Taito’s Gekirindan, the Saturn version shown here the only unemulated home port the game’s ever had (the arcade version can be found on some of those slightly confusing jumbles of Taito Memories/Legends compilations, as well as the Egret Mini II’s “Arcade Memories Vol.1”), is something I think of as a sort of “filler” shmup, something inoffensive and uncomplicated to play between more demanding, more engaging, experiences. This is the sort of shoot ’em up I turn to when I don’t want to learn anything, I don’t want to have to think too hard about how I play or memorise boss patterns or have any particular opinion on ships or shot types, I just want to fill a little patch of free time in an enjoyable way.
Which rather sounds like I’m in a rush to damn this shmup with faint praise, doesn’t it? But it’s more that I’m trying to find a kind way to gently bring this article around to an inescapable truth: this is not as good as Radiant Silvergun. Or Battle Garegga. Or Batsugun. Or more than a few other shmups on the system either. It’s just not. It’s too simplistic to seriously play for score, yet not fancy enough to play purely for spectacle. If you were to make a list of great arcade shmups with suitably polished Saturn ports, this game’s name wouldn’t be on it.
But that’s why those games are so special: they’re the specks of wheat hidden within the usual chaff. They push beyond boundaries most games couldn’t reach at the time, and still struggle to match today. They’re exceptional. Unique.
Extraordinary, even.
Or, to belabour this to the point of testing your patience: not ordinary.
And it’s very easy to forget that when they and similar shmups on other formats are the ones I keep returning to and the only games I usually consider talking about when I want to add (another) shmup article to my site, which is why a pleasant if relatively uneventful afternoon spent with Gekirindan is so darned useful: this is an interactive reminder of what an ordinary ’90s shmup really looks like. Spending time with “lesser” games like this adds context and a broader worldview to an era that’s now fading from memory for some of us, never experienced by others, and decades past for everyone. It’s the plain truth preserved forever on a shiny CD, and a handy reset button for my own personal perspective, one skewed by a combination of time and well-meant yet consistently thoughtless returns to the same small pool of certified classics.
Just like a cracked and unremarkable clay pot unearthed from a dusty dig site helps to shed some light on what everyday life was like centuries ago outside of the skewed views of those wealthy, powerful, or privileged enough to have their opinions passed on, Gekirindan’s unvarnished and unchangeable shortcomings can serve as an informative window into gaming’s past.
It’s an arcade shmup that’s clearly not arcade perfect for starters: this port’s intro and ending are for some strange reason presented as conspicuously grainy FMV clips, there’s the odd bout of mid-action loading, and a few key special effects that don’t really “do” anything, but would have made the game look more polished and exciting, are nowhere to be found. Strangely enough things get even worse if Gekirindan’s played in the standard 4:3 mode—you know, the one that in truth most people would use when playing at home—which for whatever reason omits even more effects (pretty much any sort of fancy wibbly thing) and then has the nerve to introduce a horrible camera lurch as you move around the screen in an attempt to compensate for the reduced viewing area.
So this isn’t tolerable by today’s standards, but is it actually abnormal for the era? Really? No, I don’t think so. Compromises of all shapes and sizes were a routine feature in arcade conversions at the time, even the good ones by developers that seemed determined to pour every last drop of blood, sweat, and tears into their ports (Capcom’s Saturn efforts, for example). Loading has, to me, always signified the start of something new and exciting and arcade like that wasn’t chopped up and squished down until it could all neatly fit into the available memory, so to see this game hitch slightly as it takes a moment to pull a giant boss sprite off the disc… well, that’s just awesome as far as I’m concerned.
In any case, dwelling on what’s been lost or what doesn’t measure up to the legends that keep on stealing all of everyone’s time and attention in this space leaves us in danger of missing out on all the good stuff Gekirindan gets right. As the second stage goes from day to night you’ll see little street lights flicker on and then illuminate the immaculately pixelled cobbles below, and in another a gigantic battleship sets sail as you fly over it, then dramatically crashes through several aircraft carriers as you blow it up piece by piece. In the distant future massive turret-carrying metal platforms fall away into the abyss if you think to shoot the small plates connecting them to the walls, and in space little enemies in armoured suits appear riding on the backs of equally aggressive spacecraft. We’ve got destructible terrain, a selection of midbosses, and creepy biomonsterthingies coming through time portals: this is not sloppy gaming gruel to experience every now and then to make sure we’re appropriately grateful for the good stuff, it’s just—here comes that word again—ordinary. And ordinary doesn’t mean “bad”, ordinary means the subject in question consistently adheres to the standards expected of it at the time.
Gekirindan’s Saturn port is an interactive sample of a time gone by, one unable to edit, patch, or update itself to suit modern tastes and expectations. This is what bringing the arcade home usually meant in the ’90s: not fancy imported RAM carts and the impossible made real, but a series of compromises that hoped to capture the original’s spirit; and yes, that spirit would sometimes manifest as a very straightforward shmup that really was only concerned with Shooting Them Up; little ships with lasers blowing things to bits and collecting shinies that didn’t “do” anything other than grant a completely flat points bonus when picked up, a few minutes fun in exchange for a single coin.
Games aren’t homework, and there is nothing wrong with choosing to spend your personal time with something special. But mountains without valleys are just hills—or to put it another way, a cherry-picked past that airbrushes games like Gekirindan out of it is not as extraordinary as one that chooses to embrace them.
So keep on being ordinary, Gekirindan. Shmups wouldn’t be the same—wouldn’t be as special—without you.
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Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 