Battle Mania: Daiginjō

Battle Mania Daiginjou (バトルマニア 大吟醸) is the sequel to Battle Mania, also known as Trouble Shooter for the Sega MegaDrive/Genesis gaming systems. It is a cult-classic horizontal side-scrolling shoot'em-up, published by Vic Tokai exclusively for the SEGA Mega Drive and released in Japan on Christmas Day in 1993.

Unlike the first Battle Mania, which was released as Trouble Shooter in the US after editing to remove Japanese-centric images, Battle Mania Daiginjou was not released outside of Japan, as it would have required too much editing which would lead to severely compromising the game experience given its deeper Japanese flavor and emphasis on the heroines - a pair of heavy artillery-wielding girls rooted in the anime and manga flavor of the game.

Differences from Battle Mania 1/Trouble Shooter

• Weapons

Daiginjou built on the first release by introducing improved features including a tweaked weapon system with more options to choose how to play the game.

• Game pace

The game pace has been improved, with a better balance of speed/length of level and challenging level designs that take the player from Japanese suburbs to Pagodas to moving fortresses. There are nine levels in the game, which is three more than the original.

• Gameplay

Difficulty-wise, Daiginjou has improved the challenge over the original, which was on the easy side.

• Graphics

The graphics have been completely overhauled from the original. The heroines - Mania and Maria look better and are better animated, with more flashy special effects.

The first Battle Mania had an artistic flavour that was anime but with a slight western comic-book influence. Daiginjou changed the style for a total anime flavour. The 1980s influence is present in Daiginjou. from the cover and manual, to the colour palette tones, to the way the characters are dressed. Even for the time of its release, the game had a retro feel to it.

• Special anti-Nintendo/Famicom gags

Besides their attitude and distinctive style, Battle Mania Daiginjou features comical anti-Nintendo gags that pleases its Sega gamers. In stage 5, the heroines get to shoot down enemies that look like a flying caped Super Mario from Super Mario World.

• Legacy as a cult classic

The Sega MegaDrive/Genesis system are not known for shooting games. Battle Mania Daiginjou's gameplay and blend of traits found in only the best shooters has resulted in a cult classic status for this title.

Other facts

• Horizontal side-scrolling
• 1 player
• Number of lives: life stock based [+item+score extendable]
• Number of levels: 9
• Number of continues: 5 [+item extendable]
• Difficulty: selectable [easy - normal - hard]
• If destroyed: restart from current stage
• Auto-fire: yes