Battle Garegga (1996)

Battle Garegga is extremely well-regarded among hardcore shmup enthusiasts for its deep systems and steep challenge, but it doesn't take a master to appreciate just how solid this arcade classic is in so many ways. While it's not that kind of game that makes me want to sit and play for hours and hours on end, I struggle to really point out anything about it that's not either fun, cool, or at least interesting to learn about.

There are definitely layers to peel back before you can fully process what's happening. My biggest barrier at first was that some of the bullets are extremely hard to see. Then, on top of learning all the mechanics, levels, secrets, and bosses, you have to contend with a particularly detailed invisible rank system controlling the game's adaptive difficulty. It's a sensitive and punishing formula with a surprising amount of things affecting it. The meta-game strategy this creates gives the game a counter-intuitive but cool risk-reward element that makes every shot and resource count both for and against you more than you'd think.

The PS4 port does a lot to peel some of those layers back for you. On top of an option to make bullets way more visible and other things of that nature, it actually lets you see details of some of the logic under the hood. This includes a graph of your rank over time, what item will drop next, previously-hidden timers, and more. Additionally, there are some easier modes available to ease players into the base mechanics before they tackle the real deal. Of course this is all optional, and the original experience seems to be totally intact and feels great.

This isn't the flashiest or most explosive game out there, and its muted military aesthetic didn't blow me away when I was starting out. But I have to say, all the little animations throughout the game, the backgrounds... once you get comfortable enough with the game to take a step back and soak that in, it's really exciting to look at and has a lot of atmosphere to it. The music is also fantastic, like genuinely some of the best arcade game music I've heard at points—sadly some of it appears to be heavily "inspired" by existing tracks, to put it mildly.

Of course, it's the moment-to-moment game that makes all of this matter. This is a super well-paced, action-packed game, with not one stage or boss fight that I don't enjoy to at least some degree. While I wish the ships had the extreme precision and responsiveness of later shmups to match some of its chaotic bullet patterns, they still feel good to control, both in movement and weaponry. The game is very hard, but I can't help but hit the continue button or start over and try again.

While I can't claim to be great at the game or understand all its ins and outs, I want to get to that point someday. It feels just doable enough, and just interesting enough. For now, I'm happy just to play it in small amounts here and there regardless of how well I do.

I wouldn't blame anyone for not liking Battle Garegga. Shmups are a niche genre as it is, a Garegga - as much as it will often top "best of" lists - won't always leave the best impression on the unaware.

Brutal difficulty, an art style that can seem a bit generic, and a bunch of confusing, partially hidden mechanics can make Garegga seem both daunting and a bit dull at the same time, especially if you're not able to get far on a credit.

But stick with Garegga, and you will find one of the most intricate, skill-intensive, and rewarding games of any genre.

That's not to say it's initial elements aren't good. The music, by legendary shooting game composer Manabu Namiki, is astounding, and whilst the art style may be a bit old hat, Garegga's art is top tier, with excellent backgrounds and particularly excellent bosses. The game also controls well, and on a base level does the 'cinematic' shmup experience at least as well as anything that came before it.

And if that was it, Battle Garegga would probably go mostly unremembered, as strong as those elements are. Fortunately for garegga, lead programmer Shinobu Yagawa is a mad genius, and the story does not end there.

In shmup circles, Garegga is famous for it's dynamic difficulty system (known as Rank). This system - which most people playing in an arcade probably didn't even know existed - constanlty increases the difficulty of the game based on player actions - shooting, collecting power ups, using special weapons, ane even just slowly ticking up every frame. And this system hits hard, with enemy aggressiveness, bullet speed, bullets fired and more increasing massively as Rank goes up.

And there is only one way of decreasing the rank - dying. And the closer you are to a game over, the more rank will decrease on death.

This is the core of garegga, and if you want to clear the game, you HAVE to understand it and keep rank low, or later levels become close to literally impossible. And the strategies that are done to do that - which i won't spoil because i think the game rewards discovering them - are excellent fun and encourage gameplay that takes heavy risks whilst also not hurting runs that make early mistakes too heavily.

On top of that, you've got a bunch of other pseudo-hidden mechanics, between the secret ships from Mahou Daisakusen that can be unlocked with a code, the various places you can bomb for enviornmental destruction, the medal chaining system, the ship variants with different characteristics, the flamingoes - I could go on.

Garegga's key strength is this hidden depth. It is a game that will massively reward those that engage with it's secrets, try to discover it's hidden mechanics, all whilst dodging bullets in stages which can vary massively from run to run thanks to the dynamic difficulty.

At the same time, that secret strength is also Garegga's largest weakness. As intricate as it is, these mechanics are largely hidden and without exterior assistance, it's hard to even notice Rank. To the uninitiated, the Rank system can just as easily be seen as bullshit quarter-guzzling arcade difficulty, and frankly, it kinda is. The strategies required to overcome it effectively almost feel like exploits, and whilst that creates a lovely feeling of "breaking the game" in it's own right, it gets pretty counter-intuitive. Whilst a similar system has gone on to be used in 4 more games by Yagawa and it's largely seen as a cool thing by Shmup fans, I can easily imagine a reality where I try Garegga in an arcade and get burned by it's unknowable madness.

Fortunately, M2 are here to save the day, and REV 2016, their recent port, is nigh on perfect. Giving players access to real-time readouts of Rank and some other of the more ridiculous Battle Garegga mechanics, providing multiple other modes with a less silly difficulty system (including a super-easy mode that my dad could beat), and a whole smorgasboard of options and configurable stuff, including letting you change enemy bullet colours, use savestates, set rank at a constant level and so on - it's beyond arcade perfect, and there's basically reason to play any other version of the game if you can get it.

And it truly is worth it. Garegga might be a bit mad, unrefined, unbalanced - and it may well have been a fluke that the attempt at bullshit arcade quarter guzzling lead to such a deep shooter. But very few other games, even shmups i prefer to it, will reward you for thinking and engaging with it's mechanics as much. Never mind whilst playing a frenetic twitch shooter.

Just feel sorry for the people that worked out it's mechanics whilst it was arcade-only.