SHMUPS





Dangun Feveron - Cave









Dangun Feveron

Reviewed by Chuck Cochems

There are two major types of arcade shooter. One is the type you play to beat, like the classics Gradius and R-Type. The other type is the kind you play for points. Dangun Feveron, which I like to call "Happy Disco Shmup" for reasons that will become obvious, is a fine example of the latter.

The first thing you will notice when you startup the game is that you have amazing flexibility over your ship. You can pick any one of three normal shot patterns, any of three charge shots, and any of four movement speeds. You can chose, straight forward, angled out slightly, or two 45 degree diagonals for your main shot. For your charge shot (the one that activates when you hold down fire) you may select lock-on beam (a constant beam that is more powerful than your max power shots and locks onto enemies), bomb toss (drops up to 3 powerful misiles at once that float up the screen and detonate when they hit something.) and "roll type" (hold down to charge up a powerful shot that rotates around you while you charge, protecting you from kamikaze enemies) And finally, you pick the fastest movement speed you can handle out of the four, ranging from slow as Xevious to insanely quick. This puts a lot of replay value into the game.

The powerup system is simple. Your primary forward fire and diagonal fire (if you picked a craft that can use diagonal fire) are powered by picking up P icons, which either point diagonally (for the diagonal shots) or straight (for the straight shots). Both diagonal and straight shots max out seperately. You also, of course, get three super bombs, fired with the B button. These allow you to blast your enemies with the power of disco (i'm not kidding just try it yourself!) killing most non boss enemies instantly, and destroying all enemy fire.

Now for scoring. Every enemy you kill is worth one point. (WHAT? I hear you say...) However most enemies leave behind one or more dancing man bonus icons. For each dancing man bonus icon you collect, the number of points you get for a kill increases. Bonus man icons slowly float to the bottom of the screen,then they turn orange and float back up to the top. If you miss even ONE dancing man, your score per enemy RESETS BACK TO ONE. Fortunately your happy disco smartbombs will freeze all dancing man bonus icons on the screen, allowing you to zip up and collect them before it's too late. Of course you lose ALL points if you continue, but you get a free "max power" powerup to help you get back in the game (a common trait of contemporary shooters of this style).

Graphics are typical for the time period, vibrant and clear without being cheezy. The sound effects are nothing special, but the music is (of course) full of cute disco tunes that are quite well done. The gameplay is quite FRANTIC, especially once you beat the first level. If you hate Batsugun, you will not like this game. It has the same INSANE level of difficulty as Batsugun and DoDonPachi, whereby the screen just gets COVERED in bullets.

Unfortunately, the screenshots are gonna be sparse, because I can't play and take screenshots at the same time in this type of shooter. If you enjoyed DoDonPachi, you should enjoy this game as well.



Screenshots:
How about some screens of Feveron in action? DISCO!!!
<< Here's you little ship customisation section, before you start the game, you get to pick your firing spread, special shot and ship speed... customise your ship to your particular playing style...


Lovely review by Chuck there! This shmup is a wee bit stranger than most shmups of their time, with a very odd disco theme to it. It seems quite strange killing things with dancing disco women, but there you have it... a game that stands out! I'd like to see more games like this, instead of the clones and drones that get churned out by all those softco's...


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