Iwagana

By: Derek Yu

On: September 13th, 2007

“I see you!”

Iwanaga is a side-scrolling boss rush that’s most easily likened to Treasure’s insta-classic Alien Soldier. And the manual aiming of the player’s gun is reminiscent of another underrated Treasure game, Sin and Punishment. Not sure that the game quite lives up to either of those titles, since it gets a little repetitive, but it’s still a fun romp with a particularly nice horror atmosphere. I love the design of the characters and the limited color palette reminds me of my Sega Genesis.

There are three difficulty levels. On “Normal” and “Hard” difficulties, you must manage your usage of the two weapon types. Using one repeatedly will weaken its strength, but also power the other weapon. Each difficulty has its own ending.

(Source: Tim)

Posted in Doujin, Freeware, Platformers | Tags: Buster

Carlz0r

Wow, this game is kinda neat… good find!
I like the weapon management… it’s a neat concept.
Xander

It’s a shame there’s no real controller support (I don’t think), mostly becuase pressing a different button as opposed to a combination of two to change weapon is always that little more convienient. And as always with great games like this… I don’t think it works on Vista.

Off-Topic; Just got back from a Crime Scene were my local bank was attacked by robbers and armed police responded with bullets. Oddly the only thing I can think of at this point is ‘I’m glad I do most of my banking online’. Very strange thing to see when you’re going to pick up a magazine and a coke.
Slang

I absolutely love this game. The mood is similar to the 3rd level of Guwange which was always my favourite level…anyway, the gameplay in Iwanaga goes pretty deep. You shoot enemies for lifecubes, then reposition the crosshair for the next swarm of enemies, switch quickly to blue and if you blast the incoming enemies while the blue shots are strong you get big timecubes. However, it seems that if you chain properly and switch weapons before they get weak you can also get big lifecubes (orange)…Can anyone confirm that? It certainly requires a certain flow – changing weapon, position crosshair, dodge and kill bullets – quit complicated but once you get the hang of it very rewarding!
The superdash (lower bar blinking) is also pretty cool – position crosshair and pull off superdash right through the boss:-)
Please post some quick impressions. Would love to hear some info on the scoring/ tactics. And yeah, this is pretty much Alien Soldier in some kind of steampunkish japanese feudal setting.
http://myspace.com/akktivecarbon !CE-9

these guys made Vacant Ark too, haven’t they? I really suck at these games, but the atmosphere is something awesome and the gameplay is unique.
Gutter-mind

I first thing I noticed about the screenshot is the boss’s cameltoe.

D:
Sandcrab

This game feels like a pretty good argument for a WASD+Mouse control scheme. Unless maybe there is something like that and I’m just not seeing it? It looks awesome but I find the control (or lack thereof) really unpleasant, even with a gamepad.
Slang

The controls are good and precise BUT they are really something you have to get used to. First of all, you have to dash left right A LOT. It basically all comes down to get a proper flow then the controls really become second nature. Watch some gameplay videos on you tube to see what I mean:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NyX6RJJBaFs