Gokuraku! Chuka Taisen [Model TP03021]

極楽！中華大仙 © 1992 Taito Corp.
(Gokuraku! Chuka Taisen)

Gokuraku! Chuka Taisen is a very unusual, yet cute, horizontal shooter. Home conversion of Taito arcade game released back in 1988 - however, this PC Engine version could easily be seen as a sequel (both games do share a lot in common but levels layout and the overall design are very different). The game features a boy riding on a magic cloud who embarks on a journey to free his cute friend. The poor girl has been kidnaped by some evil magic forces and was imprisoned inside a large crystal ball. Weird mythological creatures and other flying cakes and buns try to stop our hero and prevent him to reach his goal. Thankfully, formation of flying dumplings often hide power-ups which either increase our hero's fire power, get him to fly quicker or just make him invincible for a short period of time. Also, special cloud riding enemies are scattered around each stage and reveal magic doors when defeated. These doors lead to shops where a cute shopkeeper provides free secondary magic weapons. Yes, you read it well, no money involved here, everything is free, but our hero can only use one magic weapon at the time. At the end of each area, our friend flies over the clouds and get to fight an obligatory end-of-stage boss.