Sort of felt odd playing this knowing nothing about the source material, but I was about to lose access to infinite arcade games, and I figured that with such an obscure property, I was either playing it then or never. I can fill in the details later, I guess.

I've mentioned before that I'm not a big fan of Konami beat-em ups - but I seem to like their SHMUPs just fine, and this game is no exception. There's quite a bit of creativity at play here. Being able to tackle the middle stages at the player's choice is always a fun move, and I love how experimental each of those stages are - particularly the "Mine" and "Jane Meadow" stages. There's a lot of good variety with the bosses, too, with Five Card Stud being a ridiculously cool boss (even if his gimmick is pretty easy to figure out - sometimes all you need is a strong high-concept).

Less obvious but still interesting is the dash attack. What a weird way it's implemented - you keep running forward as long as you hold the button, but when you let go, you jump back, often to where you started. You are susceptible to damage while jumping back, so dashing feels less like a free hit like it does in so many beat-em ups (Golden Axe comes to mind) and more like a careful placement tool. I imagine high-level play of this game makes a lot of use of that dash.

I don't have too many complaints, but I didn't really like the final encounter against the Masked Bull. Feels like the arena's too small for what you're supposed to be doing to actually damage him. I don't doubt that you can get good enough to clear him damageless, but I dunno, for a casual run, those attack patterns come out awfully quickly, and it's hard to get the start of an idea on how to dodge. That dum fog obscuring the fight doesn't help matters at all - but, of course, that's a deliberate part of the challenge. Sorta wish they had enough confidence in the fight itself to let that communicate the challenge.