Batsugun, the Original Bullet Hell Shooter, Gets Its First American Release

Each of these studios dabbled, to differing degrees, with bullet hell conventions. Bullet hell, danmaku, manic shooters, whatever you want to call them, that was Cave’s whole deal, and the perfecting of this subgenre through added layers of complexity (and bullets) was clearly their goal. And one they achieved, time and time again. Eighting still exists but no longer deals in shoot ‘em ups, but when they did, they had no problems filling the entire screen with bullets and chaos, creating elaborate patterns for players to have to dart in between and through all while avoiding having anything clip their hit box. The Giga Wing games are bullet hell to the point it’s difficult to discern what’s happening on screen sometimes: shoot what’s shooting at you, and avoid everything that isn’t a collectable point multiplier, and you’ll be fine. Easier said than done, which is the bullet hell way, but you can get there with practice.

While the original Batsugun release lacked the infinite loops Toaplan shooters were known for, it still had that all-important feature that extended both the gameplay and the challenge. In the arranged mode Special release of Batsugun that updated the arcade original (which Gazelle included in the Saturn release and is also be part of the modern re-release of that title by City Connection; it’s otherwise unreleased outside of location testing since Toaplan went bankrupt before it saw the light of day as a full release), the second loop began on stage 2, the third on stage 3, and so on. Each loop was shorter, yes, but they’d cut out the easier stages, leaving you with more difficult versions of more difficult stages to complete: completing them all is no easy task, especially as the birth of bullet hell as a subgenre is taking place in front of your eyes, assuming you can live long enough to witness it all. 

Batsugun isn’t quite as intense as what came after, no, but that’s no surprise. Still, it’s more than just playable 30 years after its initial release: it’s a delight. It might not seem all that manic at first despite its history as such a transitional title for shoot ‘em ups, but Toaplan was easing players into the idea of bullet hell and away from the kind of game they’d been developing for nearly a decade before that point. By Batsugun’s end, not only are you filling the screen with countless rounds, but your enemies are, too, and on the loops after you first “complete” the game? There aren’t just revenge bullets exploding forth from defeated enemies, but swarms of them that fill the screen up enough that there are times where it’s prudent to not shoot the second you see something, so that you can be sure there’s a place for your ship to escape to once you do. The more loops, the more bullets to dodge, revenge or otherwise, and enemies don’t necessarily repeat their movements and patterns from earlier loops, either.

In addition to its bullet hell history, Batsugun also featured an RPG element, with you earning experience points for each kill. Your ship can gain three levels, each of which powers up your weapon and changes its function so it can fire faster, cover more of the screen, hit harder, and so on. You don’t lose your level-based weapon power upon dying, either, so even as you respawn and aren’t granted any power-ups to recover with, you aren’t left helpless. You can also power up your weapon independently of your level, though. (And if you max out those power-ups, you can score quite a few bonus points by continuing to pick up the power-up items.) In Batsugun Special, you’re granted a shield to absorb one hit on the third level: it eats up some of your collected experience each time, so you’ll have to continue to defeat enemy ships to refill it and be granted another shield. So, you’re far from invincible even with this little boost, especially given how the game’s difficulty ramps by the time you’ve collected enough experience to even have a shield. 

No surprise considering Ikeda programmed both Batsugun and the Cave games that put them on the map, but there is a whole lot of what would eventually be seen in games like DonPachi on display in Batsugun. Not just in terms of masses of bullets to dodge, either, but in ship design: each of the three ships you can choose from in Batsugun has an equivalent in DonPachi, and I don’t mean visually speaking. The weapon design, the upgrades for those weapons, how they grow and interact and all of that, is found in both of these titles. For the same reason Gazelle would release Batsugun on the Saturn a few years after Toaplan closed down, it’s not like there was anyone to protect the bankrupt company’s ideas besides those who had conceived them in the first place. 

Batsugun is an important piece of videogame history that’s been hidden by circumstance from the eyes of those outside of Japan (or who aren’t obsessed with importing, modding, MAME, emulation, and so on). Now, though, this piece of connective tissue that served as the unofficial transition of shoot ‘em ups of the past to the bullet hell-driven ones of the future will be available worldwide, and it’s as much of a joy today as it was when Toaplan was working on its Special update nearly three decades ago. Buy it, play it, love it, or just admire that it’s even here now: Batsugun and the Toaplan employees who scattered after its release changed shoot ‘em ups forever, and in a way that’s got modern-day marketers for Sony-published Playstation 5-era exclusives like Returnal putting the words “bullet hell” in their copy. That’s some impact for a game most people have never even heard of, but maybe it’ll finally get its due all this time later.

Marc Normandin covers retro videogames at Retro XP, which you can read for free but support through his Patreon, and can be found on Twitter at @Marc_Normandin.