 Let's dive back into arcade games for a minute, here's an especially interesting one made by Konami in April of 1993, but it stayed in Japan. It was never localized and it never received a home console port, which means this one is perfect to play now anyway you can, it's called Guyapolis, and on the surface, it looks like a normal top-down hack and slash beat'em up, but there's actually a little bit more going on with this one. It's a bit like Konami's answer to classic Capcom games like Knights of the Round and King of Dragons, while adding in some adventure elements into the mix. The game is two-player compatible, and you get three characters to choose from, and you know the drill here. You get the balanced guy, the big strong guy, and the faster girl, and they're fighting the evil Zahark Empire, led by the King of Darkness. You might know him better under the name Aaron Rodgers. No, I'm kidding, but the one thing I want to quickly point out is that, yes, this is the game's native resolution. This was one of those arcade cabinets that set up its display in Tate Mode, as Game Sack would call it. Normally, you'd see this type of rotated display in shoot-'em-ups, in everything from games made in the 80s, like 1942, all the way into titles like Icaruga or Dragon Blaze. So yeah, if you decide to sit down and play in this one, get used to this narrow viewpoint. It's for better or for worse, and I mean, you'll really have to get used to it, because this game is incredibly long for what it is. There's 16 levels here, and based on how this game is laid out, a playthrough can take as long as two hours, which is an eternity for an arcade game. In fact, this is one of the very few arcade games that has a password system. That's right, this game is so friggin' long that when you insert a quarter, you have the option of entering a password so you can pick up where you left off. Imagine being in a typical arcade back in the early 90s with tons of noise and flashing lights and kids running around, and you're sitting there trying to scribble down a friggin' password on a grease-stained napkin. Thankfully, if you play Guyapolis today, that's not much of an issue, and despite how long and repetitive this game can be, it's still worth checking out. Each character has their basic melee attack, but also a dash attack that you can do by tapping the joystick or d-pad twice in one direction. It's very simple, but they got the pacing and the balance of speed down almost perfectly here. In the event you get surrounded by enemies, which is going to happen often, the controls are smooth enough that you can point your attacks in different directions nearly the split second that you need to. The enemy AI here is aggressive, but the game is fair enough that you almost always have opportunities to dodge, or at least block, which you can do by holding down the attack button. In the event that that should fail, then you can use a clear screen attack, which you'll happen upon every so often, usually in the form of a lightning storm, or a swarm of ghostly dragons. You'll also come across these different colored egg things, which hatch out a little helper creature that helps increase your attack. There's three different eggs, and they're each like little mini versions of the three playable characters. They do have their own health meter, though, and can die pretty easily, but they're usually pretty helpful. There's also experience points in this one, so the more enemies and treasure you find, the more you increase your health, improve your attack, and upgrade your shield. And this isn't one of those games where leveling up is done conveyor belt style, like you're just taking out a set number of enemies in a row and you'll level up anyway. In Guyapolis, you've got certain enemies that respawn. The treasure drops are a bit more random, and the structure of the game changes depending on what treasures you find and what enemies drop. If you gather enough points, you'll be able to unlock extra stages that help you get more powerful and unlock more of the story as well. And yes, there is a story here, but it's hard to understand exactly what the heck is happening, because the English here is so bad. Fire Warrior? Well, I guess it's easy to see how we got the name, because if I were engulfed in flames, I'd be pretty worried about fire too. So yeah, Guyapolis is a fun time, an ambitious title from back when Konami was really good. I mean, it's an arcade beat-em-up with a password system. How often do you see that? Now, I don't want to oversell this one too much. It's a long playthrough and it can get kind of boring at times, but this game makes up for being so long by offering incentives to get more points, so you can make your character more powerful and so you can see more of the story, as limited as that may be. So I appreciate those things. Plus, some of the boss fights here are fantastic, like this tank you fight near the beginning of the game, which eventually grows big dinosaur legs before sprouting a big dragon head. Geez, this is some final boss-type stuff here and I'm only 15 minutes in. But yeah, I do wish the combat featured a larger move set, but the game makes up for that by making it so easy to attack in 8 different directions so quickly. Plus, it's easy to defend and sometimes you have a helper buddy, which is nice. While I don't think this game measures up to some of Capcom's best beat-em-ups of the era, I still think Gaiopolis is worth checking out. Alright, I want to thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.