Gekirindan

Gekirindan is a science fiction-themed vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game reminiscent of Truxton II and DonPachi, where players assume the role of one of the six pilots taking control of their respective space fighter craft (a futuristic fighter jet, a helicopter conditioned for space travel and a remodeled old-fashioned airplane) through five increasingly difficult levels in an effort to effort to defeat Huge Boss and prevent his plan of rewriting human history as the main objective.

As far as vertical scrolling shooters go, the title initially appears to be very standard; Players control their craft over a constantly scrolling background and the scenery never stops moving until a boss is reached. Players also have three weapons at their disposal: the main weapon that travels a max distance of the screen's height, a sub-weapon and three bombs capable of obliterating any enemy caught within its blast radius.

The plot summary of Gekirindan is explained through supplementary materials. In the year 3195, a time machine is created on Earth and is promptly stolen by an unidentified mechanized being known as "Huge Boss". This evil entity uses the device to travel back in time and rewrite 3000 years of human history. The only resistance Huge Boss faces is a group of six fighter pilots from multiple eras who aim to stop him, although some of them have their own motivations other than saving mankind.

Hokuto Higara: Pilot of the Type A (P1) ship. An attractive male pilot from the 32nd century who seeks to avenge the death of his family with the destruction of Huge Boss.

Gekirindan was created by ex-Toaplan members at Taito after the former company declared bankruptcy in 1994. Snow Bros. and Twin Hawk composer Osamu Ōta acted as producer under the alias "Lee", while Hidetomo Ogino was the project's sole designer. Masaki Yagi and Takahito Naoi served as one of the game's programmers and system engineers respectively.

Artists Miyabi Tashiro, Ryota Sasaki, Saori Hiratsuka and Yasunobu Kousokabe designed the characters, in addition of K. Kinoshita and Tomonobu Kagawa designing the computer graphics and first boss respectively. The soundtrack was co-written by Zuntata members Kazuko Umino and Koji Sakurai. In a 2007 forum post at French website SHMUP, unused sprites from the unreleased Toaplan arcade game Dynamic Trial 7 were discovered to be hidden in Gekirindan's code by a community member.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Gekirindan on their December 15, 1995 issue as being the ninth most-successful arcade game of the month, outperforming titles such as Tekken 2 and Marvel Super Heroes. Retro Gamer's Phil Abel stated that "Gekirindan will probably never reach classic status. Even so, it still holds its own against many of its contemporaries. Out of all the arcade shooters released in 1995 Gekirindan is definitely above average; it's no DonPachi but certainly worth a play".