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バルンバ
©1989 Zap Corp./Namco Ltd
Release : 1990-04-27 (¥6800)
HuCard (4 Mbits) NC90003
Shooter / Horizontal
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Barunba is a multi-directorional shooter developed by Zap Corp
and published by Namco. The evil Dr Dopperu has plans of world
domination and his army of robots brings terror and destruction everywhere
they go. The antigravity-ship Barunba is sent to stop the massive
threat and to restore peace to the region. The globe-shaped fighter comes
equipped with a rather unusual weapon system - a rotating ring is mounted
around the ship and gives it the peculiar ability to shoot in any direction
(the first action button rotates the ring clockwise and the Run
button anticlockwise). The Barunba is also equipped with a fair
arsenal of lethal weapons that range from a fast-paced and conventional
Vulcan gun (V) to a slow piercing laser (L), powerful
Napalm Bombs (N) and a round Shield beam (S) that can be
charged up and used as a shield. Each weapon can be switched to on the
fly by pressing Select, and they can be individually upgraded
up to three times (five upgrade slots and three power levels total) - curiously,
they apparently lose their power overtime and need to be regularly upgraded.
Barunba consists of five large stages (each featuring a mid-way boss
as well as a tougher final boss) and is single-player only.
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Barunba was ported in 1990 to the Japanese MSX2 on two
floppy disks (picture on the left). Like most (if not all) MSX games, this port has a very choppy
multi-directional scrolling and the graphics took a serious hit.
Surprisingly, the MSX2 port doesn't feature the rotating ring anymore, and uses instead
pre-defined configurations that the player can change during gameplay
(such as front, sides and four-ways) .
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Game Staff (Copied from the end credits) :
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STAFF
Game Design
T. Kajii
H. Miyakushi
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Character Design
Macot . E
M. Tamura
G. Kiyasu
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Program
K. Matsuda
K. Miyoshi
T. Yoshimine
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Sound
M. Itoh
H. Nishikawa
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O
M
A
K
E
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Click on picture to enlarge |
S
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C
R
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T
S
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Continue:
When you lose a life, at the Game Over screen, hold Up
and press Run to continue. However, the game resets all the
weapons to their lowest power level when you continue...
Gameplay Tips:
Barunba is a very difficult game. However, the best
weapon against some of the bosses is curiously the shield
(it is the only weapon that can absord enemy fire).
For instance, the mole boss (level 4) can be easily disposed of
by staying in the small opening in the left of the screen. When
the large mole appears, a safe spot can be found in the top-left
corner of the screen. Again, the final three bosses from level 5 can
be easily defeated with the shield.
Weapon Power Levels:
Weapon levels in Barumba can be a bit confusing. Each
weapon has three power levels, but five upgrades need to be
collected in order to reach the third level, and each
sub-evel is color coded:
Level 1 (Low) - Red/Purple
Level 2 (Medium) - Blue/Turquoise
Level 3 (High) - Green
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
O
V
s
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Barunba is really average and doesn't quite hit the mark...
for instance, the graphics are rather nice in some places, and quite
messy and plain ugly in others. The pace of the game is also painfully
slow - not much really happens for long stretches of time, and this is
not much of a problem the first time you play, but it becomes a
frustrating yawn-a-thon later on. Add to that the fact that you
have only ONE life to complete the whole game, so, believe me,
you will fly through these first levels ad nauseam before getting
to see the end of it! The rotating gun is also tricky to use - other
games (such as the popular Forgotten Worlds and the less
popular Hany in the sky) use this feature and I have never
been fond of it. In my opinion, conventional directional controllers
(D-Pads) are just not designed to handle it well, and the
whole experience is generally unduly cumbersome. All in all,
Barunba is technically correct and has its fair share
of originality with large bosses and surprises sprinkled here and there,
and how many games get you to see the pilot through the cockpit windshield?
That definitively gives the ship some added flair, right? But the game could have been
much better and the rotating gun isn't really enough of a selling feature
for me. In the end, just a slow paced and really average shooter...
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