Blood Gear:

[termis]

Well, I thought I'd write up a mini review of the game once I was finished with it, but I can't because I'm stuck!  For now, I'll just say that it's a solid action-RPG.  And the action sequences reminds me of something like a toned-down version of Cybernator or Target Earth. 

Anyway, I can't find a damn thing about this game on the web, and it seems a few of you have played this game, so help me out if you remember this part - sorry for the crap pics - I'm not too handy with a camera:

Here's the overworld part where I'm stuck.  To the northwest, I see some mech, but I can't do anything there, I just enter from the left side of the screen, and over a structure in the center part of the scene, then I just exit again on the right, and I'm back where I am.  I presume I have to get to the enemy boss somehow, but I'm not exactly sure how.

So in the mean time, it looks like I can do something on the right side of the screen, the maze in the forest -- I figure I have to do something here before I move on to the boss on the top section.


So here I am, and I've got the map of the maze from the commander in the town (shown on screen), but I have no idea where I'm going.  I just keep on warping from one part of the maze to another.  The far-right and far-left have these barriers, but I can't get through them.  I tried using the same bombs that you use to blow through the barrier in the dam part of the game, but that doesn't do anything...


Anyone know what I'm supposed to do?   

Oh, and my mech sometimes get into the "lock" mode, where it doesn't turn around.  What exactly triggers that event?  It seems somewhat randomly for me.  Is it when I get hit in a certain way?

[Keranu]

You know I am stuck in this game too and it might be the same part, but I'd have to load my game again to check since I haven't played it for like nine months or so.

[shubibiman]

I finished this game quite a long time ago (5 years ago) and I don't remember being stuck. It can't be too hard a problem, I guess. Have you tried to use or buy a special item?

[GUTS]

Toned down Cybernator??  Blood Gear is the mech game that Cybernator and Target Earth only wish they could they could have been.  Anyway though, you probably just need to buy something like Shubibiman said.  I finished the game years ago with no problems, and I don't know a single bit of Japanese beyond domo arigato. 

Anytime you get stuck you either need to talk to someone in town, or buy something at a shop, did you try revisiting the few places you can go and see if something new has happened?

[runinruder]

Anytime you get stuck you either need to talk to someone in town, or buy something at a shop,

Or discard an item.  I remember getting stuck one time because someone was trying to give me a new item but my inventory was full.  This was long before I was able to read any Japanese, so I had no idea what the problem was.

[termis]

Anytime you get stuck you either need to talk to someone in town, or buy something at a shop,

Or discard an item.  I remember getting stuck one time because someone was trying to give me a new item but my inventory was full.  This was long before I was able to read any Japanese, so I had no idea what the problem was. 

Actually just made it through.  Damn, that was a confusing-ass maze.  It wasn't an item issue - though that definitely is a good tip.  That happened to me too (my inventory being full), though I was fortunate enough to understand what the game was saying.

Keranu, if you're actually stuck on that part, you basically have to warp through the right set of those green transfer beam things.  That's the tough part.  I'm not sure exactly how I did it, but I think I warped back and forth between ones in the upper-central area until it got me to through to the right one - you'll notice it immediately when you hit the right one from the scenery.  It's distinctly different than other portions you've been warping to - You'll be at the very bottom center portion of the maze.  There you talk to Yan, then that'll disable a lot of the green warp beams, which will allow you to get to the very top center portion of the maze, where you meet the Marn, the boss.

Toned down Cybernator??  Blood Gear is the mech game that Cybernator and Target Earth only wish they could they could have been. 

You think?  If you were to compare just the action sequence alone, I don't think Blood Gear can match something like the Assault Suit series, but the customization process of Blood Gear is so damn cool that it and makes it just-as, if not more enjoyable experience.

[Tatsujin]

i never gave big attention to thsi bloody gear. but sounds interesting, so i will give it another try later

[termis]

i never gave big attention to thsi bloody gear. but sounds interesting, so i will give it another try later

Definitely do give it a go.  It's been good.

So I finally beat it.  So my final thoughts: 

This game in a nutshell would be something like this.  Mix in overhead scenes from Exile and the action sequences from Cybernator, then throw in cool customization options, great looking cut scenes, a good storyline with interesting twists (of what I could understand, anyway), and you have Blood Gear.  And controlling big-ass robots is also infinitely cooler than being some cliche RPG character. 

The graphics aren't stellar, but halfway decent, and as I mentioned, the cut scene art is real nice.  The music would be my main gripe about this game.  It's pretty generic, and all the BGM is done off the chip.  A rockin CD track would've been cool. 

It plays real nice, and quite challenging at times,  The last few scenes and the final boss are tough as nails!  It's been awhile since any game _really_ challenged me, so this was good. I'd guesstimate my playtime, including getting lost and playing levels over to beat a boss/scene, to be around 13-15 hours or so.  It's possible that a non-Japanese reader may get tripped up in a couple spots, but nothing is ridiculously hard to solve -- everything is pretty linear as you have limited places where you can be at one point, so if you just talk to everyone, and go wherever you can, and you should be okay.  Definitely one of the more import-friendly titles for those who fear that they aren't able to play this because there's a lot of Japanese text. 

The only other minor issue I had with the game was that the ammunition on your weapons would run out too quickly, and your gun would be rendered useless once the ammo ran out.  A system where you'd be able to reload your gun would've been nice.

To cap this mini-review off, I noticed a peculiar line on the ending credits.  It read - <Aurail - Scenario 2: Blood Gear>.  I never heard of Aurail, and went and looked it up.  It's some overhead mech-tank shooter game published by Sega, but developed by a team called Westone.  I also thought that I saw that developer team in the credit screen later on (I'd have to double check that), so it looks like this game is actually somewhat of a sequel to this Aurail game. 

[GUTS]

I noticed that too when I beat it, since Westone is one of my favorite developers of all time I was super stoked to see their name in there.  I could never find any info on exactly what they did though, did they do the whole game or just part of it?  Or was their name in there just because it was a sequel to an older game they developed?  I also could never find the first game, but this was like 5 years ago.

[shubibiman]

I looove the shootgun sound effects of this game, which came out to me as a really good surprise first time I played it. Blood Gear deserves to be a little more renowned than it is nowadays ;)

[termis]

I noticed that too when I beat it, since Westone is one of my favorite developers of all time I was super stoked to see their name in there.  I could never find any info on exactly what they did though, did they do the whole game or just part of it?  Or was their name in there just because it was a sequel to an older game they developed?  I also could never find the first game, but this was like 5 years ago.

Yeah, I wonder myself.  But what's sure is that these two games look nothing alike.

Aurail:
 

Blood Gear:

[shubibiman]

Thanks for the screenshots! Never heard of that game.

[CrackTiger]

I owned an Aurail pcb for a couple years, but I never played very far into it before selling it with other little-played pcbs.

I never would've guessed that it was related to Blood Gear (not that I've played any more of Blodd Gear).

[Keranu]

Wow, that is interesting. I had no idea there were any games related to Blood Gear. Thanks for the information!

[RegalSin]

What I love about this game is how they hide lenguidoism,
Mecha love = bike love?  considering the JAV popularity.

The story plays out with one bad mecha riding guido, who also has his own blood
gear I assume, decides to kill the doctors, leaving the other to barely escape.

Blood gear proves that games like rockman could have made it on the PCE
but also proves when not to use hand drawn sprites. In fact I believe 100% that Megaman Legends pretty much used alot of blood gear ideas. From the
junkers, to the insano from the begining of the game. However the same could be
said for Macross as well.

Asides for bikers, the game also feels like a mecha dominated PSO. Imagine
playing PSO and it was nothing but gigantic mechas.

Like Exile, I really starting to love the game, especially with the playing feild being like "Eternal city" but less extreme. However this game being a cd game, has gigantic
on screen sprites that are strong like boss.

Manivuring is another story. It feels like you are driving a real mecha. This is sappose to be futuristic but the movement is sluggish. However you get usted to this movement considering how the AI of the enemy matches your movement, which can make this game annoying sometimes. However the AI of certain enemies are not quick enough. Enemies that are human driven, mostly will have AI that looks like speedy gonzaless. Which makes almost every fight feels like the first battle in Megaman X.
You can win it, but most people decides to die instead.

Things that I am ticked off about. The amount of weapons you can carry sucks.
You have to drop one kind of weapon, as well as items. However if you did have that
kind of item privilege you would be unstoppable, which also makes the game challenging.

It is pretty much the same gameplay as Megaman Legend. One moment you can
find a bunch of weak enemies, but the next moment you will see an extremly hard
enemy. Gun Hazard is the only other game I could think of, but Gun hazard just does
the traditional, stage to stage, get item, bionic commando thing.

[Nando]

Interesting, I was looking into that game a few days ago but couldn't find any info on it.

Added to the list of games to look into

[RegalSin]

This game is simular to eternal city or even Starwars IV GB or SMS, because at first you got jack and need to take it nice and slow.

[Keranu]

lmao

[Nando]

http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/2009/03/blood-gear.html

Blood Gear... man this is a game that came out of NOWHERE and rocked me like a hurricane.
I love side-scrolling action RPGs and have played and beaten them all, including ones most donkey-anus lickers don't like (Zelda II crushes 1 and 3, if you disagree you're a fucking retarded spastic dumbshit fatso). I also love mechs, especially if they have burly legs and arms and look like what Thor would build instead of space shuttles if he was put in charge of Nasa. Blood Gear has both categories covered to the maximum allowed by Japanese law at the time.

The graphics are not the best 2D I've ever seen, but definitely some of the best the Duo has ever thrown out. Everything animates nicely, there is tons of color, and there's even some hefty parallax on certain levels. Some of the bosses are HUGE, and the last boss (in fact the whole last level) is insane. This is one game where I was more than happy with the ending, in fact it ranks in the top 3 ending sequences of any game I've ever played.

The gameplay is all side-scrolling action while town exploration is in the standard overhead RPG view. If you've played Exile or Exile II, you know the formula. I'd also compare it to Zelda II, Monster World IV, Wonder Boy 3 & 5, etc (in fact, Westone, the guys that did the Wonder Boy/Monster World games, are listed in the credits for Blood Gear).

One of the coolest things about this game is the experience system. Basically you earn points every time you defeat and enemy, then you go the mechanics shop and use them on whatever attributes you want. Each of the mechs has a different maximum, and unless you take your time you'll probably beat the game without having to max any of them out.

One final note, the language barrier is pretty much non-existent. The story comes across good through the cinematics, and there wasn't ever a spot where I got stuck for more than a few minutes. Someone with absolutely NO knowledge of Japanese (like me) can easily play through, beat, and enjoy this mammothly gnarly game. I can't recommend Blood Gear any higher, it's honestly one of the best old school games I've ever played.

[shubibiman]

Wisely spoken. When I bought that game back in 2001, I couldn't believ what I saw when I read Red was involved. What Nando described is just what I felt when playing that game. I like the gunshot sound too!

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, I didn't know about this game until a couple of years ago. I'm not sure how it escaped American fandom almost completely for so long.

[Keranu]

I finally beat Blood Gear a couple weeks ago after several unsuccessful playthrough attempts for the past 10 years! Definitely a hidden gem, at points it can feel a little lackluster, but there's nothing bad you can say about it really. Mechs, cool weapons, side-scrolling gameplay with RPG elements, what more could you want?

[Bernie]

Damnit man!  Im gonna get this one!

[roflmao]

I got this for my Secret Santa last year and when it came in I tested it to make sure everything was hunky-dory.  And I was hooked!  I considered keeping it and getting something else for my SS, but ended up sending it off and have been wanting to pick one up since! 

[PunkCryborg]

damn I want this, If you get me for SS roflmao it's already on my wishlist

[Nando]

Wisely spoken. When I bought that game back in 2001, I couldn't believ what I saw when I read Red was involved. What Nando described is just what I felt when playing that game. I like the gunshot sound too!

oh those aren't my words. That's from the bros site

I'm really interested in the game now.

[VenomMacbeth]

Sorry for reviving an old topic, but is this game English-friendly?  I (unfortunately) don't know Japanese >.<

[termis]

Some basic kana knowledge will always help (in picking out certain types of weapons/items, etc), but even without it, people seem to have gotten through it without too many issues.

[Keith Courage]

anyone know how to save this game? I can't seem to find the option anywhere.


Ha, nevermind. Found it. I wouldn't have thought that you would have had to pay for it. I need Engrish.

[Ji-L87]

Saving costs? I didn't know that.

Speaking of Blood Gear, I managed to get a bit further (reached that harbour town) and got my butt swiftly kicked by an evil boss surrounded by lots of turrets. Any good strategy, weapon load outs?
...or do I just have to grind some moar and max all stats? (upgrades are getting expensive now tho')

Not that I'm looking forward to the actual trip in order to get there either...

[BigusSchmuck]

Sounds like this game is a good candidate for a overdue fan translation.

[esteban]

Sounds like this game is a good candidate for a overdue fan translation.

I wonder if someone already looked into the feasibility of Blood Gear.... ???

[Keith Courage]

I can honestly say that it is an awesome game even without a translation. This is my first attempt at playing an Japanese RPG. It took some patience at first but I can say it's well worth it. There are enough cinema cut scenes to give the player an idea of what is going on.

I had an thought. Maybe if it's too much work to translate all the text in an RPG game we could at least work on translating all the audio tracks together. This would help big time in a game like this and I am sure would make many other RPGs playable even without translated menus and text.

[Mathius]

I really do wish someone would fan translate it. I still get easily confused with the shop menus.

[SamIAm]

How many hours does a typical playthrough take?

[Keith Courage]

I'm still playing the game so I don't know. Since this game is an action RPG it is still fun without knowing Japanese. Learning the menus took some time but not much longer than figuring out how to play Neo Nectaris for the first time.

[termis]

It's not a terribly long one -- About 15 hours or so, give or take a few depending on how much you get lost, grind, etc.

[BigusSchmuck]

I managed to snag a copy from Hit-Japan for $20. I plan to play it as soon as my copy comes in!

[fraggore]

just reading the review on http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/ i am going to give it a got, with hudson soft, red and westone responsible for making it got to be worth a punt.