Gigadeep (206Mb)
Gigadeep is an excellent free Japanese 2D platform game. It is by the game author Pepo of Peposoft. Bit like ‘Pepsi’ soft, well the game does indeed sparkle and has a great game flavour! He has made several other good games, with this one being in the style of ‘Mega Man’.
The storyline is a mad scientist unleashing robots to destroy the world. The very well made levels are packed full of enemies to eliminate, while dealing with some occasional platform-style puzzles.
I hope to post several good Japanese freeware games over the coming weeks. Some of these are very well worth downloading and playing!
- Gigadeep was a year and a half in the making.
Gigadeep has 8 levels with two side stages, and is enhanced by being able to ‘purchase’ upgrades from the in-game ‘shop’; boss abilities to acquire; and several different characters to unlock that each play very differently. You get extra abilities by collecting hidden research notes as you find these throughout the game. As with many platform games, there are various hazards, touching spikes causes instant death, for instance. You have various means of countering these obstacles and hazards such as the anchor shot that can destroy spikes. You should purchase the jump upgrade as soon as possible which improves your jumping ability. There are some platforms that collapse without warning when you land on them! There are many enemies, some flying, to hinder your progress! Some you can avoid/jump over, but others will have to be encountered.
The enemies and bosses can be difficult to tackle, which is no bad thing! It most certainly isn’t an easy platformer. It may take you quite some while and a whole lot of attempts just to get through the first level!
There are missiles that home-in on you just to make things even more difficult!
There is an introductory sequence before the main game starts (skip using the 'X' key). There are 10 choosable difficulty options from very easy to pro ++ giving a lot of replay value! You can choose one of two characters initially, with five available in total when unlocked. You start off with four lives. If you want to make it even more difficult, keep using just the Shooter rather than the much more powerful Saber!
When you have completed the first level and after having beaten the first boss , there is a map screen, to choose to face the next level (each level has a the final boss that you have to reach and remove, as in Mega Man) or you can enter the shop to use EP to buy abilities and power ups. The shop has (- - - - - - - - fortunately, easily guessable) Japanese dialogue.
In-game dialogue is in Japanese, but you can just skip through this and ignore it; as with most platform games; any storyline is very secondary to gameplay. This may ‘slightly’ disadvantage the player, but as trial and error is a large part of the game anyway, any missed hints will be found out in any case by continuing play! I know fans of Mega Man will say that Mega Man has an epic storyline, but the emphasis here in Gigadeep is on the thoroughly excellent gameplay!
The game runs from the extracted folder, with the small exe for changing keys, and the large exe to play the game. You can choose between two windowed modes or a (part) full-screen mode. The game runs in XP, Vista and Win 7.
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Controls by default are ‘Arrow’ keys and the ‘X’ key to select in menu; ‘Arrow’ keys to move L/R, Up/Down, ‘Z’ key to jump, ‘X’ key to shoot and advance dialogue, ‘Shift’ key to dash and ‘C’ key for Saber. You may prefer using a Gamepad.
The graphics are really great with animation, visual effects and and animated backdrops to create parallax effects; and the music and sound effects excellent. Just a slight shame there isn’t a full full-screen mode. Gameplay is thoroughly excellent and will really keep you on your toes, and it can be a fraught experience! Really great fun!
The latest version 1.04 contains various bug-fixes, and the game should now be glitch free. Please don’t be put off by the Japanese dialogue!
Gigadeep is fun, action-filled and exhilarating to play! This is a splendid game - It’s very much one of the better free platformers around!
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HIt1o9PqxI
There are also Walkthroughs on YouTube.
Download HERE
The download links are either of the two (Japanese) links at lower left of the page by the (small!) disc symbols and tiny red arrows above the bottom advert on the download page. If you are unsure, paste the forum link into Google translate.
Look for the above quite tiny symbols on the download page!
