X-Puuunch!

70s-style Robot Anime Geppy-X is the type of game you have to share with your friends. Well, certain friends. In my case, the ones I called after discovering Spectreman on WTBS one glorious afternoon or Dynaman on Night Flight nearly a decade later. It’s a game made specifically for those who get it, and in this case, the “it” is defined right there in the title.

70s-style Robot Anime Geppy-X (because I can’t repeat that title enough) is a side-scrolling shooter that’s meant to recreate the experience of watching anime on the old CRT television down in the den. The game isn’t split into levels, it’s split into episodes, complete with opening themes, bumpers, commercials, and even previews of the next episode.

It recreates this experience with such loving accuracy that you may be fooled into thinking the show actually existed. It didn’t, but the game did. Developed and published by Aroma, Geppy-X originally appeared on PlayStation in 1999, but in Japan only. It’s now been remastered and rereleased by Bliss Brain, and whether you should take advantage of that depends upon what you want out of your shooters.

The game is set in 197X as the Cosmic Demon Empire has launched an attack on the Earth. As one would expect, we’re ill-equipped to counter this threat until Professor Kureishi unveils his secretive Geppy-X super robot and the three pilots brave enough to fly it and its changing forms.

This is all told through 8,000 hand-drawn anime frames that have been restored from the original 15 fps, 320×240 presentation (although you can select to still watch them in that format).

It’s confusing at first, as you’re not sure if you’re watching the game intro or an episode intro. Or a commercial. The developers took the concept so far as to create commercials for Geppy-X toys and merchandising tie-ins so accurate to the time period that you’ll think you actually owned the products. It’s all very funny and very charming.

That accuracy carries over to the “anime” itself, which very much feels like a show you may have watched back in the day…had you been alive. I really got a kick out of this nostalgia blast because I was the perfect age for this type of entertainment in the ’70s. I imagine younger gamers won’t get it, though, and that takes us to the gameplay.

As far as side-scrolling shooters go, 70s-style Robot Anime Geppy-X is just OK. The action scrolls left, and you’ll need to pilot your mech all around the screen in order to get the best attack point. Controls are a bit clunky, however, and the Geppy-X takes up a lot of space. Couple that with bullet patterns and giant enemies to take out, and there’s little room for avoidance. Durable shields help to alleviate this, but the action is still harder to push through than it should be. This is addressed somewhat in this version through the ability to rewind and save anywhere, but that doesn’t stop the gameplay from looking and feeling dated.

The developers must have realized this, and chose to compensate by improving the packaging. They’ve added a rapid-fire option to ease combat a bit. They’ve included a digital manual just for kicks (the game really doesn’t need it once you’ve learned the basics). They’ve provided various CRT filters to hammer home the ’70s experience.

And after you complete the game there are some absolutely wonderful bonuses that change up both the gameplay and TV viewing experiences.

It all combines to create a game that’s better to experience than to play. That sounds like a negative, and in most cases it would be. Here, though, it all still works. That I wanted to hurry up and get through the combat just so I could see the next commercial is an amazing achievement  (and it helps that multiple difficulty settings make this easier to do). I would recommend the game based entirely on that, but is humorous nostalgia worth the game’s asking price of $40? I imagine those who owned a Shogun Warrior would be fine with it, but everyone else should try the demo first.