Play Sunset Riders Online

Summary

Sunset Riders lets you pick one of four bounty hunters, each with a signature gun – Steve and Billy fire revolvers, Bob handles a rifle, and Cormano swings a double‑barrel shotgun. The eight‑way joystick moves you and aims, while two buttons cover shooting and jumping, letting you hop between floors or slide under fire. You’ll spend most of the run on foot, but two stages swap the horse for a ride, and the final showdown happens on a moving train.

Each of the eight stages ends with a tough boss, and the player who dishes out the most damage claims the whole bonus. After the second and fifth rounds a quick‑draw minigame pops up, rewarding extra points for blasting outlaws that appear. Power‑ups hide behind doors, in sack‑carrying bandits, or on the ground, with a gold badge granting full‑auto fire and a silver badge adding a second gun – both can be equipped together. Dynamite, drop‑able rocks, barrels, torches, and a Gatling gun in the last level round out the arsenal, and if Cormano is still in play after stage five he’ll steal the defeated boss’s sombrero as a cheeky Easter egg.

The SNES port stays true to the arcade action but trims a few quirks: voice‑acted cutscenes now carry subtitles, the barfly’s kiss and saloon dancers are dressed more modestly, and only one damsel can be rescued in stage four with no extra reward. Hunter dogs disappear, the Native American foes in stage six are replaced by regular outlaws (leaving Chief Wigwam as the sole tribal boss), and the female dynamite‑tossing bandits become male. These changes give the console version a slightly cleaner, yet still wildly entertaining, Wild West feel.

Storyline

Sunset Riders drops you into a fanciful version of the American Old West where bounty hunters chase down the most wanted outlaws. At the start of each stage a wanted poster introduces the criminal you’ll face, and the four protagonists—Steve, Billy, Bob, and Cormano—ride in to claim the reward. Their goal isn’t just personal profit; they’ve sworn a pact to stop the tyrant Sir Richard Rose, a despicable mastermind who controls mining facilities, cattle ranches, and trading towns, effectively trying to buy the entire West for himself. The people are desperate for help, and the four riders become the West’s last line of defense. By eliminating Rose’s henchmen and confronting the villain himself, they aim to restore freedom and peace to the frontier.