Babarageo STG Banner

June 14, 2006

Tags: action banner barbarageo flash free game japanese kidsafe macwinlinux original shooter simpleidea

By JohnB | add to favorites | add to your website | add this!

Babarageo STG Banner is a tiny 15 pixel tall space shooter. Most banner games have a single goal that can usually be accomplished in a few seconds. However, STG Banner introduces something a little different: rotating images with clickable hotspots. It may not sound like much, but it adds a surprising amount of strategy to an otherwise mindless game.

You rack up points as you fly your ship and blast enemies at the top of the screen. Every 1,000 points triggers the image to change. There are over two dozen different scenes that appear, many of which integrate nicely into the playing field. Most images have clickable hotspots that will either give you a power-up, destroy your ship, or do something else entirely. Usually finding a clickable spot gives you a better weapon, so each time the image rotates you'll dart your cursor downwards and begin the hunt.

The fun/challenging part of the game is balancing your quest for hotspots with defending yourself on the battlefield. While checking for clickable areas on the banners you can still fire, but you can't move without returning the cursor to the top. In addition to the usual set of weapons (laser beam, wide shot, triple shot, etc), you can collect mega-upgrades by keeping good items and finding more hotspots.

While the game certainly isn't one to keep you occupied for hours on-end, it's a remarkably well-done title for a banner game. Balancing your tactics between banner clicking and enemy destroying is interesting, and the random events that can occur with strange hotspot clicks keep you on your toes. The game even gets a little more difficult as you progress, though the real reason you'll stick around is to see what weird images show up next.

Play.
(Note: The game loads automatically at the top of the page.)

Currently 5/5
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Rating: 5/5 (1 votes cast)

Comments (may contain spoilers)

Where are the hotspots?

Posted by: Spun | June 14, 2006 6:45 PM

This game crashed Opera for me. But I'm running Opera 9 Beta, so it might just be because of that.

Posted by: MagikOvenMit | June 14, 2006 9:49 PM

The hotspots are in the pictures that appear below the main playing area. Be warned that not all hotspots have a good effect.

Cheat:

While holding fire, you can move your ship up into the top border of the field, where no enemies can hit you. Then, you can swing your pointer around the outside of the Flash window and into the hotspot area to search at your leisure. It seems to me that some screens don't have any hotspots.

Also, some of the other games on that site are pretty good. I'm playing a little Dragon Quest knock-off which is highly enjoyable. If you know anything about older console RPGs, you won't need to understand Japanese to play it.

Posted by: Nezuji | June 14, 2006 9:57 PM

Uhhh... i just got a weird website which had the instructions but no game... ????

Posted by: Annie | June 14, 2006 10:01 PM

pretty good for a banner game.actually for me i'll be playing this hours on-end=P

and now for some cheats for the hotspots:

when you get a image of a shop,your ship gets the weapon/paint job shown

i have also noticed a couple of the images are pictures from the other games on the site

Posted by: lobstertainment | June 14, 2006 10:23 PM

Nezuji: While your cheat is helpful, it's not foolproof, because while none of the enemy shots might reach, enemy movement patterns might still do the trick.

On a side note, I believe I found your RPG, but I'm stumped on how to get the good ending. So far the best I can do is find the hammer, but I have no idea where to use it! Can I get a hint?

Posted by: Ben | June 14, 2006 10:28 PM

Hrm, now that I've looked a little more I realize there are a couple others there as well. The one I picked up immediately was the one with the blue haired hero, though, and he doesn't have armor (like.. what looks like the sequel?).

For a true spoiler on the game reviewed here... 1. The very first screen does not seem to have any hotspots at all, so don't bother for the first 1000 points. 2. There are two screens with obvious hotspots. One is a simple description/depiction of game sprites, plus a few buttons listing effects; the other is a shop with depictions of the shot types. Beware, however, as both have hotspots that can destroy you (one is the enemy pictures on the simple sprite screen, and the other is a good laugh that I won't spoil). 3. If you get the screen that's shown in the review, click the cherry to get quite possibly the best weapon in the game, a quadruple shot gun (as opposed to the triple shot, twin laser and wide shot).

Posted by: Ben | June 14, 2006 10:56 PM

Hot spots:

* In the shop: just click on the weapon you want, or cop a feel to blow yourself up.
* On the sprite ID screen: Click the weapon you want, or click an enemy ship to blow yourself up.
* The girl whose skirt is being blown up by the wind: click her panties to explode. :P
* The underwater scene: click the diver beneath the boat for a laser.
* The blue people in the castle: click on the dog for a weapon upgrade.
* The arcade console: click either button on the console for an upgrade.
* The racecar: click on the dog sign for a laser.
* The sword, shield, and potion: click any of them for an upgrade.
* The paint shop: click a color for a rockin' custom spaceship skin. ;)
* The Dig Dug scene: click on the cherries (if they're there) for a quadruple shot.
* The skyscraper: click on the dangling guy to make him fall (with no effect that I can see).

Those are the ones I've found; there may well be more!

Posted by: jere7my | June 15, 2006 1:50 AM

About xeno, the game with the blue-haired boy, this is how to get the true ending.

first, let's see how to get the bad ending.

first get the SWORD on the right. then go up, kill the monsters to open the door, go left then down. kill the bats and get the PICKAXE. go up, right, right - you can't kill the skeletons yet! go down, right, take the SILVER KEY. At this point, it's shorter to hit D to go back to the starting point. Go left and open the chest to get the CANDLE. Go back to where the skeletons were (right, up, up, right), then up. The ghosts are visible thanks to the candle. kill them to get the CROSS. Go down: you can now attack the skeletons and open the door. Kill all the monsters. Go up, right, up, kill the bats, up, left, down, left, up, kill monsters to go through, up, left. Open the chest to get the MIRROR. Go right, down, down, left, up, kill monsters, up. You can kill the Cockatrice because you have the mirror. Go up: in this room there is a statue of a princess. Get the GOLD KEY. Go down, down, down, right, up, up, up, right. Open the gold door with the gold key. Kill the grey monster, go right and kill the devil by deflecting his fireballs, Zelda-style. Get the HOLY GRAIL, go back to where the stone princess was, she will turn into a "real" princess. that is, until it kills you a the end of this "bad" ending.

Now here's how to make it a good ending. By now, I suppose you know your way around the maze so I'll just describe what to do without directions. When you get the cross, go back to where you took the sword, break the right wall and follow the way until you get a HAMMER. Go back to where you first fought the skeletons. On the right, fight the monsters without hitting the fairy. Then, move to the fairy: you've saved it. On the screen on the right, she says she'll repay you and if you hit her, she asks to bring a red potion. A couple of screens further, where there is a door on the top wall, go left to open a chest with an empty bottle. Then, go back all the way to where you got your pickaxe, and go talk to the wise man a couple of screens above, or rather wack him to get a RED POTION in your previously empty bottle. Bring that to the fairy and she'll reward you with a MAGIC SWORD. Now, a couple of screens after where you found the empty bottle, there's a red bouncing guy who used to say that you can't hurt him with your little sword. But you certainly can with your improved magic sword. Kill him to get an AMULET. With the amulet, you can kill all the monsters you couldn't hit before. Backtrack a bit to the screen where ghosts say "hehe" and kill them now. Then, warp using "D" and pick the APPLE. Now, go to the screen with the golden door: your apple turned into a GOLDEN APPLE. Go back to the fairy that gave you the magic sword, she'll now give you the IMPERIAL SWORD. If you want, you can pick the JAR and take it to the golden door to turn it into a GOLDEN JAR, but I don't know if it does anything. The wise man that was next to the silver key will make a comment depending on the type of jar you're carrying: great. Get the mirror and kill the Cockatrice as before, pick the egg. Get the gold key, kill the grey monster and pick the hourglass. Now go left to where you got the mirror: with your hammer you can open the egg, with your hourglass you can cook it right. Walk to the red lake and you will get the FRIED EGG. go down to the wise man that wanted to eat an egg and he'll make a chest appear with the PEARL RING. (I don't know if it's useful, like the golden jar). Go kill the devil as before and go back to the statue, but instead of leaving the room, whack the false princess with your imperial sword and you'll get the RUBY RING. Go back to where you fought the devil, you can now open the grey thing that looked like a door and go right, where the true princess is, and enjoy the TRUE ENDING.

Posted by: vozome | June 15, 2006 8:12 AM

Well, I dunno... That cheat seems to work pretty well for me. I mean, you can drag it all the way up off the screen, like it would be under the "BABARAGEO" logo at the top of the page.

And the RPG I was talking about was "Flash Quest II", which is the one just to the right of Zenoraider. You can look at the URLs to tell which is which.

But Zenoraider sounds pretty awesome!

Posted by: Nezuji | June 15, 2006 8:45 AM

Nezuji's cheat only works properly if you're holding down the mouse button when you move "above the window". If you're not, the app will lose focus as soon as your pointer leaves the window, and your ship will still be half stuck in the play area.

Posted by: jere7my | June 15, 2006 3:15 PM

Further exploration of the hotspot system:

Some hotspots give you a specific weapon no matter what you have, while others upgrade your weapon according to a weapons progression chain, which is as follows: Single shot-> dual-> triple-> quadruple-> laser-> dual laser-> wide shot-> "heavy" wide shot.
The best weapons are the quadruple shot, which has the widest spread of any weapon, and the "heavy" wide shot, or as I like to call it, the firehose. "Upgrade" hotspots are the only way to obtain the firehose. Once you have the heavy wide shot, clicking "upgrade" hotspots will only change the scene. Caution: clicking a "specific weapon" hotspot, like the left button in the arcade, will still give you that weapon - essentially downgrading your gun.
Hotspots:
Arcade - left button gives you double lasers, right button upgrades your weapon and changes the scene
Old man in a cave - sword upgrades and changes scene, shield gives you quad shot, potion changes your color in the order seen in the paint shop
Blue people in a blue castle - dog upgrades your weapon and changes scene
Underwater - diver upgrades your weapon and changes scene
Race car - dog billboard gives you single laser
Dig Dug - Cherries give you quad shot
Any hotspot I didn't mention works as jere7my found.

Posted by: Phy | September 8, 2006 1:46 PM

does the teris one have any hotspots??

Posted by: hampster | March 16, 2008 12:02 AM

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