wrong with it, I wouldn't have complaint if some things were done differently; the lack of any kind of save feature, while making it very much in line with the arcade experiences it draws inspiration from and it isn't a lengthy experience by any chance, it would have still been welcomed, such as more mini-boss variety or a bit of re-tooling on the already present big bads. I didn’t know much about Reloaded going into it, but I thought it would be basically that; a retake that takes the chance to update and change some aspects, keeping the core the same while modifying and altering parts of the original experience, like so many remakes do. But... no, Wild Guns Reloaded keeps the experience the exact same, only adding to what was already there, and it honestly feels as if this was the game they wanted to make back in 1994.

Why do I say that? Well, Bullet is in it for one, but even setting aside that big and clear improvement, every other aspect that was in the original experience is brought to its best possible limit. The first game was already pretty, Reloaded is outright majestic: the pixel art is so detailed and perfected for both enemies and the stages themselves that the fact it still feels like the original artwork is honestly remarkable. The SNES game is still amazing to look that even to this day, but here I truly get the feeling I’m playing a forgotten real Arcade version; no big changes were made, nor was anything lost in the 22-year leap. Same sentiment goes towards the OST, I still LOVE how the original sounds, but the new remixes are takes that I also enjoy quite a bit. I don’t think that Reloaded puts these aspects of its predecessor to shame, but it’s a pretty worthy upgrade and accomplished what it was probably going for, the feeling that this could have been on a cabinet alongside the likes of Metal Slug back in the 90s.

In every other sense, this is quite literally Wild Guns... but more of it! Brand new secret stages, enemies and themes are already wonderful additions, but also having Doris and The Best Character in Gaming to add 4-player-multiplayer is one of those changes that wasn’t necessary at all but incentivizes replayability even more: Doris is an interesting character to play as, much more methodical but an absolute powerhouse if you manage it right, even tho it never clicked with me, I can totally see how useful it can be solo or with other players... and then there’s Bullet. Clint and Annie are fun to play, they are the original pair and they feel perfectly adequate to this curious style of gameplay, Bullet is the odd one out, and yet I prefer him so much more: were the other two sacrifice movility for the shake of more precise shooting, Bullet is te opposite, only being to auto aim in a sepcific part once the button is held down, but you are completely free to move while you do it. I adore this more agressive way of approaching stages and even if it can take a bit to grow accostumed, I find it so rewarding, there’s a reason I praised it even before getting to him, beating Kid’s ass never felt better.

Even more jaw-dropping visuals, more stuff to test and have fun with, same great game as always, and a nice puppy; calling Wild Guns Reloaded a ‘’remaster’’ feels like trowing out the sheer effort and work it was put into replicating the original and going even further than one. Still, I don’t see Reloaded as a replacement, but it’s a fantastic option to have nonetheless, is the same fun time after all, just flashier and with more to discover...

Big thanks to @DeltaWDunn for recommending it to me! I’ll be honest and say that before it was brought into my attention, I didn’t even know this game existed, but I’m so glad someone pointed me to it, so once again, huge thanks!

Great update to the original SNES game with two new characters added that have their own playstyles and two new stages with one replacing a stage on normal and both replacing a stage on hard.

Wild Guns is an action gallery shooter with a mixture of western and steampunk visual design. Holding down the fire button locks you into place while you can move the reticle around, it also changes your jump and double jump button into a roll that avoids attacks while you are preforming the move. Some enemies move to your plane and attempt to melee you and getting near them turns your shot into a melee attack of your own that launches them across the screen. Tapping the shot button multiple times allows you to aim a lasso that will stun hit enemies. Bombs can be found that do high damage to most of the screen and since shooting enemy bullets destroys them it also tends to keep you safe while used. There is a wide variety of enemies across the stages that have their own movement styles, types of attacks, and some have multiple ways of being killed or destroyed depending on where you shoot them. Destroying objects in the environment can get you points for extra lives, bombs, or a variety of sub weapons that you can use until the ammo runs out.

The two new characters add more gameplay variety. You can play as a dog with much faster movement who is followed around by a drone that automatically aims at enemies within a certain range of the section of the map you are aiming at and the dog can latch onto the drone to momentarily fly up into the air. The other new character is a much slower strongwoman when it comes to her walking speed but she is able to preform very fast dashes that can get her out of the way of shots but will not provide her with invincibility. Her method of attacking is different as she has no guns or weapon pickups and instead throws bombs where the longer you hold the attack button the more bombs she throws at once with the number going up to seven. She also has a lightning ground punch she can do by jumping into the air and slamming down.

The two new stages are probably the worst part of the game. There are some visually interesting but they are overly easy (even on hard as you need to play on hard to even see one of them) with simple early sections then followed by overly difficult bosses that require to know what you are doing ahead of time to know where to shoot them or how to even begin to dodge their attacks. The airship stage is also over quickly while the underground stage drags on a bit too long.

Playthrough Video: https://youtu.be/ewWkL12UPS4

While Wild Guns Reloaded plays it a bit more safe than Pocky and Rocky Reshrined, it is nonetheless everything I could've hoped for and more. Wild Guns is a great game, one of the best arcade style shooting galleries on home console by a wide margin, though perfectly capable of going toe-to-toe with arcade counterparts. Reloaded provides more than a graphical facelift, adding two additional characters with unique movesets and a handful of extra stages to breathe new life into classic and ultimately making it the definitive way to enjoy Wild Guns.

Of course you can still play as Annie or Clint, and they control about how you'd expect them to, but the real draw is newcomers Dorris and Bullet. Dorris uses explosives and lassos to clear out rooms, making her a valuable addition to a multiplayer session. Bullet, who is perhaps my favorite character in the whole lineup, is a wiener dog that attacks using a drone. This essentially gives him two hitboxes as the drone is vulnerable to being stunlocked, which helps balance out his ability to lock on to enemies. Bullet can also grab onto the bottom of his drone and fly around for a bit to dodge enemy attacks, which is just cute as hell.

Did you know? Bullet once bombed a civilian hospital but was not charged for war crimes.

The difficulty balancing feels off compared to the original. Normal feels harder than it did in the original game, and Easy feels about what Normal should be. The gameplay loop is still satisfying though, and like Pocky and Rocky Reshrined, getting a game over never truly feels punishing. Levels are short enough that a failed attempt is at worst an excuse to learn enemy patterns, and each subsequent run feels better than the last as you start to develop a rhythm for each level. I don't know if they balanced this game to factor in multiplayer as I've yet to check that out. Everything else you can expect from this game is more or less on par with the original, which is to say it's still pretty damn good.

Wild Guns Reloaded is frequently on sale for about ten bucks, which is a great price point for what you get. Buy it. Buy the damn video game. Buy it right now it's on sale!

+ Two new levels (locked by difficulty)
+ Wider screen so enemy placement is easier to see
~ New remixed music
~ Harder
- No online Multiplayer

I've tried to get into this thing on the SNES a million times but it took the baby easy difficulty and the baby easy doggy in this version to put the mechanics at a low enough density where I could figure out how to 1CC it. Also the included manual which explained things like cancelling enemy bullets. Now I know this game kicks ass and rules. This version has two new characters who are totally different from the originals and really interesting, plus the music and visuals are great. Minus half a star because a completely unrelated group of people made a game called Wild Arms two years after this one came out and now I keep getting the names mixed up.

Oh and one more thing: they keep calliing the robots in this steampunk. They don't look steampunk to me, they're just existing alongside cowboys. I'm not prepared to get into a big argument over it though. Well that's my story

first thing you'll notice is that the reticle moves much quicker than the player left to right as you aim from the foreground into the background, making repositioning yourself a bit of a fine art. shooting will lock your character in place which keeps reaiming a cinch, but when you're actively needing to evade attacks you have to make a lot of tradeoffs between having enemies lined up in your sights and being able to avoid their fire. in the vast majority of cases the obvious choice is to spray bullets and make quick adjustments with the helpful roll/dodge. however, as the game progresses, the coarse distance that this roll takes you will inevitably place you into other fire, bringing this original tradeoff back to the forefront. do you intentionally place your cursor far away from your opponent with the intent of dodging their fire and in the process lining them up for a quick kill? do you just avoid shooting at all and run down the clock? can you grab a powerup to slide out of the situation or take advantage of the copious i-frames on the jump or the melee attack? feeling around this flowchart is initially unintuitive, but with practice it becomes thrilling to push your toolkit to its limits.

across six stages (it seems the original set comprises the easy difficulty while normal and hard swap in one new level apiece) you'll more than get acquainted with the limited controls enough to take on the challenges that face you. originally I had tried to slot in "vast exploration of scenarios" (or something to that effect) in the prior sentence, but the game doesn't deserve quite that much credit. regular enemy design is phenomenal across the board, with an excellent range of bullet patterns, strategies to kill, movement/behavior, and combinations of encounters. a great example of this is the elevator ride in the underground which combines giant worms with a specific noggin weak point which can control at least half of your movable area at a time while metal casters lob molten steel to form temporary traps and trios of bothersome gnats take potshots at you. other than a few clunkers (the dull bank vault in the final stage, the inoffensive first area in the underground), there's total gold in scenario design to be found here.

where the game began to lose my interest is mainly in-between these with an abundance of repeated miniboss fights. the worst of these is a snappily-dressed duelist who scrambles on the floor after being shot only to stand back up and quickly snipe you if you aren't looking; once you become confident in his inability to fire back when you have him locked in a bullet stream, the only danger becomes losing your focus as you wait for him to stand up for the umpteenth time. other minibosses range from shockingly tricky (the mariachi skeleton who served as a huge brick wall for me within the first few minutes of the game) to unquestionable pushovers (the lumbering robots in the first part of the underground stage who rarely fight back and will quickly tumble with the slightest resistance). the main bosses themselves tend to fare a little better, but many of them lack substantial auxillary attack patterns that don't derive from simply sending out regular mooks to add a few extra bullets to deal with. without more substantial threats not simply stemming from whatever the primary attack is, a few repetitions on any boss will have you easily knowing the exact counter for each wind-up indicating an upcoming attack. on replays this becomes less than ideal, especially when considering the mostly-fixed enemy spawns and the timer that controls when one can move to the next phase. this latter aspect can be hastened by killing enemies to preemptively shave seconds off the clock, but combined with the aforementioned issues, I found myself zoning out more than once on replays.

most of this analysis stems from my runthrough on easy with clint mind you. I got utterly wiped on normal for my first several attempts and deigned to reduce the difficulty after having noticed others talk about that these settings seemed a little overtuned compared to the original. after my easy playthrough I decided to switch to one of the new characters, bullet the dog, for a playthrough on normal and instantly understood why they had elected to alter the game balance. no comment on doris as I didn't try her, but this mutt effectively renders the entire first paragraph of my review irrelevant. bullet not only can run around freely while shooting but also fires said shots from a drone that has noticable auto-aim. it becomes a totally different game when you can absent-mindedly strafe back and forth while barely attempting to focus your fire, and the supposed difficulty spike on normal becomes a total non-issue.

unfortunately I still had to replay the game (the first half anyway) multiple times with bullet due to my ps4 acting suspect over the last couple days and shutting down a couple of times while I had suspended the campaign to work/get food/etc., forcing me to start at the beginning more times than I would've liked to. for a game with an arcade-style structure this is somewhat damning; if I feel bored replaying a game that explictly is meant to be replayed many times, I can only give it so many props. still, just thinking about some of those specific levels gets me a bit giddy. I almost wish there was a level select cheat so I could skip that opening volley and jump to some of the best parts the game has to offer. eventually I'll come back and try the other characters if I can convince someone to try the multiplayer with me without scaring them off with the rigid handling.

It's really refreshing playing through a very "gamey game" nowadays. A game that immediately jumps into the action with zero story and doesn't slow down while being a short 20-40 minute campaign. This also a pretty unique take on the action shooter genre by forcing players to plant their feet on the ground whenever they need to shoot, which while it can come off as clunky at first it also makes positioning the most important thing in this game. It's all about knowing when you can take a shot but also from where, deciding who to prioritize first, is it safe to pick up the items now, it's a very exhilarating gameplay flow. On top of which it's a very pretty pixel game, especially with the enourmous mech boss battles. It is difficult like any arcade game though, especially since you die in one hit and you don't start with many lives, but this actually made earning lives extremely rewarding. I understand why people see lives as outdated, but with the addition a combo system by killing many enemies in a row without letting go of the shoot button and how there's many items that grant extra score that quickly dissappear if left alone, it did something almost no game did and actually made me care about the scoring system as every 100,000 points grants an extra life. On top of which there's not only unlockable character colors but this version gives two new characters that weren't present in the original release that really shake up the game feel. Not only are their character designs striking (a dog riding a drone makes this game impossible to rate lower than 4 stars), but they also serve as an additional difficulty setting with the dog, Bullet, being an easy mode if you want to move and shoot at the same time, while Doris is a big target with slow walking speeds but her charging grenades allow her to rack up score big time and is essentially the speedrun character with how strong those explosives are. The controls could really be ironed out though even if it's because they wanted to stay true to the original, especially the lasso which requires you to rapidly tap the shoot button making you waste ammo unnecessarily if you have a power up. Had a really fun time overall, played it about 12 or so times and it was satisfying going from 4 continues in one playthrough on easy to no continues on hard mode.