It is a rare occurrence for me to come across a Sega Genesis title I have never played, and in the case of Gynoug, never even heard of, even when thinking back on the US title Wings of Wor. I grew up during a time where all of my friends had the Genesis. I rented games from the local pharmacy at least once a week, if not more. I mowed every overgrown yard I could find to ensure I had a fair amount of cash to take with me to flea markets and garage sales, resulting in a pretty solid collection of black carts by the time I had moved on to the next bigger and better system. Luckily, Masaya is around to fill in one of the few gaps for me.

If you’re like me and have never heard of this title, you control what appears to be a smaller, winged version of Mega Man. He flies around a few locations shooting down deadly amoebas, monsters, and what I can only assume is supposed to be aborted fetuses that spit out bullets in a slower than average pace that I would describe as bullet purgatory since bullet hell games tend to be a little more difficult than what this game throws at you. Generally, I am a huge fan of these games, but I found this one to be a little on the easy side, only requiring me to restart once with the default settings before I managed to see everything it had to offer.

If you find yourself struggling to make it through, there are some modern conveniences that make the game even more accessible. There’s the rewind feature, which is added to just about every re-release of every 16-bit era game in existence, as well as cheats that can drop the difficulty so low, the game essentially plays itself. Ratalaika Games S.L. has become known for releasing games with some of the easiest trophy/achievement lists on the market, and this is no different. While I did set aside the hour or so to finish the game properly, my son (who has found a new obsession in these intangible rewards) managed to finish the list in about half of that time with the cheats activated.

Regardless of how you play, the title changes very little in terms of gameplay. You can essentially hold down the fire button, avoid enemy gunfire and move from left to right until you reach the boss battle. Rinse and repeat six times and the credits roll. Even by 1991 standards, this is kind of a shorter than average game. Adding insult to injury, without the ability to add a second player, the game feels like a throwaway title unless you’re one of the folks who played it the first go-around, which I am not.

Again, I was someone who missed out on Gynoug the first time around, and while I am glad I got to experience a “new” Sega game, I wouldn’t say this is a must-have unless this was something from your childhood you’d like to revisit. If this is you, I doubt you’ll be let down, as it looks and feels like a retro game would; it’s just not one I would say is a must-own or something in the vein of Streets of Rage or Sonic The Hedgehog that you’d be missing out on if you skipped.

5 out of 10

Pros

• A Faithful Retro Re-Release
• Easy Gamerscore/Trophy Completion
• Accessibility Options Galore

Cons

• Relies Heavily on Nostalgia… Which You May or May Not Have for It
• Kind of Short
• No Multiplayer Modes
• Extremely Easy on Default Settings

Gynoug was developed by Masaya Games and published by Ratalaika Games S.L. The game is available for NS, PS4, PS5, Sega Genesis (original 1991), X1, and XSX. The game was provided to us for review on XSX. If you’d like to see more of Gynoug, check out the publisher’s site.

 

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