Gunbird 2

Gunbird 2 is a 2D scrolling shooter, sequel to the original Gunbird game.

Story
Through gameplay cutscenes (and endings) it appears that the zany, uproarious (and at times rather adult) humor is considerably increased since the original Gunbird. The game has numerous similarities to the Parodius series, including the final boss in the game, a cartoon elephant playing a trumpet.

Gameplay
There are seven stages in each game loop (two loops total). The first three stages are randomly chosen from possible four. At 2nd loop, enemies fire denser bullet patterns moving at faster speeds. Stage 2-1 takes place at the only stage not available in 1st loop, instead of the 1-1 counterpart. After completing 1st loop with only one player, player can choose one of two choices for a wish with magic potion, with unique ending for each choice. If 1st loop is completed with two players, a combination-specific ending is played.

This is the first Psikyo shooter to feature medal-chaining: picking up 2000 point medals (when they flash) repeatedly results in a slight point increase and a coin chain, recorded separately from the score. This was later featured in Strikers 1945 III/Strikers 1999 and Strikers 1945 Plus.

Characters



 * Great magician Marion: The young English witch from Gunbird returns, with Pom-Pom returning as well.
 * Lonely vampire Alucard: The son of Dracula (hence the backward spelling). Also a vampire, and capable of great inhuman powers. Although he is good in comparison to his father, he still craves human blood.
 * Military robot Valpiro: The same robot as Valnus in the original Gunbird. He may have sinister plans for the potion if he obtains it, depending on which ending you receive.
 * Flying excellence Tavia: A cute, bespectacled, preteen girl with a jetpack on her back. She is the niece of Ash (who cameos in some of her co-op endings) from the original Gunbird. Emotional and cries easily. When paired with Alucard, she falls in love with him.
 * Brown fat body Hei-Cobb: A short, fat, turban-sporting man of Arabic descent. He rides a flying carpet. During his cutscenes he is sometimes proud, and sometimes ashamed, of his figure.
 * Aine: A one-eyed samurai from Sengoku Ace series. Whereas it is not clear in the Sengoku Ace game that he is unclosetedly homosexual (like Tetsu in Gunbird), such subtlety is thrown out the window in Gunbird 2, especially during the ending scene with Aine and another cooperative player, in which he takes his partner to bed with him (in his co-op ending with Marion, he does this to a Pom-Pom turned human, while in the ending with Tavia, he does so to Ash). In arcade machine, Aine is selectable if arcade board settings allow Aine to be selected.
 * Morrigan: A succubus from the Darkstalkers series. On the Dreamcast version, pressing up or down on the random character select allows the player to choose between Aine and Morrigan.
 * The Queen Pirates trio: The enemy in Gunbird 2, their design based on the Time Bokan/Yatterman villains.
 * The Elephant God: The end boss and an obvious parody of Satochan, the mascot of Sato Pharmaceuticals, a Japanese pharmaceutical company. This is appropriate, given that the protagonists in the game are all searching for a cure to their individual weakness, and Satochan is a pop culture icon in Japan.

Multilingual support
The arcade game supports both English and Japanese languages, chosen via arcade board dip switch settings. The language setting is Japanese if dip switches are set to Japanese, English otherwise.

Dreamcast version
New fighters in the Sega Dreamcast, released in 2000, include Morrigan and Aine (an unlocked character). Other new features include Internet ranking, gallery, and voices during intermission.

PlayStation 2 version
PlayStation 2 version of the game was based on arcade version.

PlayStation Portable version
A enhanced remake, titled Gunbird 2 Remix will be released for PlayStation Portable (via PlayStation Network) in 2010. It will be published by PM Studios, and it will feature hybrid 2D/3D graphics.