I stumbled over this game while searching for a different game and I can't say I expected this to be as good as it was.
You can almost smell the love that went into this, from the little death animation to the rather eccentric boss enemies everything just looks so.. polished.


Gameplay:
You control a spherical tank with the ability of turning its cannon clockwise at the press of (the) A button independently of where it's moving and shoot with the B button.
You are opposed by dozens of unique enemies, all with their own weapons and behaviors, making for an extremely dynamic game.
Even if you try and rush your way through the levels, there will be tanks skidding into your way, shooting at you from behind rocks or just following you around until you dispose of them.
The enemies aren't the only thing you can shred to pieces in an instant though, most of the.. "obstacles" placed in your way, ranging from tank-sized, rolling rocks to simple houses and even bombs can be destroyed, giving you a fresh feel of power every time half the screen is taken up by the special effects of an exploding villa.
But there's more, more physical rewards for flattening the landscape, namely a wide range of power-ups, such as dual and triple shots, piercing shots, exploding shots, and, of course, health canisters.
Every stage contains a mid- and a real boss, all of which are really fun to fight, although one could wish for more creative ways to damage them than "shoot until the screen explodes".

Story:
Even though there is not a single spoken (and/or written) word in this game regarding the story, you can get a hint just by paying attention to your surroundings and the enemies you come across, most importantly the dark clones of yourself.
The first level starts out in the countryside, flying out of a burning house and has you follow the trail of the enemies attacking you, until you find yourself at a desert base with a tremendous storage of the aforementioned clones of yourself, most of them seemingly deactivated, until you come across a 1:1 copy of yourself as a mini-boss, which ends up going overdrive and finally falls to your hand.
What could be up with that? You'll find out in that really dark cave at the end of the base.

Graphics:
The graphics are, compared to a lot of other Game Boy games, really elaborate and easily discernible.
The levels are full of decorative tiles and the bosses are drawn really, really well.
It's really hard to get a pixel mess made out of 4 colors to look like a giant jack in a box. This game did it.

Sound:
Considering the Game Boy was only capable of the so called "bleeps and bloops", the soundtrack of this game was really nice and had this "oh man I'm on a big adventure" feel, which you don't get often with a game based around shooting the stuffing our of everything in your way.
The sound effects are mostly just noise (for explosions) and these little jingles (for picking stuff up) you're used to by now, so I don't think I need to comment on this much.

Difficulty:
The game starts out gentle, the first level is fair about introducing you to the game's mechanics and the bosses are rather forgiving.
And then you die every second screen by the second level.
Fortunately, you have infinite continues and just have to restart the level when you run out of extra lives, but it is still punishing enough to make you feel like you lost something.
All the power-ups may make you a tank trashing beast at times, but get hit once and it's over with that. Get hit thrice and you're dead.
This game is Nintendo Hard.

Depth:
Not so much, other than the adventure mode there's nothing to do, and even that one is very linear.
The levels are big enough to get this a 7/10, though.

Addictiveness:
I could definitely play this game again a few times before it gets boring and even though I had to redo many stages many, many times, it never felt frustrating or tedious, but much rather even more fun, especially since Game Overs are still very forgiving for what they are, at least you aren't thrown back to the start of the game again, Battle Toads style.


This game was really a pleasure to play, and a nice surprise, considering it probably is better than the game I was looking for.
Definitely a hidden gem we got there, I'm surprised this only has so few plays, especially considering it is made by the creators of the well known Smash Bros. franchise!

Great review dude. The game really look and sound fun to play, so I might try out this game later, and thank you for explaining a lot in your review.