BURNING PAPER

Burning Paper is a game by G Amusements, who some also made... nothing you'd recognize. The most recognizable name in the credits is Masaharu Kagami, who also composed music for high profile games like FF Tactics, Soul Caliber IV, and Ogre Battle 64 my favorite! Other than that, the talent that made this game didn't make anything else that as far as I can tell broke through in America. This game was never even released in America, which explains why a loose cart goes for 90 dollars, and a CIB copy can reach $1000. Yikes!

Thankfully through software piracy, we can all play this game today without having to break the bank. And it's a pretty fun one! You play a little flat man with a laser, burning bits of posters that have been tacked to the side of a building. Enemies come down from the top of the screen, and you have to burn off the bits of poster they may be crawling on, or make other bits fall down on them.

Enemies can shoot projectiles, move diagonally, toss eggs, and more. In the second world there are enemies that are invisible, and a weird claw that I still don't know what it does but I kill it anyway. To my surprise there are also boss battles, in a puzzler! Enemies will sometimes drop powerups (which actually go up towards you, not down, go figure) and you press start to access them. There's power-ups that bring in new posters, ones that freeze time, and one that jumps around on your top row and helps you with enemy overflow.

I wish the game wasn't bound to a Game Boy D-pad, if I could use my trackball or a joystick to move freely and quickly independent of the character that would be amazing. But as it is, this game is really fun. Bosses, bonus games, a great concept, a rocking soundtrack, this a high ranking title! I wish it came out in the states, or wasn't so exorbitantly expensive, because I would totally add this to my collection. Absolutely play this one, it's arcade goodness all the way through.