Kokuga

Kokuga is a slow-moving, free-scrolling top-down shooter where players are placed in control of a futuristic “compact mobile tank” known as Kokuga. The Kokuga is suspended on four “legs” and features a single turret capable of rotating 360 degrees using the shoulder buttons.

Each stage has the player move through destroying other mechanical, tank-like, turret-like, and robotic enemies. Most stages end with massive and varied boss battles. Stages are separated into segments with large gates at the dividers–destroying all enemies before destroying the divider resorts in bonus shield repairs. Destroying the gate without defeating all the enemies in that section merely results in all enemies therein being annihilated.

Kokuga differentiates itself from most other shooters in a variety of ways. Rather than collecting power-ups, players already have 20 “cards” to utilize. Of these 20 attack and support cards, four are randomly displayed on the touch-screen at a time and offer a variety of abilities, from an offensive laser ring around the player, to homing shots, to shield restoration and damage repairs. Players cannot cycle through the cards, and in order to get new ones, at least one current card must be used. In this way, the game offers an unusual strategy element to the shooter gameplay–careful and planned use of power-up cards over simply powering up as much as possible as soon as possible.