We love to dig up hard to find arcade gems, and Gekirindan is one of those rarities not often seen outside of arcades in Japan - that is, until now :-D Gekirindan, meaning "Reverse Scale Bullet" in Japanese, is a vertical shooter developed by Taito. The game has graphics and a play style not to unlike our other rare Japanese shooter, Shienryu. With Gekirindan you'll find many levels of varied shooting combat, as the game plays along a time-travel theme... meaning you'll be fighting across 3000 years of human history. As you could imagine, this brings a unique mix of using your 3195 era spacecraft, to battle with aircraft of the future and past. Those with a keen eye may notice a few references to earlier developed Toaplan-Taito games (try dropping a bomb for that classic Truxton reference) ;-) Headed by Snow Bros. and Twin Hawk composer Osamu Ōta, Gekirindan was created by some members of Toaplan at Taito after the former company declared bankruptcy in 1994. Initially launched for the arcades, the game later received a conversion for the Sega Saturn by Japan Media Programming and published exclusively in Japan by Virgin Interactive Entertainment on 18 April, 1997, featuring multiple changes compared with the original version. The title has since been re-released through compilations such as Taito Legends 2 across various platforms in 2006. The title has been met with mixed critical reception from reviewers.