Heavy Unit box art

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Heavy Unit

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Heavy Unit

Feb 1, 1988

Main game

3.00 average rating based on 2 ratings

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Heavy Unit is a side scrolling shoot-em-up arcade game developed by Kaneko and published by Taito in 1988. It was ported to the PC Engine and Sega Mega Drive by Taito and was released on December 22, 1989. There was also a Mega Drive port by Toho entitled "Heavy Unit: Mega Drive Special" released on December 26, 1990. The player takes control of a star ship that can transform in to a mecha by obtaining a specific type of power up. Set in 2013, mankind's first artificial star and planet, "Le Tau", is under attack from genetically modified alien monsters. … More
Heavy Unit is a side scrolling shoot-em-up arcade game developed by Kaneko and published by Taito in 1988. It was ported to the PC Engine and Sega Mega Drive by Taito and was released on December 22, 1989. There was also a Mega Drive port by Toho entitled "Heavy Unit: Mega Drive Special" released on December 26, 1990. The player takes control of a star ship that can transform in to a mecha by obtaining a specific type of power up. Set in 2013, mankind's first artificial star and planet, "Le Tau", is under attack from genetically modified alien monsters. The player must navigate a "Heavy Unit", a heavily armed, transforming mecha, in order to defeat the onslaught and protect the human colony. The player's ship had two forms: a space-ship and a giant robot. Players started controlling the Heavy Unit in its space-ship form as default. As they progressed, they could change the ship into its robot form, thus changing its firing mode and mobility. A checkpoint was active however and the Heavy Unit only had one hit. Power Ups are dropped by a specific enemy ship which appears in fixed points during the levels. Every level of the game contains a mid-boss and a final boss. Both the ship and the robot modes use two fire buttons, one for the primary (frontal) fire and one for auxiliary fire. The ship mode uses a frontal laser gun which becomes a spread show with the power ups, plus missiles which drops like bombs as auxiliary fire. The robot mode has a frontal laser gun which increases in power with the power ups plus homing missiles as auxiliary fire. An interesting element of the game is represented by the hidden bonuses (usually 1UP) which can be revealed by shooting certain parts of the scenario or by continuously hitting certain indestructible enemies. There is at least one hidden bonus in every level of the game. Less
Developers
Publishers
Platforms
Arcade, TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
Genres
Shooter
Themes
Science fiction
Release Dates
Feb 01, 1988 (Worldwide)
Arcade
Dec 22, 1989 (Worldwide)
TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
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User Stats
15
In Collection
1
Wish Listed
0
Playing
8
Backlogged
How Long Is Heavy Unit?
Main + extras: 1.5 hours
Total completions: 1
GigaDeathNullGolem
GigaDeathNullGolem gave Nov 25, 2023
GigaDeathNullGolem gave Nov 25, 2023
okay overall. weird in some aspects. Not as good as other SHMUPS on PCE

nice looking, decent sounding, controls weren't too bad. What i couldn't understand was the weapon upgrade system and the mech state ( it had some alternate weapon attack pattern but the hitbox is now twice as big or so... yikes)
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Most (maybe all?) Boss Battles were kinda annoying. The boss slowly will inch across the screen to the left, making you have less and less space until either you die or (maybe?) skip the boss. This guy is the first boss and it took FOREVER to take down and i thought i might have botched it at one point

It's better than a genny Shump, but its a bit behind the core with other systems. Most STG/SHMUPS i've played on PC Engine CD Rom Super System or whatever are better than this. But hey it's a HuCard game so its decnt enough. It doesnt lag or slow down or glitch out. One of TG-16's strengths over Nintendo and Genesis, these kind of games usually don't do that, and there's often do. I figure it's because those consoles have titles like this that are often arcade ports while TG-16 has tons of exclusive games
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The mech transformed state features an alternative …

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nice looking, decent sounding, controls weren't too bad. What i couldn't understand was the weapon upgrade system and the mech state ( it had some alternate weapon attack pattern but the hitbox is now twice as big or so... yikes)
enter image description here
Most (maybe all?) Boss Battles were kinda annoying. The boss slowly will inch across the screen to the left, making you have less and less space until either you die or (maybe?) skip the boss. This guy is the first boss and it took FOREVER to take down and i thought i might have botched it at one point

It's better than a genny Shump, but its a bit behind the core with other systems. Most STG/SHMUPS i've played on PC Engine CD Rom Super System or whatever are better than this. But hey it's a HuCard game so its decnt enough. It doesnt lag or slow down or glitch out. One of TG-16's strengths over Nintendo and Genesis, these kind of games usually don't do that, and there's often do. I figure it's because those consoles have titles like this that are often arcade ports while TG-16 has tons of exclusive games
enter image description here
The mech transformed state features an alternative weapon system... which is just a single column of big bullets... a major downgrade IMO. The shield depicted here was a power up and is not a mech power I don't think (in case you're wondering)

I played single player, and I didnt do a second loop of it (if that is a thing in this one, the ending had a message that suggested i play it again so it might be) probably should have waiting on this one... oh well
enter image description hereWeapon attack pattern is a nice cloud of bullets. At one point i had a laser but as i mentioned, didn't really figure out the weapon upgrade system while playing!. If you're set on playing this, consider maybe consider looking it up to max out your enjoyment here!

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