Review

 Get into the “Hunting Dog” and keep the Starlight from reaching the hands of Don Jingy and the Obellon Army.

This is by far better graphically than many other shooters on the TurboGrafx, thanks to the amount of data the CD afforded the game, and even the VC version, in its much more compressed state, lets this game run smoothly, despite the very intense graphics.

Of course, the music is also very high quality, generally fast paced to match with the smooth backgrounds. All the other sounds are done well, and blend with the music.

It looks pretty, and sounds pretty too, the main concern is playthrough. Gate of Thunder a horizontal scrolling methodical shooter. It runs smoothly despite the heavy load, and the levels are challenging. There are two power-ups, shield and missles, plus three different shots the player can use. Though the spartan power up system may leave one wanting, the player is able to switch between each shot freely. Furthermore, it does make it easier to recover after losing a ship, losing only the single weapon equipped rather than the entire arsenal. Anyone who has played this genre will know how devastating losing all power-ups can be.

An excellent game, and definitely an add to any VC Shmup collection.