Low G Man is an Action Platform Game published by Taxan and developed by KID Corp. for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990.
In the year 2284, humans have perfected outer space travel and anti-gravity technology, and are looking to spread their influence throughout the galaxy by colonizing other planets and building exploration robots on them. However, one of the robot-producing planets is taken over by an alien race, who reprograms the robots to aid them in their bid to purge the galaxy of all organic life.
To fight back against the alien menace, Earth sends a crew of super-powered warriors called the Low-G Men, who are equipped with low-gravity backpacks that give them amazing maneuverability, even under high gravity conditions. One such Low-G Man (you, the player) is sent on a solo mission to break through the aliens' defenses and defeat their leader.
Tropes used in Low G Man:
- Collision Damage: The Spider Vehicle has no weapons, but it can cause damage to enemies just by touching them. However, it still takes damage from enemy bullets.
- Death Course: The second and fourth end-of-chapter boss stages require you to go through treacherous obstacle courses before you can actually fight the bosses.
- Evolving Weapon: You have four different sub-weapons: boomerangs, fireballs, bombs, and an energy wave, which become more powerful as you collect more ammunition for them, but get reset to level 1 when you lose all your lives. The boomerangs and energy wave fork out in three different directions at max level à la the Thunder Beam in Mega Man, and the fireballs turn into a Spread Shot of sorts.
- Freeze Ray: Your Electro-Magentic Disruptor Pistol (EMDP) freezes enemies in place for a few seconds. This makes them easier to kill with your spear, but significantly reduces the chance of obtaining a power-up (unfrozen enemies always drop power-ups when defeated). It also makes a convenient health indicator for bosses; it takes fewer shots to freeze a boss with low health.
- Health Potion: Blue potions increase your life meter, while red ones decrease it.
- In a Single Bound: Collecting AGM belts increases your character's already impressive jumping height, allowing him to leap up to two screens in a single jump.
- It's All Upstairs From Here: Chapters 3-3 and 4-1 are vertically-scrolling levels where you have to go straight up to reach the boss.
- Mini-Mecha: You can pilot three different vehicles - a bomb-dropping hovercraft, a Chicken Walker with a powered-up Spring Jump that puts yours to shame, or a Spider Tank that can cling to the ceiling.
- Product Placement: If you finish the game on the hardest difficulty level, the ending text finishes with a message that dares the player to try out G.I. Joe (another Taxan/KID NES Game).
- Teleport Spam: A pair of late-game bosses blink all over the place and pelt you with fireballs. When their health drops low enough, they teleport even faster.
- Warp Zone: There are two secret levels in the first and third areas that let you skip over those bosses. Special passwords can be entered to play just those secret levels, where you simply try to kill as many enemies as you can before time runs out, and you eventually die.
