Guwange, the Video Game by Atlus

Type of the machine : Video Game
Guwange © 1999 Atlus.

Destroy the evil army with 3 Japanese characters and the spirits that possess them in this beautiful vertical shoot-'em-up.

Game ID : ATC05

Cave 1st Generation Hardware

Main CPU : MC68000 (@ 16 Mhz)
Sound CPU : Z80 [Optional]
Sound Chips : YMZ280B (@ 16.9344 Mhz) or OKIM6295 x (1 or 2) + YM2203 / YM2151 [Optional]
Other : 93C46 EEPROM

Screen orientation : Vertical
Video resolution : 240 x 320 pixels
Screen refresh : 57.55 Hz
Palette colors : 32768

Players : 2
Control : 8-way joystick
Buttons : 3
=> [A] Shoot / Spirit, [B] Bomb, [C] Auto fire (see tips bellow)

Developed by CAVE.

The story of Guwange is set during the Muromachi period of Japan. Sorcerers in eastern Japan would predict the day's fishing catch by the appearance of a fox-like voice from the mountains. If the voice sounded 'koon koon' then there was to be a great catch. If the voice sounded 'gwange gwange' then it was to be a horrible catch. The people soon named the place of the voice 'Prison-Gate Mountain', as all who saw the origin of this voice were never seen again. The people soon began to worship this being as the god of Prison-Gate Mountain. It is said that the men later came to call it 'Lord Guwange'. The game title of 'Guwange' appears to reflect the name of this mysterious mountain voice and also the 'bad' sound that it made to predict a horrible catch.

This game was supposed to be exported to South Korea. But Korean deliberation Organization rejected this game, because it has strong Japanese things (Korean people are really anti-Japanese).

Soundtrack releases :
Guwange / ESPrade Original Soundtrack [CAVE - CVST-1000 - Dec 30, 2007]

* Game Clear Bonus : upon clearance, the game rewards you for the following : full life segments remaining, maximum chain count, bombs remaining, and never receiving damage ('no miss').
1) Life bonus : if you have any full life segments remaining (denoted as L), this bonus is calculated by the following formula :
9,216 / (4 - L) / 32 * 10,000. If you have all three life segments remaining, but you were hit at least once, then this value is multiplied by 2. If you were never hit, then this value is multiplied by 4. Examples :
1 Full Life Segment : 9,216 / 3 / 32 x 10,000 = 96,000
2 Full Life Segments : 9,216 /2 / 32 x 10,000 = 144,000
3 Full Life Segments : 9,216 / 1 / 32 x 10,000 x 2 = 576,000
No miss : 9,216 / 1 / 32 x 10,000 x 4 = 1,152,000
It seems that no credit is given for partial life segments.
2) Chain bonus : multiply your maximum chain count by 100. Examples :
1,210 Chain : 1,210 x 100 = 121,000
15,889 Chain : 15,889 x 100 = 1,588,900
3) Bomb bonus : multiply the number of bombs remaining by 1,000,000. If you were never hit, this value is multiplied by 2. Examples :
2 bombs remaining : 2 x 1,000,000 = 2,000,000
3 bombs remaining, no miss : 3 x 1,000,000 x 2 = 6,000,000

Producer : Kenichi Takano
Chief programmer : Tsuneki Ikeda
Programmers : Satoshi Kohyama, Takashi Ichimura
Chief designer : Junya Inoue
Designers : Akira Nakabayashi, Hiroyuki Tanaka, Atushi Aburano, Toru Shimazu
Character designers : Akira Nakabayashi, Junya Inoue
Calligraphy : Akira Nakabayashi
Character voices : Yuko Nakamura, Junya Inoue, Kazushi Takamura, Takako Taniguchi, Takn Nagasawa, Takno Yoshida
Sound producer : Junya Inoue
Music composer : Masahiro Kusunoki
Sound effects : Masahiro Kusunoki
Super visor : Hiroyuki Tanaka (Atlus)
Special assist : Toshiaki Tomizawa

Game's rom.