Flying Hero - Bugyuru's Adventure

Do you gravitate to certain genres depending on the time of the year?

It's kind of a weird question, but when I stop and look, I usually spend Summers
playing many light and fast-paced games way more than playing long and slower ones.

While I'm more of a cold weather type of person, Summer always makes me think
about those sort of experiences. And there's few things more true to that than
the genre of Shoot'em Ups, specially the cartoony and colorful ones.

So I thought it was a nice moment to talk about an obscure game that's
quite fun and will do wonders to scratch that itch I have right now.

I'm talking about Flying Hero - Bugyuru's Adventure!

Developed by Sting Entertainment and published by SOFEL in 1992, Flying Hero - Bugyuru no Daibouken, as it is known in the only region to be released, that being Japan, is a straightforward but nicely done vertical Shoot'em Up with a lighthearted tone, one of those many overlooked fun games that we never knew they existed until the advent of the internet.

Sting Entertainment is one of those studios that while not very well know in general, it is all over the place. They started developing and porting some titles for the PC-Engine, games like Last Battalion, and ports like Tatsujin (known also as Truxton), but they'll got their groove on the Super Nintendo (or rather, Super Famicom, I suppose), for which they developed quite a few games, but almost none were released outside Japan, two of the few exceptions are Extra Innings, a fun baseball game with cartoony visuals, and a licensed game, The Jetsons : Invasion of the Planet Pirates, which, in a fun twist would latter be retooled as a manga tie-in. They're also the people behind Treasure Hunter G, one of the fortunate games to get a fan translation.

But that's far from being the only interesting thing they did. Baroque, Evolution 1 & 2 (and the mashup Worlds in GameCube), Riviera : The Promised Land, Yggdra Union and even the Dokapon Kingdom games are works from them. In 2009 they would partner with Atlus, to make more games.

SOFEL, on the other hand, didn't have much involvement in video game stuff. They're a company dedicated to other business lines, they just got their feet wet a bit on this medium during the late 80's and early 90's, making a handful of games and publishing others' on NES, SNES and GB, one that sounds interesting and I knew nothing about a the series by the name of Monster Maker.

Now, with this game never leaving Japan, of course you might be wondering if the title screen being in English is just coincidence. The answer is no, we are fortunate to have a fan translation made by KingMike and his companions, for which I'm pretty glad.

But let's get back on track.

The game takes place in a fantasy land, and our story is about a couple of friends, Pao, a young lady, and Bugyuru, a strange, round being with legs and wings, wearing an aviator hat (with fashionable goggles to go with it!). They like to pass time together, but from time to time they end up fighting for silly reasons.

Unfortunately, it is one of those days, and for no real reason, apparently. But that stops to matter when Biburio, a weird, weird saiyan-looking man with four arms suddenly drops from the skies and takes Pao with him, for reasons unknown, while sending his henchmen to Bugyuru, who is chasing after him to save his friend.

Nice, simple excuse-plot.

The animals of the forest run away the moment Biburio's baddies come after you. Nice detail.

Flying Hero, as previously stated, is a vertical Shoot'em Up, more precisely one of those Cut'em Up, where everything is colorful, wacky and cartoony, similar to series like Twinbee, Cotton, or Fantasy Zone. I mean, you play as this egg-like character with a big goofy hat fighting stuff and everything.

Talking about our protagonist, he controls pretty decently and has some curious quirks and perks that I think I've never sin in other Shmups. Bugyuru can move, as you may imagine, in eight directions freely, and you can adjust your moving speed by pushing Select, and he has three Speed Levels. Your current speed is noted by the number of wings displayed in the superior left side of the screen, right below the Score.

Changing velocities in shmups (at least, the ones who use this mechanic instead of Speed Up Power Ups) can be a very useful thing in certain situations, and in Flying Hero there a few spots that can say the same, but if you ask me, Speed Level 2 is by far the best setting. You move quick and responsively at it, while Speed Level 1 is way too slow for me, and Speed Level 3 got me killed more often that I would want to admit by flinging myself towards danger.

Are there any other shmups that let you do this? I can't recall any right now...

Like any Shoot'em Up worth its salt, you are able and expected to defeat a outrageous number of enemies by shooting all sorts of stuff. Bugyuru can shoot magical projectiles with the B Button, thankfully with Rapid Fire (so no Carpal Tunnel, yay!). What he has that many others don't, is the ability to aim at different trajectories using the Trigger Buttons. Bugyuru will shoot diagonally to the left or right by holding the R or L trigger, while holding both, you will shot straight behind you.

This is both great fun and really useful for obvious reasons. You can aim at things without being in their trajectory, you can quickly shoot at enemies in different sides of the screen without moving and putting yourself into more danger, and being able to attack behind you its satisfying because you don't feel as vulnerable (although, of course, this means you might get attacked from the rear, so you need to be paying attention!). It's a very simple idea, but at the same time is rather novel and makes this game have a bit more uniqueness.

Knowing when to use each one is the key for an effective job.

Magic Shots are your default attack, but through Power Ups you can change it for a total of three different ways to defend yourself:

• Magic Shot : Your default attack is actually pretty good! These quick projectiles do respectable damage and fly quickly. As you power yourself up, the number of projectiles increases, for a maximum of three, at which point this attack transforms into a Spread Shot style weapon, covering a lot of space, and making it the all around best attack for general use. Can be good for bosses too if you go close and personal to increase your rate of fire, but it is risky. 

•  Super Beam : A short range concentrated shot of energy. While its range can look disappointing at early stages, make no mistake, this does heavy damage at a speed that makes you feel bad about enemies. At higher levels, more beams appear, to cover a bit more space in front of you, ending with three beams that stretch out giving you more range. This is by far the best weapon for bosses, specially ones with multiple parts, and if you feel daring, you can take some of them surprisingly fast. 

•  Cloud Shot :  Heavier projectiles that can go through enemies. The rate of fire is lower, making it risky, but each shot is more powerful than your default Magic Shot. Higher levels let you shoot more clouds, for a total of three at different directions. It's the weapon I found the least useful, but I also didn't like the Beam until I found how it worked, so maybe there's some secret for this too.

Have in mind, though, these names are my own invention, I have no idea of what they're really called, as they're never named in-game, and being a Japan Only release manuals are probably only in japanese...

Aww, these monkey swith hand-made leaf wings are so cute...

I mentioned powering up, which is a core mechanic in this genre. How it works in Flying Hero goes like this:

Throughout levels, you will see Pink Balloons appear on the screen. Popping those balloons will free Power Ups. Three of those are the different attack types you can use and explained above, and another one you can see in the capture above is Strawberry Cakes. They can be collected, and when you get three, you level up and your shots will be better for a total of three Levels. There are also big Strawberry Cakes that upgrade you to Level 3 directly, and seeing will make you happy every single time .

You can also collect and use Bombs. These can be fired with the Y Button, and will do heavy damage in a circular area in front of you (no, they're not Full Screen Attacks). If you ask me these are best used during those moments where waves of enemies go at you like crazy, but they can be useful with bosses, like in most games of this genre. One little detail I like is that you start with three Bombs, and you can collect more, but if you lose a life, your stock of Bombs will be replenished if you had less than three. It can be quite useful because when you die, you won't have Power Ups, and you could lose more lives easily, thus chucking these explosives at a desperate time can save your ass.

I love these little guys, they take great care of you. Those pirate crows don't seem to like them as much, though.

Last but not least, are the little allies you can have. Grabbing the appropriate Power Up, little flying creatures will help you by plunging themselves at enemies. They act like enemy-seeking missiles, and they fly fast and are pretty accurate to boot. You can have up to six little guys with you, and they join you by pairs with each Power Up you get. They drop while you attack normally, which is nifty, and seeing all of them moving around chasing enemies is pretty fun to see. They are incredibly useful, as you can imagine, and they can save you many times without you realizing it!

Now, while you can get a lot of Power Ups, you can also lose them. If fully powered up, Bugyuru will first start losing Attack Levels one by one, until you're at your basic Level; and then you'll start losing your allies until you've lost every Power Up. Then Bugyuru will lose a life if he's touched by an enemy or a projectile.

And that's the basic stuff, more or less. You gain Extra Lives as you get to different Score thresholds too.

Go, my fellow flying thingamajigs, go and take out those seagulls for me!

The game has a very simple structure, being a lineal Shoot'em Up. The game is divided in seven "Acts", with a final area were Biburio awaits you. Each level has its own environment and enemies, making things varied and nice. The difficulty of the game is also good, it's challenging without being too brutal on the Normal setting, although there are a few moments here and there where it ramps up.

Enemies are quite varied, from the hand-made wings-wearing monkeys, to a crew of pirate crows with their vehicles trying to take you down and an army of toys and more.  Sometimes they fill the screen in large numbers, and in a great twist, it makes no impact on the frame rate at all, Flying Hero is smooth playing!

I've heard about killing with kindness, but using a smile to literally take down someone is something new.

Now, while normal enemies are cool and all, Flying Hero also features a big number of bosses. Most Acts have at minimum, one Mid-Boss, and one Final Boss, but the truth is most stages have several Mid-Bosses! For example, Act 2 has three, and is not the only one with that number of big baddies to take on. And another great thing, these bosses don't repeat! There's one that appears twice, in Acts 3 and 4, but even that one has different moves and attack patterns each time. It's one of the highlights of the game, if you ask me, as they're varied, wacky and also look pretty good.

There's nothing like flying underwater! 

...And well, there's not much more to say. Flying Hero is a fun, well made game with some neat things, a solid and enjoyable game overall.

By pressing Select on the Title Screen, you can enter the Options Menu, where you can change the difficulty and listen to the music of the game (and also change between Mono and Stereo sound). The biggest difference the difficulty settings has is the toughness of bosses. On Easy, their HP gets halved, making them way easier. In Hard they last a lot more, and of course there are way more enemies and projectiles flying around, ramping up the challenge.

Now, there's a small Secret Menu here, but you need a second controller. While in the Options Menu, pressing on the second pad Start + Select will take you to it. You can choose at what Act you start, and also the amount of Lives and Continues, funny enough, you can increase them up to 99. I think I've never seen a game letting you go so high.




















The game overall looks pretty good. Its colorful, has charming and weird characters everywhere, sometimes lots of them on screen, has some fun uses for Mode 7 (like the puffer fish rolling around the screen), the scenarios have cute little details too, like in the beginning of the game, where you can see animals fleeing from the the bad guys approaching. In fact there's specifically a bunch of white cutesy creatures sprinkled all around the game and sometimes you can find them in places you don't expect.


As I said it's solid technically, no frame rate issues, and I haven't found any clipping either. Super Nintendo gets a bad rap about Shoot'em Ups but, the truth is that outside some early launch missteps that people seem to use again and again as "proofs",  there are many good performing Shmups on the system, and this is one of them.

It also sports a small but neat soundtrack composed by Mitsuhito Tanaka, who made music for Tecmo before going to work with Sting in the 90's. He also worked on Treasure Hunter G, The Jetsons: Invasion of the Planet Pirates and Dossun! Stone Battle, among other things.

His work on Flying Hero is solid, with each Act having its own theme, all of them being nice pieces of music, I really like Act 4 and Act 5 myself, both are catchy themes and fit really well each stage. Obviously, is nothing groundbreaking and it will not shake the world, but it's a good soundtrack that brings the rest of the game up to the point of finding myself humming alongside the game and after I stopped playing, which is one of the best things music can do.

I also like a lot the jingle of beating a level, and the Continue theme (I always love these short catchy themes).

You can listen to the soundtrack by clicking on DK here!

Lastly, the little text that the game has is nicely done, so a thumbs up too for the fan translation.

Well, I think that's all to be said about Flying Hero - Bugyuru's Adventure. A solid shmup that while does not have a big name attached to it, it's makes for a fun experience, and that alone makes it worth playing and celebrating to me.

Oh, one last thing. I like doing this just for fun, but if you find this game interesting, I challenge you to beat my record on Normal Mode! It won't be that hard for shmup experts, but it's the first time I managed to beat the game without using Continues, so I'm happy about it. Go try if you can beat it... Ah, and no cheating with Extra Lives!

And that's it. Until next time, and have fun!