ジェルベーダー (Gel Invaders)
Panzo Invaders is another game starring Panzo the panda bear, and this one is enjoyable and addictive like the other panda games before it.
The action arcade Shockwave game is a cross between Breakout and Space Invaders. The object of the game is to throw a bouncing ball around the play field to knock out enemies in the sky that advance toward the ground. Clear all enemies for each level to move on to the next. There are eight (8) levels total.
If you don't read or understand Japanese, no worries. The panda games are nearly self-explanatory. When you launch the game, click the short orange Japanese text above the red character that looks like a cat. A short cut scene will play, though you can skip past it by clicking the green text at the bottom right of the game window. You can return to the game menu at any time by clicking the small green 'return' arrow at the bottom left of the window.
Control is entirely with the mouse, simply point the cursor to aim where you want, and click to throw the ball. The higher you position the cursor, the harder your throw. The ball will bounce on the ground and against the sides of the play field, so there is no out of bounds to worry about, but you must pick the ball back up before you can throw it again. If you click without the ball, Panzo will jump and you can alteratively perform combos by kicking and punching the aliens from the sky instead. Though if you jump up into an alien, you will lose some of your health.
Hitting an enemy with the ball will cause it to fall from the sky, and release coins to collect for points. Some enemies require more than one hit to take them out. Hit more than one enemy in a single throw, bounces included, to release more coins for a higher score.
Avoid falling enemies and the stuff they drop. Each time you get hit, a portion of your life energy bar will be taken away. If you lose all your life energy, the game is over. Sometimes when an enemy falls to the ground, they will release a small first-aid kit. Collect those to replenish a portion of your life energy bar.
Analysis: This particular game design is actually a remake of Yard Invaders by RobotDuck. And like the other Panzo games reviewed here previously, Geru Geru Panic and Mamezo, this game shares similar graphics and sound. The graphics are simple, bright and cheerful, and the soundtrack is well produced. And yet it is the gameplay that makes these games remarkable and fun to play.
Although most of these games are not based on original ideas, the developer, Yoshio Ishii creates his own unique style of compelling gameplay nonetheless. It is not surprising that I find myself coming back to play his games often.
However, in this game there are only three (3) different enemies. And while a couple of the levels created mildly intense action by combining multiple enemy types, the game is just not very difficult. I was surprised when I was able to get through all eight (8) levels on my second try, and the game therefore feels unfinished. Just when I was getting the hang of how to play, the game ended abruptly.
I would like to see more enemies and more levels, or different levels of difficulty, such as varying the quantity of available power-ups for replenishing life energy. In the meantime, I'll continue playing it as is.
Thanks to Devstrider for the heads-up about the game.
Ok, to start you all off with a score to beat:
4,965,250.
By the way, can anyone help me with a translation for the name of the game? All I was able to come up with is "Jelv" which is the name of the game dcr file. thanks! =)
I couldn't understand anything the game says, but it's still a really addictive, fun game. Nice find!
(I just found this site yesterday. Good stuff, by the way!)
YAY PANDAS!!! i like this one...but i cant get past the cat looking things. THEY WONT DIE!! i took me a while to figure out i could jump if i didnt have the ball and then i thought to myslef "well that wouldve helped" overal great game (except for the cat thingies) love it Jay
3,908,690 here..1 mil. points from getting to you..yea i also found out you can kick and punch that helps
The game was a bit short and not very challenging, but it was fun while it lasted. Also, I noticed if you click when you don't have the ball, you can jump, kick, and punch. Useful for getting those low flying ones.
When you don't have the ball, you can jump by clicking in the air, or throw punches or kicks by clicking closer to Panzo. Apparently there is some kinda combo system becuase it starts counting up as you do this....
There even appears to be "special attacks" of some kind with the punches and kicks. I havn't really figgured all that out..
Love the site, btw.
I don't know if this is new or if you just need to reach a certain score (I wasn't watching mine), but I got to levels 9 and 10...
I played again and as far as I can tell, there are just 10 levels (right now) with the yellow guy from the beginning introduction-type-thingy coming down after the 10th.
Also, my score to beat: 6757670
Woo hoo! :)
Yeah...still can't figure out the combo counter... =\
Very addictive.
The best translation I can come up with for this game is "Gel Veda." But that's just my guess...perhaps there's a more accurate translation out there. ^ ^
To help with the translation once again (^ ^): While surfing a Japanese Star Wars site, I realized that the "ベーダー" portion of the game title is the exact katakana(characters) used in writing "Darth Vader" in Japanese.
The text itself says "Geru Vader". So now, an appropriate and more accurate translation for this game would be "Gel Vader" (Gel Invaders).
Yay! Thanks, Kay! Nice translation work, and I'm certain you are correct. =)
I've updated the title of the entry accordingly.
I don't remember my score, but it was 5 million something :P (noone probably believes me now v_v ) I managed to throw the ball so that it landed right at a point where all the rotating gels hit it one after the other. Twice. Mad combos. It seemed like a bug because the ball just stayed there as long as they kept on hitting it.
Hi Jay, I agree with KAY. I think the translation should be "jel- vader". your translation "Gel invader" is good enough. Good Luck!
btw, your website is really nice.
That was fun! ^_^ This site is really good, too. Especially after that update =3
My score was 4,288,980. Those red things are so annoying @_@
i got to level 9 the bg turned black and there were tons of them going really fast
I found this game a while back... and i keep coming back to it. HS = 7,340,950
Okay, so my personal best stands at Level 10, with 4,800,910 points. Not bad, considering I usually end up not doing so hot on these kind of games.
On a sidenote, games featuring pandas rule. ;)
Fun game!I enjoyed playing it.
I noticed something though. It may be a bug, but when the panda is dead and the game over sign comes up, for some reason you can still get points! I noticed that my score kept increasing.
I did notice that it seemed to increase when one of the aliens would shoot its blobs at the panda. Hell, I bet I could rack up a huge score by just leaving the game on overnight in this manner! Did anyone else catch this?
This is a great little game. There arent many levels, but that doesnt matter, because the last level is almost impossible to beat with all those flying thingys all over the place. But, after beating it, I managed to get a score of 5,462,010 points thanks to an insane 11-bounce combo on one of those green flying thing levels.. :P
Anyone want to know mine:
Do you really want to know
it is
5,395,370 points
try and beat that then
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