Dangan
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| Dangan | ||||||||||
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 A run and gun game that combine beat em up gameplay was a good idea but this game really is bad.
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Dangan is a action run and gun game released in 2000 for the PlayStation, it is set in a near future and puts the player in control of 2 counter-terrorist agents (Jack & Kate) that will have to defeat different enemies during 8 different operations.
Gameplay
The game features a top down view and different weapons to choose and use. The player controls one of the 2 characters depending of the mission one of them will be the chosed.
The gameplay is the usual in this kind of arcade games, like Ikary Warriors or Mercs, the player have to advance throught the level shooting the enemies and reaching the ending level boss, once the boss is defeated the operation is completed and the player can advance to the next level.
Why It's Failed It's Operation
- For starters, despite the fact the fact that this game had a great concept for gameplay, in which it combined run-and-gun gameplay with beat-em-up gameplay, it failed miserably due to a lot of awful problems that will be explained below.
- The graphics are not very good for a 2000 game since they are horribly pixelated, undetailled, and feel more like a 3D Sega Genesis game than a PS1 game, or the color palette is very washed out with saturated colors that does not look good, games like Mortal Kombat 4, Bomberman 64. , Doraemon 3: Nobita no Machi SOS! and the N64 port of South Park look way better than this game, and they were all released before this game.
- The characters models are absolutely horrendous to look at in-game, as their models are horribly pixelated and you can't even tell who is the character you play, the only reason of why you know it is because they show their name right into the life bar.
- The backgrounds are very ugly to look at at times, especially in stage 5b and 6, since they look absolutely ugly, undetailled and sometime is just a pile of awful looking colors instead of actual backgrounds, this is what make the game horrendous to look at in the first place.
- Absolutely awful boss fights that are some of the worst you might ever see in a run-and-gun game, to the point of being some of the most frustrating and some of the most poorly designed bosses; they are also extremely unbalanced; they even make the bosses from Mortal Kombat: Special Forces look amazing by comparison.
- Shelly is annoying to fight despite being the first boss, since she always runs at you to kill you easily or shoots extremely fast, which makes you get serious trouble fighting her, or at least makes you not have a lot of chances for shooting, hence making this a horrible fight that is already frustrating.
- Matt deals a ton of damage with his attacks, and there are engines to shoot at you to help him, in which you might have serious troubles if you don't have a powerful gun (even though most of them stink in this game), and it doesn't help that he attacks every time without even stopping himself.
- Iceman (not to be confused with the robot master from Mega Man) is annoying to deal with since he always attacks you with melee attacks, and when you're going to get up, he shoots at you, which makes for an incredibly annoying fight.
- Meg and Sandy are probably the single worst bosses of not only the entire game but also probably one of the worst boss fights in a run-and-gun ever since there are 6 engines that help them shoot at you. They are also extremely fast and shoot at you way too many times to the point of being almost impossible to take down. Their attacks, of course, deal a lot of damage.
- Dan is an incredibly easy boss; if you had the laser gun, you just had to shoot at him and he would never attack you, and even if there are enemies to help him, they barely attack you, making it one of, if not the easiest, fights of the game.
- Blue-3 is once again easy; you just have to attack him with punches, and when he gets up, you shoot him with the laser gun, and even if he attacks you after this, you will probably kill him before he kills you.
- Meryll is not really a bad boss and might be one of the best, but the enemies are very annoying to deal with, though despite that, it is a fine boss, especially by this game standard.
- Gerald is a very easy boss too, since despite having engines that shoot at you, Gerald himself is easy to kill if you had the laser gun. It helps that he will never come to attack you with punches.
- Rudolph, the final boss, is absolutely horrible to fight, and he had two phases.
- His first phase is very annoying, since he had thunders that fell at you and you had little reaction time to dodge them. Also, there are two engines that shoot at you, and Rudolph also shoots at you very commonly, making it for a horrible fight. But wait until you see his second phase, which is as atrocious as Meg and Sandy.
- His second phase is even worse to the point of being the second hardest fight of the entire game, since he shoots at you even more, and also, there's the thunder that still comes to fall at you, and this time they come when Rudolph attacks, making it one of the worst bosses of the entire game, and this isn't helped by the fact that the thunders and the attacks of Rudolph deal a ton of damage.
- Awful combat that is on par with that of the PS1 version of Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, as not only is it extremely simple but also really bad due to how atrocious the hit-detection is (see WIFIO #6) and that it had some other flaws.
- They are also completely unbalanced, but in a very unique way (in a bad one, of course), since the melee attacks are somewhat powerful but are underpowered due to how awful the hit detection is, thus making it really not recommended to use them to fight an enemy or, worse, a boss.
- There's no strategy in it, you just mash the punch button like a maniac for that you win when fighting an enemy or even a boss, this is also even worse than in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus or the two awful Power Rangers games for the PS1.
- The logo, while it had a unique idea, is poorly executed since the game is only called Dangan, and a logo like this isn't a good idea for such a short title. It also isn't a good idea to do a split logo for one title since it looks awkward as a result.
- Abysmal hit-detection that is horribly unresponsive and doesn't work well, since sometimes you will try to hit the enemies but it will not register and they will attack you instead. The same thing goes for the bosses.
- The punch attacks are the worst offender, along with the main gun, since they have an abysmal hit detection and sometimes they will not hit the enemies or the bosses, as stated before, thus making it more safe to use the gun at times. This is even one of the reasons why the combat is so abysmal.
- The guns also had horrible hit-detection, since some of them shoot poorly and the shoots are sometimes so small that they will not hit an enemy or, worse, a boss any time soon. This made for a really unfair game with awful difficulty balance (see WIFIO #9), and this is especially true with the main gun.
- For some weird reasons, the game doesn't even have any voice acting at all, even in the cutscenes. This is absolutely unacceptable for a 2000 game, considering that most games at the time did get voice acting in their cutscenes or even in-game. This might be a sign that this game was either rushed or, at least, had a low budget.
- There aren't even any noises from any characters or any enemies, since when you kill an enemy or you are killed, they will never scream at all.
- This is also a missed opportunity, since you will wonder how the characters will sound and you will never know.
- The level design is absolutely awful, and all over the place in terms of difficulty, some levels are brain-dead easy, while most of them are horribly designed to the point of being on par with the awful level design of Frogger 2 on the Xbox 360. Due to how bad everything is, in fact, there aren't any good levels at all.
- Stage 1 is incredibly generic and can be completed in only a few minutes due to how empty the level is, though it is only the first level, so at least the game isn't as hard as the later levels directly at the beginning.
- Stage 2 is where the troubles begin. The levels are filled with horrible enemy placements or engines that are placed in the worst places possible, to the point of being extremely hard to dodge, and the fact that enemies always respawn is really annoying, not to mention that it is overly long even when compared to some other levels since it takes nearly 10 minutes to complete, which is way too much even for a run-and-gun game on the PS1.
- Stage 3 is even worse, having a lot of engines that do shoot fire at you that are placed in even worse places than Stage 2. This makes this level one of, if not the hardest, of the entire game, not to mention that there are enemies almost everywhere and that some parts of the levels feature tight walls to the point that you can barely escape the fires or any of the enemies.
- Stage 4 is very unbalanced; some parts of the stage are very easy, while others (especially the later half of it) are horribly hard due to horrible enemy placements, an awful camera angle, and also being confusing to navigate. It also had empty places too, much like most of the levels in this game anyway.
- Stage 5a is incredibly empty, and the only things that keep it from looking like a beta stage are the fact that the fire engines are here and that there are enemies; in fact, you would remove the level and almost nothing would change in the game.
- Stage 5b is a bit better than the other half but is still quite terrible, since once again the enemies are very badly placed, the level feels empty, and the level itself features repetitive designs. Also, prepare to see the worst backgrounds of the entire game too.
- However, in the last half of the stage, there are absolutely no words for describing how abysmal it is designed, since there are a lot of engines that are horribly placed (to the point of being even worse than in Stage 2), and the corridors don't even have any freedom at all. This makes it one of the most frustrating parts of the game, if not the most frustrating part of the entire game.
- Stage 6 is a very repetitive level, with all of the halfs being rehashed from the previous half of the stage, and the enemies are once again annoying to deal with and will always shoot you when they can.
- Stage 7 is filled with a lot of engines that always shoot at you and have a way bigger hit detection than you; it is also very empty, and the level itself is way too big. It is also incredibly short to complete, lasting 4 minutes.
- Stage 8a is absolutely annoying, since there's a lot of engines that are of course placed in the worst places ever imaginable, and the enemies here have reached a new low when it comes to being annoying, since they will respawn even more than ever before, and they will always attack you. The second half isn't as bad but still terrible anyway.
- Stage 8b is a pretty bad final stage before the boss, since it exists just to pad the game length, as the level is incredibly short, lasting 2 minutes, and the only thing that keeps it from being completely unnecessary is that there is a gun that you can get, but this is definitely the only redeeming quality for the level.
- Downright awful difficulty balance that is all over the place; sometimes it is pretty easy, while for most of the game, it is extremely hard and frustrating to the point that we can list you so many frustrating moments in the game; there are so many frustrating moments or mechanics that we cannot even list them all. This includes, but is not limited to:
- In stage 3, there is a section where there are corridors that have no freedom and have engines that shoot fire that are placed in that area, to the point of being nearly impossible to dodge until you destroy them. This makes for a horribly frustrating moment that is also where the game starts to get to a new low of levels in terms of unbalanced difficulty spike.
- Not to mention that there aren't any checkpoints with the exception of respawning to the half that you die; this makes it for artificial difficulty, and it could have helped the game a little bit due to how hard and tedious the game is, but no.
- The engines create a lot of atrocious difficulty spikes, as proven in some of the pointers in the level design pointer, the ones that shoot fire at definitely the worst, due to having a huge hit detection that is somehow better than your own hit detection, or the ones that shoot missiles that are extremely overpowered and can drain your life bar very easily.
- As stated before, the enemies are extremely annoying and sometimes even worse than usual, due to always following you and shooting you, and when they are near you, they will instantly attack you, which is hard to dodge, thus making it a really annoying game, not to mention that for most of the game, there are too many that spawn at the same time.
- Poor controls that often suffer from delay, as for most of the time, they are very clunky to use and are very unresponsive to the point of being almost unplayable at times, not to mention that when you use a gun, it takes a lot of time for them to respond quickly, making them horrible for a run and gun.
- Terrible cutscenes; in fact, there aren't many of them.
- This is because almost nothing happens in these, aside from showing the boss that you fight next, or they are just an animation with the main characters and the bosses with some texts that are not heard in audio due to the lacking voice acting, thus making them boring and having missed the potential of being decent or even funny.
- They also had extremely poor animations for the time, since the characters all move janky and the animation itself isn't fluid at all.
- The game is extremely short, despite the overly long levels, as you can beat it in only 1 hour or even less. This isn't helped by the fact that Assault, another PS1 run-and-gun game (that was actually a good game), is a bit longer and it was released earlier.
- Enemies respawn constantly, making the game have even more difficulty, and they never stop respawning or even coming at you, which is incredibly annoying after a while.
- The enemy placements are horrible, especially for the engines; some of them are placed in corridors that don't have any freedom at all, and they may be difficult to dodge or even difficult to destroy at times.
Redeeming Qualities
- The soundtrack is very good and is the best part of the game, with the soundtrack being fitting and incredibly catchy to listen to; in fact, you might even want to rest on the stage for longer just to listen to the music.
- At least you had infinite continues, which means that you can retry a section or a boss the more you want, making this game a bit of a die and retry.
- The character designs are great, with the exception of their models in-game.
- The concept of the game, which is to combine run-and-gun gameplay with beat-em-up gameplay, was a great idea, but this game exception is terrible.
- Some of the guns are alright, such as the laser gun, even though their hit-detection is still terrible.
Reception
Dangan received mixed to negative reviews by critics and players, with them critisizing the gameplay, the graphics and the unbalanced difficulty but praised the soundtrack, it is also considered to be a massive dissapointement for fans of the run and gun genre.
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