Play Gunbird Online

Summary

Gunbird drops you into a bright‑anime vertical shooter where every pilot feels like a cartoon cameo. You can pick a 13‑year‑old witch on a broom, a jet‑backed explorer, a Russian robot, an elf‑like magician or an old man in a pedal‑helicopter, and each one brings a distinct fire‑pattern and bomb style that changes the whole feel of a run. Power‑ups flood the screen, so you’re constantly juggling “P” items for shot upgrades and “B” bombs to clear the relentless bullet clouds that get denser in the second loop. The stages themselves are a shuffled mix – the first three are drawn from a pool of four, and the second loop throws in faster, tighter patterns and a unique stage that never appears in the first pass. Between levels the story nudges you toward collecting shards of a magic mirror for a wish, and the ending splits depending on whether you finish solo or in co‑op. The arcade cabinet even let you tweak lives, continues and screen orientation, and today the original version lives on the Sega Astro City Mini V and online leaderboards, still chasing that eighth‑place Gamest award glory.

Storyline

Gunbird’s story is a tongue‑in‑cheek quest for the fragments of a magical mirror that grants a single wish. Each level ends with a boss, and defeating it yields one of the four mirror pieces; the narrative between stages shows the rivals scrambling for the same prize. In two‑player mode the dialogue shifts, with quirky anime‑style cut‑scenes revealing each character’s personal agenda.

The cast includes Ash, a 28‑year‑old German inventor with a jet‑pack, and Marion, a 13‑year‑old English witch who flies on a broom while berating her talking rabbit, Pom‑Pom. Valnus is a newly built Russian robot secretly longing to become human, and Yuan Nang draws inspiration from Sun Wukong, complete with a cloud‑somersault and a size‑changing headband. Tetsu, a 60‑year‑old white‑haired helicopter pilot, is openly gay and pursues either a reunion with his dead lover or a return to youth. The Trump, a trio of sky pirates, serve as non‑playable rivals who also chase the mirror’s power.