Game Info
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Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
Year of Release: 1987
Game Review & Impressions
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Another coin-op who's existence I only knew about through the C64 and Amiga home conversions, Gemini Wing is yet another mid-to-late 80s vertical shoot 'em up which I never actually saw in the flesh. It's pretty representative of the era in terms of design, but it tries to set itself apart from its contemporaries through its approach to power-ups.
Unlike similar games, the special weapons in Gemini Wing are all one-shot consumable items. These "Gun-Balls" appear as round tokens adorned with an icon depicting the type of shot or special which will be unleased when activated. The tokens bunch up behind your craft when collected, with the one closest to the tail end of the ship being the next to be fired. The usefulness of these weapons varies, and some players will have certain preferences as to which offer the most benefit, and prioritising exactly which tokens you want to grab in favour of others becomes a major part of the game. Certain mid-tier enemies will even spawn with a trail of Gun-Balls that change when shot, allowing savvy players to stock up on their favourite weapons.
On a graphical level, Gemini Wing is fairly typical for the time period. There are plenty of colourful sprites filling the screen, and the artwork and backgrounds are nicely detailed. I don't think it's up to the level of Konami's A-Jax (covered a couple of weeks back), but the insectoid enemies are all pretty cool to look at. The Cronenbergian spaghetti-and-meatballs morass of a boss at the end of level 5 suggests the The Fly, released a year prior, may well have been an influence here.
In the wake of games like DoDonPachi, it can be difficult going back to these comparatively primitive games, but they still hold relevance. The concept and designs would filter down into subsequent products, and I would suggest Gemini Wing is one of the more direct influences on Xenon 2: Megablast, one of the most popular shooters on the Amiga, and it's significance is should probably be judged more by it's influence on the genre as a whole.
Chapters
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00:00 Attract mode
00:20 Stage 1
03:00 Stage 2
05:50 Stage 3
08:30 Stage 4
11:44 Stage 5
14:40 Stage 6
23:45 Ending