Gunbird is an interesting progressive weapons shooter, developed and manufactured by Psikyo and first released into Japanese arcades in 1994. It features five playable characters, a variety of lush pixel art levels, and can be played by one or two players.

The setting is fantasy/Steampunk, with castles, big robots and trains. The graphics throughout are truly exceptional, and the game has some nice touches that’ll warm the cockles of your heart… For example: if you watch closely you’ll see your little feller getting flung out when your Gunbird explodes. That made me laugh. LOL. Thankfully you can keep pumping coins into the game to keep going, so you don’t have to worry about lives lost…

Gunbird features many, many huge explosions, but they’re not too spectacular (not as spectacular as those I saw in Gradius IV recently!), and the action is busy throughout, but smooth and with no slowdown or tearing. This is an arcade game after all.

Gunbird is another hidden arcade gem that deserves to be dug out and dusted off by those in need of a quick (or a long) blast. A sequel, Gunbird 2, came out in 1998, and that’s even better. Both games feature distinctive, tall, vertical screens.

More: Gunbird on Wikipedia