There’s gold in them thar hills…

Following on from final week’s wonderful Namco launch Dig Dug, Hamster has turned its consideration to Messrs Taito as soon as once more, bringing the veteran developer’s alternate historical past shmup Gun Frontier to the Arcade Archives vary on Nintendo Change and PS4.

Launched to the coin-op market in 1990, Gun Frontier is a very wild conflict of narrative concepts and visible designs. Set within the twenty second century towards the backdrop of the planet “Gloria,” a ruthless band of house pirates — The Wild Lizards — have captured the star and set its folks to work, mining the valuable gold ore that lies beneath Gloria’s floor. In a single last bid for freedom, the settlers commandeer a weird, pistol-shaped tank earlier than embarking on an all-out mission to defeat the oppressors and free the planet.

Take a look at the motion within the video beneath, courtesy of veteran YouTuber World of Longplays.

This interprets to 6 phases of vertically scrolling shmup motion, with the participant guiding their odd vessel into battle towards waves of enemies and boss characters. Beginning out with twin machine weapons, the ship may be upgraded by amassing power-ups from the battlefield. An attention-grabbing bomb mechanic rewards the participant for conserving their secondary ammo, providing up screen-clearing explosives which can be managed in relation to the vessel’s place on-screen.

Gun Frontier wouldn’t obtain a house port till a tweaked and remastered version appeared on Sega Saturn in 1997. The unique version has since featured on quite a few Taito compilations. Whereas there are arguably higher basic shmups in the marketplace, Gun Frontier stands out on account of its attention-grabbing rework of America’s frontier period, with numerous in-game designs constructed round themes resembling buffalo stampedes, silver {dollars}, outdated west weaponry, and, after all, the Californian Gold Rush.

Gun Frontier is offered to obtain now on PS4 and Nintendo Change.