| Gun Frontier | |
|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Taito |
| Publisher(s) | Taito |
| Producer(s) | Takatsuna Senba |
| Designer(s) | Brody Tadashi Takayuki Ogawa Yasuhisa Watanabe |
| Programmer(s) | Naoya Kuroki Takamasa Hori |
| Artist(s) | Hiroyasu Nagai |
| Composer(s) | Hidetoshi Fukumori (uncredited) |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Sega Saturn, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch |
| Release | 1990 |
| Genre(s) | Vertically scrolling shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, co-op |
| Arcade system | Taito F2 System |
Gun Frontier[a] is a 1990 vertically scrolling shooter arcade video game developed and originally published by Taito in Japan. Set on the fictional planet of Gloria in the 22nd century, where an alien race of space pirates known as the Wild Lizards have invaded the location and enslaved its inhabitants for gold extraction, players assume the role of settlers who were part of the planet's colonization team taking control of revolver-shaped fighter aircraft in an attempt to overthrow the invaders and free their surviving civilization from slavery.
Conceived by Takatsuna Senba during his time working at Taito, which served as his first original work under the role of both designer and producer, Gun Frontier became one of the several projects created to promote the then-newly released Taito F2 System hardware and had a turbulent development cycle, undergoing through various changes before its eventual launch to the market. Initially launched for the arcades, the game was later ported to the Sega Saturn by GOO! and published exclusively in Japan by Xing Entertainment on 25 September 1997 as part of their Arcade Gear series of releases for the console, and it has since been re-released through compilations such as Taito Legends 2 across various platforms in 2006, with each one featuring several changes compared to the original version. The title is dedicated to F2 System hardware engineer Katsujiro Fujimoto, who died during development in an accident.
Gun Frontier has been met with mixed critical reception from video game magazines and dedicated outlets since its initial launch in arcades and later on the Saturn. Despite garnering mixed response from the audience, Senba and some of the members in the development team would go on to create a horizontally scrolling shooter for Taito after its release; Metal Black, which was produced under the internal working title "Project Gun Frontier 2", although its actual connection to the original entry is loose. Battle Garegga and Recca programmer Shinobu Yagawa has since referred it as one of his favorite titles.
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