TrojanHorse711 | G WARRIOR (Normal All Clear, 1cc, 1,414 kills) @Trojan711 | Uploaded September 2024 | Updated October 2024, 4 days ago.
I managed to beat G WARRIOR on Steam today, so I decided to render my playthrough to share with you!

Store Page: store.steampowered.com/app/2710290/G_WARRIOR

AREA A: 0:52
AREA B: 2:53
AREA C: 5:54
AREA D: 9:10
AREA E: 12:40
AREA F: 18:24

G WARRIOR a really solid Contra clone from the devs behind GanaBlade! The two characters you can play as are RAISHIN SANTAS (the male protagonist) and GUREN SOUKI (the female protagonist), and while they mostly play the same their powerups tend to differ (for example, while RAISHIN SANTAS has the standard spreadshot you'd expect from Contra, GUREN SOUKI's equivalent has a slightly less wide shot that seems to do more damage). I primarily played as GUREN SOUKI for this playthrough, so I can't vouch for whether or not she's better than RAISHIN SANTAS.

Levels are also pretty nice, and while some of them are definitely derivative of Contra on NES (looking at you, AREA D), none of them were outright bad. It's definitely pretty hard, even on Normal, so if you plan on playing this be ready to die a lot. I did notice that it tends to be way easier with the wide shot due to that having great damage and cancelling bullets, whereas the basic shot feels a little too underpowered. It makes sense, the game wants to discourage dying repeatedly. I have not played much on Hard mode, though the one stage I did play on Hard kicked my ass so I'll probably save that for another time.

My only significant gripe I have with this is the same gripe I had with the devs' previous game, GanaBlade, where the sprites scale and rotate in ways that weren't even remotely possible for the style the game's trying to emulate. The actual pixel art is good, if not great, it's just the way it's placed feels a little cheap. It's a minor issue, sure, but when you have games that do a way better job emulating that art-style the games that *don't* tend to stand out. The music's in a similar boat - while I did really enjoy the music and thought it sounded really accurate to the NES, the walking sound effect at the end of the stage had a strong reverb that sounded *very* out of place. The other sound effects are better, but they are very blatantly lifted from Contra.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this, and it's definitely worth the asking price of $4.99!
-Trojan

G WARRIOR (C) 2024 Liao Kai/LKK Game