Have you finished the last puzzle on
Chew Chew Mimic and are now finding yourself hungry for your next Dreamcast fix? Well,
PixelHeart might have you covered with their latest Kickstarter campaign for
Bang Bang Busters 2.
As the "2" in the title might infer, this is the sequel to the 2010 Visco-developed Neo Geo title Bang Bang Busters (also stylised as Bang² Busters), a single-screen arcade title akin to the likes of Bubble Bobble and Snow Bros where you clear stages by grabbing the enemies and hurling them at other enemies to build up combos and boost your score.
Bang Bang Busters 2 sees cutesy space bunnies Lazy and Refia return to once again defeat Emperor Honey and stop his evil plan to transform the kings of the universe into giant mascots and imprison them all in a planetary amusement park called Happy Universe.
Okay, so the plot may have been ripped straight out of a 90s quarter-munching cabinet, but if you enjoy classic action platforming, Bang Bang Busters 2 could be well worth a look.
Although the lead platforms for the project are the Neo Geo MVS and AES cartridges, PixelHeart have confirmed that the Dreamcast version is a dedicated native port for the platform, and will sport improvements over the base game including a larger colour palette and refined visuals. The audio is also going to be improved with stereo sound and a CD-quality soundtrack. This is a definite improvement over the Dreamcast release of the original Bang Bang Busters, which was effectively just an emulated ROM on a disc.
As with other PixelHeart titles, regional packaging design options are available for Dreamcast, including our favourite love-to-hate option of a PAL jewel case (priced at €50) as well as US and Japanese themed versions (priced at €35) to best fit your current collection.
You can check out the Kickstarter here, where as of writing, the project is £15,042 towards its goal of £30,845. The Kickstarter runs until the 30th of November so it's looking promising that the goal will be achieved. There are also downloadable demos available for free for both Dreamcast and Neo Geo, if you want to test out an early build to see if it's up your street.
Have you played the original Bang Bang Busters? Are you looking forward to a sequel? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
