Giga Wing (1999). Play online

Summary

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I first noticed Giga Wing on a narrow cabinet where the screen sits horizontally – a rare layout for a game that scrolls vertically. It offers four futuristic aircraft, each with three tactics: a spread of bullets, a reflective field that bounces enemy shots back, and a screen‑clearing force bomb.

You begin with two bombs that can be increased to seven, and keeping any bombs in reserve after each boss yields a bonus, while the secret seventh stage disappears if you use even one continue. Scores feed a dynamic ‘rank’ system that raises the difficulty in real time, and destroyed ships sometimes drop medals that raise the score multiplier and future power‑ups. Thanks to its inclusion in collections such as the Capcom Arcade Stadium, the game’s unusual visual angle and rapid-fire action still feel fresh to new players.

Storyline

Giga Wing unfolds in a steampunk‑styled war where a powerful medallion fuels the conflict. Four pilots—Sinnosuke, Ruby, Isha, and Stuck—each pursue their own campaign to shatter the artifact, and the game lets you pair two of them for a team‑play storyline.

Throughout the missions the medallion appears as a weapon for many bosses, culminating in battles against the mysterious Stranger, a ship piloted by an evil man who has controlled the medallion for decades, even influencing World War II. He confronts the player three times: twice as a mini‑boss and finally as the final boss, revealing a past friendship with Stuck from thirty years earlier.

Every route offers two possible endings; a bad ending has a pilot sacrifice themselves in a kamikaze strike that destroys the medallion, while the good ending lets the characters survive without self‑destruction.