Versions and Releases
Shortly after its original release, Gunstar Heroes made its way to Sega's handheld machine, Game Gear. The port was handled not by Treasure, but by development house M2. As the console's power could not be matched to that of the Mega Drive, the game was significantly scaled down, stripping its multi-player mode, Black's Dice Maze, and several graphic effects. It does, however, add in a few new features such as a jetpack level and the chance to drive one of the walker robots from later in the 16-bit version.
The game received a PC port on December 17, 2004 as a part of the Sega Honpo series, titled "Sega Game Honpo Gunstar Heroes" (セガゲーム本舗 ガンスターヒーローズ?).
On February 23, 2006, Sega released a Treasure-oriented entry in their Sega Ages series for PlayStation 2. Named "Treasure Box" (トレジャーボックス, toreja bokkusu?), it contained Gunstar Heroes prominently (to the extent of it being on the front cover), along with Dynamite Headdy and Alien Soldier. Treasure Box also contains the various versions of these titles (such as Game Gear versions, versions from different countries and a Japanese prototype, which is essentially the full completed game but lacking tweaks), as well as digital manuals and other bonus materials.
Gunstar Heroes was released December 11, 2006 in North America on the Wii Virtual Console and December 15, 2006 in Europe. A version for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network was released on June 10, and June 11 in 2009, respectively, with online co-op, leaderboards, and 'improved graphics' via smoothing. However both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions have reported that the co-op feature is a step backwards from the original, due to the inability to rejoin your partner upon death. Instead players must wait for their partner to also die in order for the level to start over, whereas in the original you could rejoin immediately in return for half of your partner's HP.
Gunstar Heroes debuted on the iOS platform on November 22, 2010.
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