YMMV / Gunstar Heroes

• Awesome Music: It's a Treasure game, so it's to be expected, but the Seven Force theme is held in nearly as much (if not more) regard as the fight it goes with for its mixture of ominous sirens, building crescendos, and pounding beat.
• Best Boss Ever: The fight with Seven Force is widely regarded as one of the most memorable moments of both games. The rematch against Green on both games is also a high point of the game.
• Difficulty Spike: Stage five is arguably the hardest level in the original game because A) you have to fight through a horde of Mooks that will whittle your health down B) you have to fight Smash Daisaku, who would be hard enough if you weren't in a weakened state and C) there are no check points in the stage, which means a game over places you right back at the beginning of it all. Mind you it's also considered the Best Level Ever since you can completely cut loose against a horde of moving targets.
• Game-Breaker: Chaser + Lightning, which will allow you to zap mooks and bosses without having to aim...unless you're playing on Hard or Expert, where the damage output renders it useless, especially against bosses. Alternatively, you can use Fire + Lightning, which turns your weapon into a Laser Blade that does a ludicrous amount of damage, and destroys projectiles!
• Polished Port: As usual for M2's 3DS ports, Gunstar Heroes not only looks fantastic in 3D, but the game offers several new gameplay options. Gunslinger mode grants you access to all four weapons at once and allows you to switch between Free Shot and Fixed Shot with the press of a button, Mega Life Mode grants you twice as much energy, and beating the game unlocks Mega Shot Mode in which your shots are considerably more powerful.
• That One Boss: Green in both games. On the easier difficulties he isn't much of a problem since he dies rather quick and may not use a form you have a hard time fighting. On Expert (Heroes) and Hard (Super Heroes)? He's a nightmare. Green will use every single of his seven forms essentially turning the fight against him into one long gauntlet, you'll also have to deal with the handicaps the higher difficulties hammer on you (lower starting health, lower damage input, beefier boss health). To make matters worse there are no checkpoints or health refills, and if you lose get ready to restart the fight all over, the only way to beat Green is to learn the pattern of each individual form and tough it out.
• That One Level: The board game in the original Gunstar Heroes, where the player can only move up to three spaces at a time. It's also brimmed with some of toughest bosses in the game and the second-to-last space shoves you right back to the beginning, forcing you do the board all over again (though thankfully the player will not be forced to re-fight any of the bosses they have already killed).
• Tough Act to Follow: It was inevitable that the sequel, Gunstar Super Heroes, would be unable to match its predecessor, as most of the criticisms toward the game stemmed from how it fared against the game that put Treasure on the map and is still seen as one of the best games for the Genesis/Mega Drive.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: A few of the bosses can invoke this effect, a couple examples include Melonbread: a vaguely clown-like face with an overly animated mouth that stares at the player character. And Curry & Rice: a humanoid-like rock creature with stiff awkward animations.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • While dated by today's standards, the 3D polygon-like effects on some of the bosses was advanced for the time (especially since it arguably looked better than Star Fox on a system that's weaker than the SNES).
  • All the sprite rotation and scaling may not seem like much until you remember the Genesis lacked the Super Nintendo's Mode 7.
  • Gunstar Super Heroes is no slouch, either: the Game Boy Advance is a more powerful system than the Genesis, yet this game still pushes the GBA's capabilities to their limits.