Gaiares

Some shoot 'em ups try to kill you from the very first pixel. Gaiares goes even further: it gives you a weapon you literally have to steal from the enemy, and only then does it start pounding you at full force.

Gaiares is a horizontal shoot 'em up for the SEGA Mega Drive, and its biggest draw is a system called TOZ. You fire a small unit toward an enemy, it absorbs that enemy's weapon system, and you then appropriate the shot for yourself. Instead of collecting predetermined power-ups, you literally steal the arsenal from your opponents, which turns every battle into a tactical game of whom to rob and when.

This mechanic gives the game unexpected depth. Different enemies offer different types of fire, so the player is constantly weighing which loadout to carry into the next battles and against the bosses. Otherwise it is a hard, fast shooter in the spirit of the genre classics of the day, with dense waves of enemies and enormous end bosses that will test your reflexes and your nerves.

Visually Gaiares ranks among the more ambitious titles on the console. The backgrounds are detailed, the effects rich, and the game tries to show what the Mega Drive can do on a grand scale. Together with its high difficulty, this makes it a title that will test you and give nothing away for free.

Thanks to its original weapon-stealing system and its challenge, Gaiares built a reputation among shmup fans as an above-average, technically accomplished shooter. It may not be the first name that comes to mind when the genre is mentioned, but connoisseurs rank it among the interesting and honestly designed titles of the Mega Drive library that are worth revisiting.

Why play it: For the clever system of stealing enemy weapons, which adds an extra tactical dimension to a classic shooter.