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gunfront: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Gun & Frontier (c) 1991 Taito.

The year is 2120: Earthlings have spread beyond their galaxy and have started to colonize uninhabited planets in different solar systems. One such planet to be colonized was the Earth-like planet Gloria which happened to have an enormous natural supply of gold. This discovery became pivotal to Gloria's emigration, so much that emigrators would be impoverished by the cost of reaching the planet. Because of this, life on the planet thrived in a setting similar to the American Old West. Though poor, the gold trade aided the Glorian's in advancing technology and knowledge, so much that among the inhabitants lived talented inventors and engineers.

However, the Glorian's were not the only ones who were tempted by the planet's gold: Space pirates known as the Wild Lizards quickly invade Gloria and decimate the towns of the people and enslave those who survived in an attempt to deplete the planet's gold supply. Two inventors of Gloria who were a part of the planet's development teams decide to strike back at their invaders using two fighter jets in the shape of giant revolvers with plane wings.

As far as vertical scrolling shooters go, Gun Frontier is very standard. Players start with dual machine guns which are strengthened and multiplied by upgrades that come in the shape of US dimes taken from buffalo shaped enemies and every five dimes empowers the ship's guns. Players also start with a bomb supply which is upgraded to further destruction by collecting gold bars from destroyed ground forces. Once a player accumulates 25 bombs, they are granted access to the Bomber Max, the strongest of the player's bombs.

The players can also pick up spinning coins with two different sides: a silver side and a gold side. If the player collects the coin on the silver side, then the player merely gains another coin for their guns. However, if the player collects the coin on the gold side, then the player's guns and bomb supply is maximized to full power.

A unique feature to the player's bombs is that the direction of the bomb's blast can be determined by the player's movement. If the player moves their plane to the lower right of the screen and launches their bombs, then the direction the bomb will travel in the opposite direction the plane's movement. This feature can only be used however when a player has a large bomb count as only having one or two bombs will result in a small directionless explosion. Like most bombs in shoot 'em ups, the bombs also work as a shield against enemy fire.

The game uses a check-point system in which a downed single player will start off at the beginning of the check-point they died at.

Gun Frontier also employs an anti-autofire mechanism where the difficulty will max out by the second stage if the player is sustaining too fast of a fire rate.

- TECHNICAL -

Taito F2 System hardware

Game ID : C71 (F2-System No. 9)

Main CPU : 68000 (@ 12 Mhz)

Sound CPU : Z80 (@ 4 Mhz)

Sound Chips : YM2610 (@ 8 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Vertical

Video resolution : 224 x 320 pixels

Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz

Palette colors : 4096

Players : 2

Control : 8-way joystick

Buttons : 2 (SHOOT, BOMB)

- TRIVIA -

Released in January 1991. Gun & Frontier had very good graphics and sounds for its time but the gameplay had a lower quality. So, Gun Frontier was a flop.

This game is known in Japan as "Gun Frontier" (this Japanese version has a narrator during the storyline scroll).

The Director of this game, Mr. Takatsuna Senba was an animator when he joined Taito, his first work was "Master of Weapon". He soon became a famous director, by directing "Metal Black" and Gun & Frontier. These two shoot'em ups have great graphics and BGM, many Japanese gamers remember his name, thanks to these two games.

This game was dedicated to the late Mr. Katsujiro Fujimoto.

This game was inspired from the Anime series of the same name by Leiji Matsumoto. It is a hilarious, thrilling and outrageous story that takes place on a lawless planet in deep space. In a wild land where the dust of sand swirls, two totally different men, Harlock 'the Quick Draw' and Tochiro 'the Master Swordsman,' meet a mysterious woman called Sinunora and travel together. "This odd threesome gets involved in thrilling and outrageous brawls and seems to attract one fight after another!".

S. Yagawa paid homage to this game by programming "Battle Garegga", which has a lot of features taken from "Gun Frontier" (not only design, you can destroy scenery, weapon and bombs system, etc).

Leiji Matsumoto, in his series 'Cosmo Warrior Zero', recycles the "Gun Frontier" settings for the 'Silvana' character. Since the Sony PlayStation tie-in was produced by Taito, the planet looks like planet "Gloria", the one featured in this Taito shmup.

Like in "Master of Weapon", Hisayoshi Ogura, who is credited on the credits roll, didn't compose the BGM. According to Takatsuna Senba, Some BGMs were specially ordered from V. Ohashi.

Pony Canyon / Scitron released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Runark, Gun Frontier - PCCB-00060) on 21/04/1991.

Zuntata Records released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Zuntata History L'ab-normal 1st - ZTTL-0038) on 01/04/1999.

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

Gun Frontier has a Rank System! If you played well, you can achieve a high rank. But in order to achieve this you have to play differently.

- SERIES -

1. Gun & Frontier (1991)

2. Metal Black (1991)

- STAFF -

Author & producer : Takatsuna Senba

Game Design : Takatsuna Senba, Takamasa Hoei, Takayuki Ogawa, Naoya Kuroki, Brody Tadashi, M&F Nagai, Yasuhisa Watanabe (Yack.)

Programmer : Tarabar, Naoya Kuroki

Sound composer : Yasuhisa Watanabe (Yack.), Hiroshi Ogura (ORG)

Cast : Lee Ho Chan, Ogawa Shonen

Special Thanks : Hideki Hashimoto, Hidehiro Fujiwara, Toshi Kouno, Akr Fujita, Zak Munn, Jinsei Tany, Ohno wepokichi, Tsuyoshi Sato, Ryohcho Yagi, Nakamura Taicho

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

MAME Info:

0.37b5 [David Graves, Nicola Salmoria]

0.37b4 [?]

WIP:

- 0.130u4: Renamed (gunfronj) to (gunfrontj).

- 0.106u3: Changed 'Unknown' dipswitch to 'Unused'.

- 0.97u1: Bryan McPhail implemented column scroll in TC0100SCN chip (used in The Ninja Kids, Gun & Frontier, Growl and Galmedes...).

- 0.88u6: Bryan McPhail added support for extra effects in the Taito F2 driver. This shows all known effects in Gun Frontier (see the attract mode).

- 17th March 2004: Bryan McPhail fixed another state saving related crash that happened in YM2610 games that don't use external sample ROM memory, for example Gun Frontier.

- 0.37b5: David Graves and Nicola Salmoria added Gun & Frontier (World) (Taito 1990) and clone Gun Frontier (Japan).

- 19th July 2000: David Graves sent in a huge Taito F2 driver update with working drivers for Gun Frontier, Ah Eikou no Koshien, Thunder Fox, The Ninja Kids, Solitary Fighter, Dino Rex, Quiz Chikyu Bouei Gun, Quiz Torimonochou, Quiz HQ, Yuuyu no Quiz de GO!GO!, Mahjong Quest, Quiz Quest, Don Doko Don, PuLiRuLa, Dead Connection and Football Champ.

- 0.37b4: Added Gun Frontier (Testdriver).

STORY:

- Early in the 22nd Century, human beings enter the years of developing the space. In the 7th developing star, a discovery of space gold attracted many people and they emigrated there. As emigrants had to play an enormous amount of money for their long space travel. Their living style was very much like that in the west of the USA in the 1800's. In 2120 A.D. a planet "Gloria": It was the time when i was very young... I was in the 2nd development group. People lived in peace, having dream and hope. Their peace was but short-lived. Nosing out the gold, space thieves "Wild Lizards" attacked them together with a huge monster tank. Too many people were killed and the servivors were enslaved. No piece of bread was given... Ah! Can anyone save us from this hell...We were awaiting such a person.

LEVELS: 7

Other Emulators:

* FB Alpha

* Raine

Recommended Games (Airforce 3):

Tokio / Scramble Formation

World Wars

Asuka & Asuka

Image Fight

Dyger

Master of Weapon

Air Duel

Gun & Frontier

Raiden

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Raiden DX

Raiden II / DX

Raiden Fighters

Raiden Fighters 2

Raiden Fighters Jet

Thunder Dragon

Thunder Dragon 2

Turbo Force

Aero Fighters

Aero Fighters 2

Aero Fighters 3

Aero Fighters Special

Grid Seeker

Sand Scorpion

Sky Alert

Varth

Zing Zing Zip

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Daioh

Fire Barrel

Mad Shark

U.N. Defense Force: Earth Joker

DonPachi

DoDonPachi

Bee Storm - DoDonPachi II

DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou

Air Gallet

Battle Garegga

Battle Bakraid

Skull Fang

Storm Blade

Sengeki Striker

Cyvern

Guardian Storm

Stagger I

Change Air Blade

1945k III

Romset: 3904 kb / 10 files / 2.14 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Gun & Frontier (World)</description>

<manufacturer>Taito Corporation Japan</manufacturer>