New PCB: Guwange (Cave, 1999 - orig. and Blue Label)

Finally! After years of thinking about getting one and one aborted attempt (seller changed his mind) I finally scored one of Cave's most moody and striking - not to mention difficult - games. 

It's like an intense version of Out Zone with forced scrolling, a Shmup, but with your character walking on the ground and with actual physical obstacles to contend with. 

To be completely honest, I never really clicked with it until I got the PCB and even now, I'm not so sure. I definitely like it - the art and soundtrack are stellar and the game play is very demanding and enjoyable. The feeling of carrying a chain through a few levels is great, the feeling of losing it, terrible. And maybe that's why it's such a hard game to jell with. Small mistakes can have harsh punishments and that fun, visceral interactiveness turns to bitterness very quickly. That being said, it's still crazy good. 

Blue Label is pretty easy and I immediately put the original roms back in. It's very cool to be able to play a Blue Label version of a Cave game, but it just didn't grab me. It actually turned me off of the game for a bit, making me go back to Thunder Dragon 2 for a while until I started driving myself crazy trying to learn  stages 6 and 7. 

So, I popped this back in with the original roms and went for it. Few days in and I'm scoring in the 2 mil range, but progression is basically stalled at stage 4, so I have a lot of learning to do there!