Batsugun is a vertical top-down shoot'em-up created by Toaplan, and is one of those games where you've got firepower, and lots of it, and still the enemies are just as tough to take out. The entire screen fills up with every shot, but the aliens have learned a trick or two and replies with the same coin. Avoiding enemy shots turns out to be a game of finding the holes in the enemy attack and go there. Other games do this for bosses, but Batsugun does it for most enemies!
Batsugun is more character based than the average shooter, this is maybe a way to get more personality into the game like many fighting games. The game doesn't have any pickups, but an "experience" system where you are awarded experience points for the enemies you kill, marked as '+1' and other numbers when you kill the enemies (see screenshot) which increase your firepower.
You only need to complete the game once to get the ending, which is a first for Toaplan. Usually you must play through the game twice.
"BATSUGUN" means "preeminence", "predominace", "by far the best"
"BATSU" means "dominant", "outstanding" or "excel"
"GUN" is originaly "group" or "brigade", but also means "common level".
"BATSU" also means a cross (X) mark, so there's an "X" under the logo of Batsugun.
How to Play:
You play through 5 stages with an 8-direction joystick and 2 buttons (shoot and bomb). "Power Up" and "Bomb" items appear when you destroy an item carrier that appears throughout the game, various bonus items appear when you destroy certain enemies, buildings, and boxes on the ground. During the game, your ship's power increases as you destroy enemies.
Items:
The gun has 3 levels and each level has 5 steps. You can increase the step of the current level by taking items, but the level goes up by experience points (a gauge displayed the bottom of the screen).
Bomb works immediately when you push the bomb button. When the game is in 2-player mode, and both players use bombs simultaneously, they pack a punch three times as much as a single bomb. You can keep up to 7 bombs.
Bonus items are named "Victory". Big Victory items are worth 1000 points, small ones are worth 500 points. When you clear each stage, you get a bonus.
You can also use Pig Batteries (If you are close to the pig head, 110 points are added every 1/60 sec).
Music composed by Yoshitatsu Sakai.