- ''Suddenly children disappeared from town. Secret inrestigater Sarah entered secretly into the hideout. To find the reason. In the hideout, children were brainwashing. It was preperation for World War 3, to rule the world. The goverment opened emergency meeting, and chose two soldiers. Then they started fighting."Yes
◊, "Blind Idiot" Translation intentional
Gundhara is a 1995 arcade top-down Run-and-Gun action game released by Banpresto, in the middle of the early 90s' arcade shooters craze made popular by Ikari Warriors.
Children all over the city have gone missing, and a private investigator, Sarah, managed to uncover a plot from an unnamed, evil corporation responsible for the kidnappings, that they're conducting brainwashing experiments on the kids to initiate a third world war. It's up to two commandoes, Jerry Scott and Jinn Ayakawa, to save the children by taking down an entire army of goons.
Gundhara contain examples of:
- Bilingual Bonus: The title. Gundhara translates literally to Bullet Storm!... and yes, the game lives up to it's name.
- Child Soldiers: What the unnamed syndicate intends to raise the children they kidnapped into, and it's up to Jerry and Jinn to put a stop to their plans.
- Cool Bike: The second stage is a chase sequence where Jerry and Jinn, on motorcycles with built-in rocket launchers, pursues the corporation's convoy, blasting through enemy bikers all the way. The stage boss is also fought on bike, too.
- Cores-and-Turrets Boss: The syndicate's unnamed leader (a Villain in a White Suit) and also the Final Boss. Jerry and Jinn fights him in his penthouse office after slaughtering all his mooks, only to find out his entire desk is weaponized, where the boss will simply sit behind his desk while turrets attack from everywhere. Jinn and Jerry can only attack the boss' seat, but when the desk receives enough damage, it explodes taking the boss with it.
- Excuse Plot: You might forget the plot being a rescue mission where you're supposed to recover children kidnapped by the syndicate, when you're too busy killing enemies by the dozens. It barely have a plot anyways, other than giving players an excuse to shoot everything onscreen.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: For most of the game, Jerry and Jinn are battling a child-abducting crime syndicate, until the third level which is set in what appears to be South-East Asian jungles. After battling their your way through hordes of enemies until reaching a temple, they're suddenly assaulted by a Living Statue of a Buddhist God that spams electric attacks and a Wave-Motion Gun from it's mouth. After destroying said statue, it then cracks open to reveal an Oriental dragon who tries gobbling Jerry and Jinn until it's killed. No such outlandish elements appear for the remainder of the game.
- Gratuitous English: In both the Japanese and foreign versions, upon completing a level the announcer will report, "Oh, excellent!"
- Guns Akimbo:
- When the power-ups start piling, don't be surprised to see Jerry and Jinn running around carrying a machine-gun on one hand and a rocket-launcher on another as they blast their way through enemies.
- Some higher-grade enemies will use two weapons onscreen. Notably the leader's Mook Lieutenant bodyguard who use two machine-guns to turn the screen into a Bullet Hell area.
- Homing Projectile: There's a homing rocket-launcher weapon that zips in to the nearest available target, which can be combined with the Spread Shot power-up to facilitate a Macross Missile Massacre.
- Missing Child: The backstory of the game have children being kidnapped en masse, and their mysterious abductors uncovered by a private investigator, Sarah. And then Jerry and Jinn are sent by their higher-ups to save the kids.
- More Dakka: There's never enough dakka to kill literal armies of enemies onscreen. Jerry and Jinn never needs to reload their machine-guns, and can even upgrade their weapons to fire twice as fast or split their gun-barrels so they can fire in five directions.
- Improbable Infant Survival / Invulnerable Civilians: While raiding enemy bases to rescue the children, sometimes rescued kids can be seen running around the stage. Bullets and projectiles fired either by enemy mooks or Jerry and Jinn would miss the kids entirely.
- King Mook: The first stage have Jerry and Jinn entering the corporation's hideout, enter a hangar manufacturing drones, all which activates instantly and the duo quickly destroys, before facing the boss, a giant version of the regular drones surrounded by a dozen minions.
- Lightning Gun: There's a plasma gun who fires a stream of purple electrical energy in a whip-like pattern, capable of electrocuting numerous onscreen enemies when upgraded fully. Function-wise it seems to be ripped off from the Raiden games.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Well Jerry is. On both the flyer and the console cover for the home release.
- Spread Shot: One of the early power-ups allows Jerry and Jinn to fire automatic weaponry in a 5-way arc.
- Tank Goodness: Tanks are a recurring enemy Jerry and Jinn will battle, taking up a huge chunk of the screen each time and capable of absorbing plenty of rockets and bullets from the duo, enough to pass as Giant Mook foes.
- Walking Tank: Some of the syndicate's enemies will pilot these to attack Jerry and Jinn. The fourth level notably have one such vehicle that can be hijacked and used by the players, while an even larger one serves as a boss in another level.
- Zerg Rush: The enemies will absolutely try their damnest to overwhelm Jerry and Jinn through sheer numbers.
