Guwange



Guwange was the last game developed by Cave for Atlus's 68000-based hardware.

It was originally released in the arcades in 1999, and later ported to Xbox 360.

A variation of the game with altered scoring system called "Special Version" or "Blue Label" exists. It is a simple rom swap on PCB, and available in the 360 port.

Gameplay Overview
Guwange is a vertical shooter with a walking character and levels scrolling both vertically and horizontally.


 * A (Press): Shot.
 * A (Hold): "Shikigami" attack.
 * B: Bomb
 * When holding B after bombing, you can move the stick to control the direction of the bomb.
 * C: A Auto-fire if enabled in the game's test menu.

Characters
 Shishin : Ninja with mask
 * -- Shot can be aimed left/right a bit when moving.
 * -- Average movement speed

 Hiiragi Kosame : Female archer with wolf
 * -- Shots fire straight
 * -- Fast movement speed
 * -- Shikigami attack leave napalm trails

 Kamono Gensuke : Pharmacist with glasses
 * -- Shots are wide but straight
 * -- Shots pierce and can hit elevated enemies
 * -- Slow movement speed

Health pickups
There are three types of health pickups. - Small: Restores some health in the current health bar. - Medium: Restores one full health bar. - Large: Restores all health.

Stage 3

Destroy the biggest statue first at the end of the horizontally scrolling section (small health pickup)

Stage 4

Destroy the midboss with shikigami attack (medium health pickup)

Stage 5

Destroy the tank before the boss (small health pickup)

Stage 6

On the spider section, killing spiders will grant health pickups. First a small, then a medium and then a large assuming enough spiders are killed.

Each cart at the section towards the end grants a small health pickup.

The right three at the first phase of the boss gives a medium health pickup.

Scoring
In Guwange, there are 2 vital parts of scoring, chaining and the 1,000 mode.

Skull meter
The skull meter is an meter made out of ten skulls that is filled by damaging and killing stuff, and emptied by waiting.

As long as skull 1 remains partially filled, the chain can keep going. Otherwise, the chain breaks and resets to 0 coins.

The meter starts flashing after skull 5 is completely filled, and makes the main function of 1,000 mode work, which is explained afterwards.

1,000 mode
When you reach a coin chain of 1,000, something happens. Every shot that hits an enemy produces coins, but it only happens while the skull meter is flashing.

You know when you enter this mode because the coin counter flashes yellow instead of the normal blue when it's under 1,000.

Coin counter
This is the chaining part that contributes to your score. There is no malus related to the coin counter during a no-miss chain, but when the skull meter gets emptied, it gets reset to 0, causing the chain to be broken.

This is everything that increases the coin counter: thing           counter increase - s.gold air coin pair  2 (1 indiv) l.gold air coin pair  4 (2 indiv) steel air coin                 9 pile of n coins                n quick snack*                2000 light lunch*                3000 full banquet*               4000 - *Only when in perfect health

When you get hurt, you will lose a certain amount of coins depending on the bullet's strength, commonly 200 - 300 coins. Dying outright will halve it; so your score would be hurt quite a lot when dying.

Coin production
When you kill an enemy, it produces a certain amount of coins, dependent on how high the skull meter is; having the payout maxed out with a completely filled skull meter.

Secret pots, revealed by walking over their position, also produce coins in a similar fashion to killed enemies. You can produce extra coins by completely filling the skull meter and keeping it on sturdier enemies and bosses, varying from the spirit flux.

Spirit flux
This is one of the things that is easier to do with autofire, but harder to do without it.

To do this, hold the A button long enough to make the skull meter start flashing, and then release it to allow the main shots to hit the boss and spawn a stream of coins.

With autofire, quick successive taps of the A button while having the C button held down is just enough to successfully do spirit flux. Without it, the A button must be held longer, resulting in a reduced amount of coins and a more demanding rhythm to maintain. The character movement must also be timed to the A presses to stop excessive spirit movement.

Console Release Notes
Xbox 360 / Xbox One

- Save States - No - Level Select - Yes - Customise Resources - Yes, all. - Boss Fight Select - No - Mid Boss Fight Select - No - Save Training Run Replays - No - Can slow playback to 1/32 speed (!)
 * Physical Release? - No, digital download only.
 * Arranged Modes - Yes: 'Guwange Arrange Blue', 'Guwange Arrange 360'
 * Online Leaderboards? - Yes
 * Tate Option? - Yes
 * Original Arcade Graphics - Yes (and Xbox 360 can be forced to output Tate 4:3 ratio at 480p)
 * Internal Scanlines Generator: No (T_T)
 * Graphical Filters: Smoothing On/Off
 * Training mode - Yes
 * Training Mode Configuration:
 * Replay Mode - Yes (& can download high scoring replays from Leaderboards)
 * Replay Options: