one thing i've always found very impressive about the gun survivor subseries is just how different each game is, not just from each other, with each varying wildly in gameplay, style or genre, they're also wildly different from anything else on the market, nothing plays like any of these games and while some who prefer safer, more homogynous gameplay styles over experimental takes might tell you these games suck for not adhering to whatever style of FPS or rail shooter they prefer, i think that owns, each game is so unique and i love playing them because i can play them and get an experiance unlike anything else, weather it's the originals mix of first person rail shooting with exploration and branching pathways, dino stalkers take on this idea but as a linier action rollercoaster or dead aims take on being a third person explorative rail shooter. even this one is also wholley unique, being an arcade, time attack doom clone (mixed with a dungeon crawler) and it owns

the game is split into two modes each of which is really fun and unique, the first is a campaign mode where you play a recreation of the first island of code veronica as either steve or claire (with the non chosen one being an ai ally) and shoot your way through levels in first person, you don't really need to aim since the game has a lock on so your main focus is rushing to explore within the games time limit and finding the keys to fight the boss and escape. it's a very simple game, you fight enemies, collect weapons that change depending on who you play as, find collectables like jewels or documents and rush to avoid the timer, which when it depletes will summon nemesis from resi 3 to chase you to the end of the level, with death being instant if he catches you. generally your runs will only take you at most 40 mins, even quicker on easier difficulties and the weapon differences bring enough variety that you will want to play this mode at least twice, though since this is an arcade game it is on the tougher end and it will probably take you at least a few attempts to finish it.

in addition to the arcade mode you also have the dungeon mode, this is where you'll spend most of your time in it, it has two varients, versus roach and the actual dungeon crawl, versus roach is a minigame you'll unlock after you beat a mission and it challenges you to kill all of the roach enemies in the room, these crawl on walls and are super hard to hit so it's a test of how well you know the aiming system, but it's only half an hour and it is fun to learn how the game works more deeply like that, you can even unlock a rocket launcher for use if you beat it! now the dungeon will take you a lot longer, multiple hours and it's what gives the game its staying power. you have 3 different dungeons to try, the clock tower, the underground and the lab which all have different layouts, enemies, weapons and depths, with the first being a straightforeward level'd tower, the underground only having two levels but being multiple times the size of the former and having things like gas traps and rooms on fire that drain your health and the lab is one big floor split into 3 areas and full of lazer traps. the clock tower Is the easiest and it makes for a good showcase, it's full of new enemy types like the bats and roaches and its even full of traps to avoid like a real dungeon, you'll pick up health items and weapons, the weapons will actually carry over between missions too so you can stockpile ammo on the earlier ones if you have trouble and blast through the harder ones with full magnum rounds, which you might want to do since some of these are tough, the score and combo ones especially. the combo ones ask you to continuously pick up items and kill zombies fast and while the levels are designed around these routes to let you, the timing can still be very strict, as are the score attack ones which require extreme amounts of speed and precision with your room clearing, it can be a lot and I don't blame people for not finishing it, if you do beat a whole dungeon though you do unlock chris redfield with an infinite linier launcher, though he's hard to use since he gives every level a green tint and on the underground it makes it almost impossible to see anything. i'd say at least try each floor once, it does feel like a fully fleshed out dungeon mode and it's unique if nothing else, though those later missions are too tough I think, I did finish it though and If you beat every level you do get a 4th character who does his runs with a knife, so that's cool

the game mostly tends to use reused assets for its levels and characters, with all the areas are seemingly lifted wholesale with some very minor changes and effects added but I love how CV looked so I don't consider it a bad thing , but it does make it feel a lot more cheap than It otherwise would, especially when you add the unvoiced and very cheap looking cutscenes into the mix, these are unique though since some of them have steve there where he wouldn't have been otherwise, but it's a very truncated version of the story that doesn't even hit the latter part of the game at all. the music (by Makoto Iida who was also involved with osts to many cool licenced games like my hero ones justice 2, JJK cursed clash and some digimon tamers games, he was also involved in many sega OSTS such as sega ages titles and the sega bass fishing games ) is largely original though as far as I can remember (it has been a long time since I have played code veronica) and it's a really solid OST, the first level theme is really catchy and some of the later ones are too with man of them being found in the games dungeon mode which has tons of music throughout it, it feels like an authentic resi OST and you do even have some tracks from CV in here like the save room theme.

the games whole development staff was a ragtag bunch between Namco, capcom, SIMS and nextech, each team having their own directors and producers. it has *6* directors overall, with Tomoshi Sadamoto, who also worked on crimson tears, directed clock tower 3 and worked on tons of cool classics like ProGear, SF third strike, cannon spike and sweet home, most recently working on teppen. you also have Yasuhiro Seto who has been a resi regular with games like resi 6, umbrella corps and the chronicles games, the remake titles and operation racoon city and the worked on beatdown fists of vengeance with cavia. they also worked on things with tomoshi on clock tower 3, third strike and crimson tears. from Namco you had Junichirou Koyama who had worked on games like pokken, tanktanktank, deadstorm pirates, razing storm and a bunch of Namco arcade titles. also from Namco was Akihiro Ishihara who had only otherwise worked on beautiful katamari and a 360 idolmaster game. from SIMS was yu tamura, who has went on to work on games like DOA extreme 2, monkey king hero is back, fire emblem fates, ninja gaiden 2, el Shaddai and street fighter x tekken. from nextech is Toshikazu Saitoh who worked on children of mana and Obocchama-kun. nextech themselves worked on tons of great games, from console titles like the original code veronica, dino crisis, d-xhird, shin megami tensei nine , bayonetta and even some shining games like soul, wind and tears. they also worked on tons of arcade games like dark escape 4D (the scariest arcade game i've ever played) plus some time crisis games like 3, 4 and razing storm. SIMS had worked on tons of games but not a ton that i find stand out, they mostly make smaller titles and ports, but they have some standouts like involvement in lets fish hooked-on for vita, trails of cold steel, steamboy, some sega ages titles and a BUNCH of older fishing games. it's a pretty talented, big group of people for such a small seeming project but when you consider that this crossover was likely a big deal at the time and it was an arcade title, it makes a little more sense. it was followed up by a few more original gun survivor games but none of them would follow its template, which is for the best i think as this is the worst playinng of the series, the arcade ver is also very difficult to find these days and the localised PS2 port is EU only and pricy, so its also the least accessable of the games, i doubt it will ever get ported either, which is a shame, i would love a gun survivor collection someday so these can get more recognition. i am happy i went and replayed this since this is the last in its series i had to cover, it's nice to finish a little subseries for once, instead of doing what i usually do and get sidetracked 2 games in.