Treasure had an extra few months to work on Bangai-O Spirits for North America. During that time they crafted eight new levels: YAMATO, The Earth, Move the Box, Which is Moved?, Bullet’s Reach, The Face, Sabu, and Sessyu. These levels can be found in the Treasure’s Best (first two), Puzzle Stages (next three), and Other Stages (final three). All of the stages in Bangai-O Spirits are split into four groups in North America opposed to just ROM stages and Custom levels like in the Japanese build. Just to be clear, the fourth group in the North American build is Custom.
The revised Bangai-O Spirits also has a new congratulatory video after you complete a stage where the screen whites out and Bangai-O flies towards the player. While this may not be as significant as the number of new stages it’s a neat change to note. In case you’re still curious here is a list of all of the Western exclusive features in Bangai-O Spirits.
– An attract demo movie was added.
– There are new reticles placed on top of each Target to more clearly identify which enemy is a Target and which is not.
– The game uses START to select menu options from the Pause Menu.
– The resolution changed slightly. The Western version is a bit more zoomed in.
– Enemies and projectiles that leave behind a damaging explosion (Bombs, Mines, Fuses, the CannBoss's missile) deal somewhat lower damage. In the Japanese version touching one of these explosions would be extremely detrimental; in the Western version they take about 1/3rd of your health bar.
Images courtesy of D3 Publisher.
