Blazing Lazers

The gameplay features fast vertical scrolling and a wide array of weapons for the player to use. Produced by the same personnel who developed other video game series such as Puyo Puyo and Super Bomberman as well as other games such as Zanac, The Guardian Legend, and DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure. It was one of the first games released for the TurboGrafx-16 and has received critical praise for its graphical capabilities, lack of slowdown, intense gameplay, and sound. The Blazing Lazers version of the game has been released on the Wii's Virtual Console service in North America, Europe and Australia in 2007, and in Japan the following year. This same version was later released in Japan on the PlayStation Network in 2010, and on the Wii U's Virtual Console in 2014.

• Title — Blazing Lazers • Developer — Compile • Publisher — Hudson Soft • Director — Masamitsu Niitani • Designer — Koji Teramoto Hiromichi Sueyoshi Kazuyuki Nakashima • Programmer — Takayuki Hirono • Platforms — TurboGrafx-16 • Genre — Scrolling shooter • Modes — Single-player

• Illustration — The player dealing with enemy ships, shooting pyramids, and Moais in Area 5 The player takes control of the Gunhed Advanced Star Fighter through nine vertically scrolling areas. The player's mission is to destroy the Dark Squadron and its eight enemy Super Weapons. Every area contains one or more bosses, all of which must be destroyed before continuing in the game. Players lose a life if they are hit by an enemy or projectile, with the game continuing at a previously–crossed checkpoint, unless they grab a flashing orb which destroys all on-screen enemies and allows them to continue at the point where their previous ship was destroyed (represented by the icon illustrating the remaining number of ships turning gold). The game ends when all lives have been lost, but the game awards 1-ups when the player scores a particular number of points. The game provides four continues in which players can restart the game at that level in which their previous game ended provided the system is not turned off. The player controls a rapid-fire main cannon, which can either be upgraded or changed to other types of weapons by collecting various numbered power-ups and purple orbs called "gel capsules". Players can collect optional power-ups to help fight through the game such as "multibodies" that shadow their actions, homing missiles, shields, and enhanced firing capabilities known as "full fire". The player carries a limited supply of "cluster bombs" that can be deployed, destroying large quantities of enemies and bosses within the player's vicinity. Players have the function of selecting the speed of their ship, which can be toggled by pressing a button on the gamepad, among five different speeds (the button cycles between them in order). The number of triangles that appear below the player's score designate the speed of the player's ship. This allows players to customize the behavior of their ship at any time, trading off freedom of movement against ease of control: a faster ship is more agile, while a slower ship can be maneuvered more precisely.

Blazing Lazers was co-produced by Hudson Soft and Compile. The game was directed by Masamitsu "Moo" Niitani, president of Compile and creator of Zanac, The Guardian Legend, and the Puyo Puyo series; Mikio Ueyama, director of the Super Bomberman series for the Super NES; and Tadayuki Kawada, designer of the Super Famicom game DoReMi Fantasy. The game was released as Gunhed on July 7, 1989 for the Japanese PC Engine console as a tie-in to the film of the same name. It was subsequently released in North America as Blazing Lazers in November, with the game localized by removing the references to the film. The non-Gunhed version of the game was re-released on the Wii's Virtual Console service in 2007 for North America on September 5, in Europe on January 5, in Australia on June 7, and in Japan on June 17, 2008. This version was also released for the PlayStation Network in Japan on July 21, 2010. During development of the game Super Star Soldier, NEC considered calling the game Blazing Lazers II because of the similarity in gameplay with Blazing Lazers. The game was featured in a preview of then-future TurboGrafx-16 games in Electronic Gaming Monthly in November 1989. In a section previewing TurboGrafx-16 games, EGM said that game was a "total blast from start to finish".

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