Gourmet Sentai Bara Yarou
  Okay, this one doesn't really feature many "monsters" per se (enemies are more on the human/android side of things) but it's certainly...interesting. Yeah, "interesting"...that should suffice. This is from the same warped minds who brought us the infamous "Cho Aniki" series. If you have any idea what I'm talking about, you should know what to expect. If you don't, put the village people in a blender with a "street fighter" game and you're halfway there. Gourmet Sentai, like Cho Aniki, features characters and situations bordering on the "erotic", in an awkward and surreal sense that induces nauseating waves of confusion. Freud would have a field day with the stuff this company gets away with. Thank whatever diety you worship that most of its games never leave japan. So how does the game actually PLAY, youi ask? Well, like I said, it's along the lines of Double Dragon and other classic beat-em-ups, but fruitier and more disturbing.
  Why the "gourmet" exactly? Well, every enemy drops food of some sort. At the end of every stage, you can choose two of the ingredients you've picked up and this totally badass chef will whip up a meal for you. Since I don't read japanese, I'm not sure what the purpose of this is, but that is one totally badass chef. Check him out:
Wow!!! Okay, Let's take look at the main characters now:
Yes, killer drill brasierre.
  You have three choices: shirtless oily muscleman, the female character from every game ever, and guy with lots of hair. They're all basically the same. When you press one of the unused buttons, your character poses at you suggestively. Big guy shows off his muscles, the girl shows off her butt and the hairy dude shows you the giant fan in his head, or something. There isn't much else to say except that one of the woman's attack methods involves falling on the opponent with a pair of conveniently placed drills.

I've had enough of these freaks. I'm going to talk about the bad guys now.
- Enemies -
  These crazy lightbulb guys appear once or twice per level, usually at the beginning, and run around glowing happily until you brutally kill them. The powerup they drop will create a shadowy clone of your character that helpfully fights alongside you.
These guys have giant switchblades inside that look quite wrong when they fold out, a process which actually kills them.
  Some less eventful but still slightly scary enemies. The almost naked guys and clawe-armed convicts just fight with physical attacks, the sword arms fly across the screen (usually in groups) and the guys with spherical armor stand motionless and spout flames.
You can barely see, but the robot head is being piloted by a tiny little person. They're in almost every level, and sometimes carry landmines. Alone, they will jump around shouting what sounds like "dinng, dinnng!" and try to dance on your head.
  These clawed girls come in a range of different colors (black armor, blonde with pink armor, etc.) and can leap using the jets on their backs. The last image is what happens to all enemies when you pick them up and slam them.
  Playboy bunnies? They aren't very strong but there's a lot of them. They kick you. I don't like that part.
THE GREATEST ENEMY EVER:
  Yeah, you heard me. This is why I even bothered to even make this page. You'll meet these guys late in the game, and there's only a couple. The sprite you see here is the only one there is - they have no animation whatsoever. How do they move? They vibrate. They stand in place and sloooowwwwwllllyyy glide toward you by vibrating. As far as I know, they can't even hurt you. If you hit them, they shake back and forth violently and whine something in japanese with a nasally, nerdy voice.

   I love them. I wish I could go on about them further, but there's nothing left to say. Let's go through the bosses, then, and get the hell out of here:
- BOSSES -
  First boss is some woman's giant disembodied head in a tank (or is that a face on a screen?) attached to a robot body. She hovers around, swipes with her arms and sometimes charges herself up with energy.
  The second boss plunges his stinger into you and thrusts it up and down to inject you with liquid. Yes, it looks as bad as it sounds. He also attacks with electrical mace-looking things.
  This one starts as another bunny girl, then acquires armor to become the evil cyborg queen of bunnies! She drifts about firing beams and punching. In case you were about to go and think this was a nice, normal boss, she eventually turns into a huge metal Tanuki. In japanese mythology, Tanukis are known for their exceptionally large....uh....well, there they are. In robot form.
  Finally, you take on the main villain, and what a nightmare he is! This shirtless, prancing magician with a girly voice comes armed with killer tie, killer doves, and killer hats that either explode or engulf you and transform you temporarily into a random enemy. I got turned into that greatest enemy ever the first time it happened. It was like controlling the greatest sack of wet cement ever.
  Last boss is some manner of energy eye thing that changes into a cube to smash you. If you hit it, it will either shrink (and become more annoying than ever) or transform into a big blue guy who sucks you in, turns into a cage, flies offscreen and comes down pounding you into the pavement under his feet. I couldn't beat him.

 

AIM / Yahoo: Scythemantis

Email / MSN: bogleech@hotmail.com

 

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