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Gyruss Gyruss - Japanese Logo - Katakana / Kanji

Gyruss - Cabinet - Video Game Marquee

Description

A shoot-em-up through the Earth's solar system where the player's ship moves in a circular orbit around the outer edge of the screen while shooting at enemies in the center. Excellent synthesizer music score of Bach's "Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor".

Gyruss was produced by Konami in 1983.

Konami released 434 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1978. Konami was based in Japan.

Other machines made by Konami during the time period Gyruss was produced include: Jackler, Video Hustler, Tactician, Super Cobra, Scramble, Hyper Olympic, Juno First, Mega Zone, Roc'n Rope, and Track & Field

Specs

Name Gyruss
Developer Konami (Japan)
Year 1983
Type Videogame
KLOV/MOG # 8060
Class Wide Release
Genre Shooter
Monitor
Conversion Class Konami Classic
Game Specific Gyruss Pinout
Dipswitch Settings

Gyruss Dipswitch Settings (user contributed)

# Simultaneous Players 1
# Maximum Players 2
Game Play Alternating
Control Panel Layout Single Player
Controls
  • Joystick: 8-way
  • Buttons: 1 - Fire
Sound Amplified Stereo (two channel)
Cabinet Styles
  • Upright/Standard
  • Cocktail
Control Panel Gyruss Control Panel Image
Side Art Gyruss Side Art Image

Game Introduction

2,750,000,000 miles from home your journey from Neptune to Earth is threatened by 25 stages of attack by the evil Ideoclan Empire (which consists of Exarsions, Petarions, Terarions, Gigarions and - on the bonus stages - Zigmas and Dogmas.)

Game Play

The purpose of this game is to fly through the solar system and reach Earth. The other planets that have you travel to before Earth are Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. It only takes two warps to arrive at Neptune, but all others including Earth take three warps to get to. Each time you reach a planet, there is a Challenge Stage where you try to destroy as many enemies as possible. After reaching Earth, there is a Challenge Stage followed by a very fast "three warps to Neptune" stage. After this, the levels and the background music start over.

Gyruss has been described as a cross between Galaga and Tempest.

Gyruss KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 3.69 (21 votes)

Fun Factor: 3.70

Overall Like 3.95
Fun (Social) 2.60
Fun (Solo) 4.05
Collector Desire 3.65

Technical Rating: 3.81

Gameplay 4.20
Graphics 3.86
Originality 3.67
Sound/Music 3.95

Personal Impressions and Technical Impressions each account for half of the total score. Within the Personal Impressions category, Like carries a little more weight than the other factors.

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Cheats, Tricks, Bugs, and Easter Eggs

When one takes over the High Score at the top of the screen, the 1 Up score and that score will both coincide until one reaches 999990 or so. At this point, the High Score will freeze at 999990 and 1 Up will go back to 0. The only way to verify a score greater than 1000000 is to note that the high score at the top of the screen does not match the High Score recorded in the registry of top players. Add the 1 Up score to High Score at the top of the screen to get total score or get a friend to keep track of how many times you flipped the machine to calculate scores greater than 2000000.

You can get double fire if you shoot the sunlike enemy that appears in front of you surrounded by two blue podlike enemies. Try to make this a priority.

To make getting double fire easier, try to stay at the bottom of the screen until the pod and sun formation appears as it will appear right in front of wherever your ship is after all enemies have entered and they start attacking. There must be at least three enemies left in the level for the pod and sun formation to show. If you lose a life and three enemies are left, the pod and sun will show up one more time, but if you lose a life after, they will not show anymore until the next level. After you get double fire, the sun enemy will be replaced on later levels with another pod. Destroy all three for some bonus points.

If you have only one enemy left and cannot seem to destroy it, just leave it alone and eventually it will just leave and the level will end.

Each level begins with four formations entering. If you destroy enough of these, a fifth formation will enter. As you pass each planet, more formations will enter towards the top of the screen. Learn to control your ship at the top as it will come in real handy on those Mars and Earth warps.

When formations enter from the edge of the screen, they will not hit you if you are right where they enter. You can use this to your advantage to take out the formation with little or no troubl, just watch out for asteroids.

Asteroids will always appear in your path they cannot be destroyed so you must get out of the way.

The bee-like creatures with the force field will always appear from the center and move outward. The force field will destroy your ship if you touch it. Destroy one of the creatures to disable their force field.

Images

Trivia

Although many players believe it is impossible to actually reach Earth, it is possible, and occurs on level 25. Earth is also seen on the title screen during the demo play.

This game was designed by Yoshiki Okamoto. Okamoto designed only two games while at Konami: Time Pilot and Gyruss. He later went to Capcom where he designed 1942, Final Fight, and the Street Fighter series of games.

Cabinet Information

Licensed by Centuri.

Miscellaneous

Gyruss is most often remembered for its fine musical score that plays throughout the game.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Gyruss Census

There are 15,165 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,628 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 166,321 machines (6,975 unique titles).

Very Common - There are 527 known instances of this machine owned by Gyruss collectors who are active members. Of these, 393 of them are original dedicated machines. 15 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet. 117 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

For Sale - There are 13 active VAPS members with a Gyruss machines for sale. There are 5 active VAPS members with a Gyruss circuit boards for sale.

Wanted - Very Popular - There are 32 active VAPS members currently looking for Gyruss.

This game ranks a 87 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 55 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity and Popularity independently are not necessarily indications of value. [More Information]

Flyers

Technical

The game uses two Z80 microprocessors, one 6809 microprocessor, and one 8039 microprocessor. For sound it uses five AY38910 PSGs and a DAC.

Manuals

Additional References (logged in members often see more)

  1. 3D Model (External): Dedicated (1d065f634a6cd716e66202687a227eab)

Arcade Map - Play This Game

Our members have reported that Gyruss is playable at 1 locations:

Name Location State Country Details Check-ins
Upstate Pinball & Arcade Museum 109A West Trade St, Simpsonville South Carolina United States Arcade 2

eBay Listings

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TOP WATCHED LISTINGS FOR: Gyruss

Ebay Compatible Application

Gyruss High Score Save and Free Play Kit - Arcade

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