Ball Bullet Gun (SNES)

There's true story about my vacation on last December: in some recreation place, i was able to shoot the target seven times with airsoft gun. My prize: 1 free pass to 'flying fox' course and it's not fun. Perhaps i have talent for playing airsoft gun or survival game? Anyway, there's videogame about survival game: I'MAX's Ball Bullet Gun (1995).  

Why the 'U' melts down? Beats me. The game only releases in Japan and i play its version that's translated by someone named 'Aeon Genesis'. For those of you who doesn't know about 'survival game', it's sport that using airsoft gun that often replica of real gun and played in group. So it's airsoft gun sport, not game about preserving your own survival against hostiles (most commonly zombie) with limited resources. I hope you're not entirely disappointed for that.

As i'm alone play this game, i hit '1 player' option. But it leads me to team making, because there isn't any team currently. So i have to make one first, before we get started.  

Because there's no selection of fat middle-aged man with curly hair like dried noodle for leader character. So i leave the leadership to Aliasse from Valkyria Chronicles 2, instead of myself. She's a Valkyrur. She got fairly good reputation. The leader has access to entire arsenal and have skill to view overall data of ally units.

 

As for the rest of the team, they're categorized into 4 type/class. Attacker is the most balanced; has skill "Pineapple" which throws frag grenade; and allowed to have weapon type: assault rifle, handgun, knife, and shotgun. Task Force has most AP (Action Point) thus allowing to do many moves and shoots which behave like *ughh* scout; has skill "Trap" which sets bear trap or explosive trap; and allowed to have weapon type: assault rifle, handgun, auto-handgun/SMG, and knife. Defender has most Hitpoints and evasion; has skill "Recover" which heals nearby all including him/herself; and allowed to have weapon type: assault rifle, handgun, and auto-handgun/SMG. Sniper is -as we all know- excel at shooting from long range; has skill "Point Shoot" which set own accuracy to 99%; and allowed to have weapon type: semi-auto rifle/sniper rifle, and handgun.

After intensive research for inspirations and character editing ...

All right. Below Aliasse from top to bottom, we have: Rebecca Chamber from Resident Evil; Ramirez, my rifleman buddy from Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 (PC); DoomGuy from -you know- (classic) Doom; Haruna from Battle Moon War; Sniper, my 3rd favorite class  in Team Fortress 2; Flash from G.I Joe; and finally Jinn Hayakawa from Gundhara (Arcade). Actually, i really like to enlist my sniper buddy from Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 (PC), he's really awesome. Just imagine that he can dispatches enemies from more than 50 meters away by using MP5 SMG. It's bug/glitch, i know. Sadly, i forgot his name. I did research via its wiki and turn out that it's she and my memory refuses to acknowledge that. If you happen to have played the game, i really appreciate it if you willing to confirm that via comment. By the way, i name the team "Stray Bullets" because it consist of crossover characters that somehow ended up here. Not to depict how terrible their aim are. Hopefully.

As for team editor menu: 'Type' is to make new member from square one, 'Name' is to change name's member, 'Outfit' is to change member's weapon also to view his/her stats, and 'End' to end the editing. Once you press the 'End', you can't change member's type later, only name and equipment.

 

First mission: 2 on 2 against team called "Little Apple". Pfhah! What a puny name. The leader (on the right) is really cocky as he keep shaking his hand with his index finger ups, like "You can't beat us."

 

Aliasse along with DoomGuy are up to the task. To order unit move the cursor to the unit you want to control and press 'A' button. Beside move, special (skill) and shoot command, there's 'search' which allow controlled unit to change facing or to look farther , disclosing more fog of war at the cost of 1 AP. My strategy is: Aliasse in the back of DoomGuy as he's tough guy and able to heal. Also with current equipment, she's semi-sniper.   

Before the shooting begins, there's this analysis. Hit & evasion factor is i can easily understand. While topography and direction are quite unperceivable. Is 'D' for topography (which i assume is where the target is standing) means bad for evasion or the otherwise? Is 'A' for direction (which is target's facing direction) means good for evasion or the otherwise? Thing for sure: Hit 55% will results in pretty accurate shoot. Plus, DoomGuy using M-16 which shoot more than single bullet. So i'm getting confident that he can beats this "Little Apple" guy. By the way, you don't have to worry about enemy's retaliation or counter. Because there's none. So feel free to shoot while you can.

 

He's definitely no match for DoomGuy. That means 1 more victim. Pressing 'Y' button will bring menu of 'Map', 'Turn End', or 'Save End' (which is other word for save & exit).

 

Here's nice feature that makes you feel tense. During enemy's turn, you don't exactly see their action in map where you order your team. Instead, the game presents you with this theater-like intermission. You may only know their action like moving, shooting, or setting trap in this screen. While you have to rely on your team's observation to know enemy's position. So team's position and face direction are vital in this game.

 

My strategy is success! I let DoomGuy goes ahead first so he will be targeted and soon with combined fire, the enemy can be dispatched quite easily. You may notice that unit's HP is in single digit which is considered very small in RPG. But here, successful attack only worth 1 point. So this game's emphasizes more on evasion and accuracy. You don't need to worry about attack power and defense power, here. So you can consider DoomGuy is really beefy (his HP is twice than enemy's attacker) and he can heal around. His healing only recovers 1 point but still much better than no healing at all.

 

Winning the battle earns us Desert Eagle, the famous magnum handgun. Nice!  

 

Furthermore, Aliasse got leveled up. Actually, there's no level on any unit. It just Aliasse got increment on her evasion for doing excellent in this mission. I have played this mission twice before this, in which Aliasse doesn't survive till the end. She's fragile in this game. Then we got only the Desert Eagle. So there's chance that the leader will get upgrade by doing mission perfectly.

 

I figure i have to check our loot immediately also it's perfect time to talk about the weapon's specification. It quite late, i know. On right-bottom corner, there's weapon's effective range radius. The center-bottom block indicates the unit who equip it. White blocks indicates area where the weapon can't be shot at all. AP indicates AP cost to shoot the weapon. 1Shot indicates how many bullet will be shot consecutively per shoot. SMG/assault rifle/semi-auto handgun often have range on 1Shot. For example: 1-4 means on every shoot, the weapon will shoot 1 to 4 and determined randomly/by chance. While shotgun has extra indication for amount of bullet shot simultaneously per shoot. Capacity indicates capacity of weapon's magazine. Charge AP indicates AP cost to reload the weapon. Weight is important stats because it directly affects the unit's max AP. I mean: weight's number will reduce unit's max AP to equip. Which means lighter weapon will reduce wielder's max AP less.      

 

Next mission is our 1st handicapped battle: 2 on 3. Also 1st mission with "Bring the team to this spot" objective.

 

Should you forget what your current weapon's effective range. The game tells you a gist of it. Like that small 'B' letter. You may think that this area is inappropriate for semi-auto rifle warfare. And you're right. That sniper and Aliasse are burden on their team. Further explanation: semi-auto rifle can only shoot in long range and shot 1 bullet per shoot only. Yes, it tend to be accurate. But that accuracy and long range advantage are useless in this situation. So anything but sniper rifle is perfect to use here. Luckily Aliasse brings along semi-auto handgun which makes her less burdening. I have to say that this urban warfare situation is quite fit to real life combat.

Aliasse downs during combat with 2nd enemy. But DoomGuy manages to dispatch him and this last guy by himself. It's not miracle, everyone. He's DoomGuy. He slays dozens of Cacodemon before breakfast. And for it, he eat Supercharge instead of cereal or porridge.

 

We got fairly low score, mainly not because there's a casualty. But i think it's more down to low (objective) point as none of my team is get in the target point. The mission is automatically over when our enemies are all taken down. But we got Ingram and 'cat symbol' rank, this time. I'm happy enough for that. 

 

Next mission is 4 on 4. Either eliminate all enemies or shoot down all their cans, to win this mission. On this opportunity, i bring Rebecca and Ramirez. My plan: seek and destroy. Ignoring our cans. That sounds like reckless battle plan, right?

 

If the enemy is near an ally but not within his/her vision, he/she say like "I think i heard something" or "I feel there's enemy nearby". Also he/she say "It seems the enemy is circling around" or "I lost him. Sorry" if enemy is out of his/her sight. Again, it's nice feature that makes you tense during enemy's turn.

 

I'm late to realize that Pressing 'Y' button will also gives you information about selected terrain block. For example this skeleton is an obstacle that unit can't walk into but can pass bullet and search vision. Giving how kiddy the presentation of this game, i assume these skeletons are made on plastic and has "Made in China" writing on the back of their head. 

I think you want to see how the shoot-y action going on, so i present you this screenshot. The bullets are yellow orb things like common projectile in any shooter action game like Mercs. These liven up the title: Ball Bullet Gun, you see.  

 

My plan is considerably success. Everyone's happy to achieve victory. But Rebecca seems bit confused. Because with that kind of scary place, she's expecting to shoot zombies, instead of normal humans.

For clearing the mission, we got XM177 assault rifle. But that's more like M4A1 carbine to me.

 

Next mission is set on another office building but this time against Green Army, which i assume to be tougher than Little Apple, according to team's name. Sometime, ally says something creepy like "It's too here" for no reason. And if there's only one ally standing left, he/she says "My heart is beating fast" or "My pulse is racing". Once again it's great atmospheric feature.

 

Look what we got here! We have the Snake that's can be easily detected by us. He's clearly disgrace to any Snake on Metal Gear series. Besides Gas Snake in P.O.W. 

They managed to get rid of enemy that carries UZI which is the most lethal enemy in this "narrow place" situation. Good job! By the way, where's the employees go? It's still 00:20 PM. The lazy sods.

Clearing the mission with really high point only earn us Beretta handgun. I suspect that the leveling-up part only happen in some mission. So there's target to replay the mission presumably with higher score.

 

It's very late of me to realize that: on this pre-battle screen, you can identify enemy's team with quite detail. The ones carrying rifle diagonal sideway are sniper. The one carrying smaller gun (right-top one) carries SMG. The one carrying bigger gun (right-bottom one) carries assault rifle. Also, this time enemy has Defender too! By the way is 5 on 6 battle. So i can carry all 5 type of ally which means...

 

...Yes, there's The Sniper. He's surely better sniper than Aliasse. He's my 2nd favorite member after DoomGuy. I split the team into 2 group that cover north area and south area.  Sniper and Haruna are 1st group while the rest are 2nd group.

 

Here i make the biggest mistake after sending DoomGuy too far which makes him goes down pretty immediately (that also mean we no longer have healer): i make Jinn to shoot that tight-packed group of enemy, instead of using his skill to throw grenade. My stupidity is paid hardly on enemy's turn: one of them there using that skill and makes Jinn nearly K.O. Luckily on next turn they can be dispatched just in time. 

 

On the north side, Haruna manage to shoot down the can while Sniper keep eyes on east. But enemy's leader manage to hit Haruna and immediately run. Darn!

 

You can't be a great sniper without a skill to enhance your accuracy. At cost of extra 1 AP, Sniper can precisely hit enemy leader which is within his range.

Jinn is out. Unexpectedly, Haruna can finish the last 2 enemies there, just in time. I revised my opinion on usefulness of 'Task Force' type. She may doesn't have great sight range. But her many AP and her SMG makes her a great savior on this last moment.

 

Yeah, i know that "sniping is a good job", sniper. But i believe the real MVP for this mission goes to Haruna. While on previous missions: DoomGuy. It's purely my fault. Nonetheless, great job, everyone! (:

 

Besides another "cat symbol" rank, we got the legendary SMG: MP5! Medic_mvm_loot_godlike03.wav

 

And their defender join the group. I believe DoomGuy has more charm than you Acheron. So you often end up in reserve bench. I'm sorry. Wait! You can do healing too?! Welcome, aboard!

That's few hours of my playthrough on Ball Bullet Gun. I don't experience many Tactical Strategy game like this. In fact, only 2 besides it: Valkyria Chronicles 2 and Silent Storm. I can say that BBG is more enjoyable than those two. It can be unforgiving, like one mis-step can prove fatal, or your unit tend to miss his/her shoot a lot even though the hit % is considerably high. But that's common for game of that genre. I mean: tell me a game like this that has soft easy difficulty! I don't think you can. I'm certain that BBG is the simpler game than any Tactical Strategy game in term of gameplay. You don't need to worry about stances, experience grinding, money grinding, counter attacks, or traits/personality. It's all about accuracy/evasion, positioning, AP management, sighting, and proper armament. Ally's casualty doesn't makes you get sever penalty, it only affects points in end-mission assessment. The graphics are beautiful and cute. The same goes to music, which akin to the ones in Crusader of Centy, only much softer. My only biggest problem: it lacks of further character editing. At least i want to change color of character's hair, hat, or helmet.

My perception is pretty obvious. I really like this game and you should try it too. You can make and order chibi DoomGuy here. Is that not good enough to you? Also, i like to recommend you to watch Sabagebu! anime which is related to Survival Game too. Just be aware that the protagonist's personality grows vile on each episode and it contains explicit "Yuri".