When the finest games of the 16-bit era are discussed, you will hardly hear of [b]Wild Guns[/b] among them, also possibly because its American and European versions came out quite late. It's one of the best action games on the Super Nintendo, made even more precious by being part of a rare subgenre of shooting games that dates back to [b]Cabal[/b] and comprises [b]NAM-1975[/b], [b]Blood Bros.[/b], and pretty much nothing else. [b]Wild Guns[/b] is close to the latter, adding a lot of sci-fi elements to the Wild West setting, and more fair than any of those, as imminent attacks towards the player are signaled and there is even a lasso to freeze or slow down enemies with. There's also a very cool mechanic that has a super mode activated after shooting at enough incoming enemy projectiles. It's quite short but still a miracle they managed to fit all of that in an 8 megabit cartridge.
This [b]Reloaded[/b] version is amazing at how effectively it updates the visuals while not losing the original look and style, so much that you'd almost think that beside the 16:9 aspect ratio, it used to be exactly like that. In truth, many details have been added, some very evident, others subtle; like idle animations for Clint and Annie, more scenery elements now that a larger area can fit and be visualized with today's resolutions and screens, better explosions, and two entirely new levels with their specific enemies and bosses. Make no mistake, though: the original pixel art is [i]that[/i] good, they "just" made it better and the game now feels like it was originally developed for the first Playstation rather than the SNES.
The soundtrack has been finely remastered but a Retro Mode to use the original tracks is available. In another great touch, the new stages also have their retro tracks made to SNES specifications.
Most notable addition beside the new levels are two new characters with different gameplay gimmicks. Whereas Bullet, with its large reticle that auto-aims at any enemy within, may be considered newbie-friendly (but there's also the need to manage the risk of getting the dog too far from the drone), Doris with her slow speed and bombs only but also three lassos at once, has the highest skill ceiling but is very satisfying to master.
[b]Reloaded[/b] is more difficult than the original because of one of its features: the larger resolution and play area mean more happening at once, more enemies on screen, more bullets coming at the player. There's some advantage only against the bosses, as they were originally limited to non-scrolling screens, so there is more space to maneuver.
In a very odd choice, the new level Underground is available only in Normal and Hard difficulty, and Flying Ship only in Hard, with two of the old levels replaced by the new, so Easy difficulty is the only way to play closest to the original. Bonus levels have been removed.
There's also the big issue of the multiplayer mode having shared lives, no credits and no difficulty selection (none of those happened on SNES, even if of course it was limited to two players), making so that a single less skilled player can drag the entire team down. It's widely considered the worst part of this remaster for a good reason.
Along with the lack of a feature to play the unadulterated original, those choices prevent the game from becoming the definitive [b]Wild Guns[/b] experience, even if it's still a damn good game, and one of the absolute best examples of remastering for a new generation.
