Grind Stormer

Grind Stormer[a] is a 1993 vertically scrolling shooter arcade video game originally developed and published by Toaplan in Japan and North America.

Headed by DonPachi producer Kenichi Takano, Grind Stormer was created by a small development team of new employees at Toaplan who would later go on to work at one of its offshoots after the company declared bankruptcy in 1994 and was originally titled Bakuretsu Wing before being ultimately renamed to V・V in Japan.

Grind Stormer proved to be popular in arcades but the game has been met with mixed reception from critics and reviewers alike since its release on the Genesis, who felt divided in regards to several aspects such as the presentation, visuals, sound design and gameplay.

Shot is the standard vulcan weapon players start with at the beginning and can fire in different directions depending on their arrangement, however the ship's firepower increases into one large beam when the options are focused and held on at close range.

Search is a satellite-only weapon that turns the options into homing devices that seek out any enemies on the screen (even if they were invulnerable), and changes the ship's color into light violet once equipped.

Similar to Dogyuun and Gun Frontier, the game hosts a number of hidden bonus secrets to be found, which is also crucial for reaching high-scores to obtain extra lives.

[1][5][6] Grind Stormer was created by a small team of new employees at Toaplan, who would later go on to work at one of its offshoots after the company declared bankruptcy in 1994, and was originally titled Bakuretsu Wing before being ultimately renamed to V・V in Japan.

[7][8][9][10][11] Its development was helmed by director Kenichi Takano, with artists Mikio Yamaguchi and Yusuke Naora acting as graphic designers, while composer Masahiro Yuge wrote the soundtrack.

[15] During initial testings at Toaplan, one of the company's senior programmers gave positive feedback in regards to bullet dodging due to the small hitbox and considered it to be better than Truxton II, encouraging Ikeda and the team to work with the format.

[45] Reviewing the Genesis version,[4] GamePro remarked that despite being not technologically innovative as Star Fox, they ultimately called Grind Stormer a colorful and fun game.

[3][4] The rights to the game and many other IPs from Toaplan are now owned by Tatsujin, a company named after Truxton's Japanese title that was founded in 2017 by Yuge, and is part of Embracer Group since 2022.

Arcade screenshot
Grind Stormer Arcade PCB
Sega Genesis screenshot