Review: Gaiares (Sega Genesis)

[Daniel W. Rouse Jr.]

Gaiares (pronounced as Gaia-Res as in Gaia Restoration) is a horizontal
shooter by Telenet/Renovation.

There are a total of 8 stages in the game--with the last stage being a
battle with Queen Badnusty as the last boss mentioned in the game's
introduction screens.

The unique feature in this game is the TOZ. Shoot the TOZ at an enemy ship,
and if it has an available weapon, it will be learned by the players's ship,
thus acquiring the weapon. When the TOZ is deployed, the player's ship
cannot shoot weapons. Thus, some strategic use of the TOZ is needed to
acquire weapons, while not putting the player's ship in complete danger of
getting hit.

The game's manual mentions not to TOZ boss characters. This is true with one
exception--for the last boss, the TOZ can be used because it has dual TOZ
weapons, and while it steals the current weapon from the player, using the
TOZ on the final boss gets a random weapon. Otherwise, the TOZ can also be
used on midbosses.

In my opinion, the only weapons needed for the game are: H-Laser, G-Beam,
V-Laser, and T-missile. Learning P-cannon and S-laser is optional. Also of
note--I would not recommend powering up the T-missile past the second level,
while the third level is a bit more powerful, it is also significantly
slower than the faster level 2 firing level. Occasionally F-formation
occurs, but then the ship is powered down for the next stage. I have found
no use whatsoever for E-Smash--its firing power is extremely weak, and the
standard shield does a much better job of protecting the ship than E-Smash.

Generally speaking, the first four stages are of a standard difficulty of
most horizontal shooters--but take note: stages are divided into thirds.
Lose a turn between the start of the stage and the midboss, and get sent to
the beginning of the stage. Lose a turn after the midboss but before the
boss, get sent back to the just after the midboss. Some boss attacks have
two bosses--lose a turn at the second boss and get sent back just before the
first boss. For single boss attacks--lose a turn at the boss and get sent
back just before the boss. This, in addition to the ramped up difficulty
starting at stage 5, is what makes Gaiares much harder than the instant
respawn type horizontal shooters.

Some of my recommendations:

Stage 1: Get all three levels of G-Beam from the midboss, then use the top
route. Get H-Laser up to level three from the intial laser firing ships,
then get HOMING missiles from the turrets.

Stage 2: Get V-laser from the midboss, up to level 3. However, DO NOT enter
the boss section of the stage with V-laser. It will take a very long time to
open the clamshell enclosing the mermaid boss, and then the mermaid boss
will charge into the player's ship due to how long it took to open the
clamshell. Instead, get G-Beam just before entering the mermaid boss section
of the stage and it's only a two minute boss battle.

In general, TOZ a shield icon and get a 5 hit shield. It is not necessary to
pick up the shield icon once the TOZ has been used on it. But, just picking
up the shield icon without using the TOZ on it only gives a 3 hit shield.

Also, learn those boss attack patterns well--stage 7 is a "boss rush" stage
where every boss out of the six stages so far has to be attacked and
destroyed one at a time... then it has it own end of stage boss.

Music is okay. I'd say the odd stages have a decent pop/rock style theme
whereas the even stages have more abstract sounding music.

So in general, hard to finish, but not so hard as to be unplayable. For an
extra challenge, there is a Very Hard setting in addition to the default
Normal setting.