Gun Frontier
Image: Taito

If you're a fan of vertical shooters, then you might want to mark your calendar for August 12th. That's when Gun Frontier, Taito's space western from 1990, finally makes its way to Hamster's Arcade Archives collection for PS4 and Switch, letting you climb inside a gun-shaped aircraft and blast away hordes of space thieves (Thanks @Dedeo832!). It comes a day later than usual, due to a public holiday that is taking place in Japan on August 11th.

Conceived by Takatsuna Senba, Gun Frontier was originally released in arcades for Taito's F2 System and was created for a much lower budget than was typical for in-house projects, according to its lead producer. It was also produced on a tight deadline, with the development team having to test and create documentation for the F2 hardware while actively working on the game.

Nevertheless, the team was able to pull it off and its efforts resulted in a satisfying shooter game, though one with some very noticeable spelling errors. Later on, the developer Goo! ported Gun Frontier to Sega Saturn in 1997 as part of Xing Entertainment's Arcade Gears series, but this version of the game received some mixed reviews, introducing visual glitches and removing several secrets.

If you're on the fence about trying it out, you can check out a longplay of the game below:

[source twitter.com]