Unlike most shoot'em-ups at that time, players control a gunman walking on feet and move between the grounds. He can shoot diagonally when the players move him sideways.
A family of outlaws known as the Wingates stroll into a peaceful frontier town and kill its sheriff, plunging it into lawlessness and making it easy prey for bandit raids. It's left to a lone gunman to fight back against the Wingates and restore order.
It received a Spiritual Successor in 2004 called Red Dead Revolver, and that received a Spiritual Successor 6 years later called Red Dead Redemption, followed by its prequel eight years after the release of the first RDR.
For games with similar concepts, see Sunset Riders and Guwange.
Tropes used in Gun.Smoke:
- Anti-Frustration Features: The NES version has unlimited continues and lets you keep any weapons not removed from losing lives.
- Bowdlerise: All the enemies and bosses in the German arcade version are robots to comply with German censorship laws at the time.
- Composite Character:
- Pig Joe and Fat Man from the arcades were compressed into a single boss, Fat Joe.
- Wingate, the final boss of the NES version, is a redesign of the Arcade version's eighth boss Los Pubro with the Wingate family's name.
- Denial of Diagonal Attack: Averted, despite the fact it being a vertical scrolling shooter: You can shoot diagonally when moving left and right.
- Dual Boss: The Wingate Family are the final bosses in the arcade version. Father Wingate is equipped with a machine gun, while his sons have rifles.
- Guns Akimbo: The player always holds two pistols and shoots with both, regardless of the direction.
- Ninja: The boss of the third stage in the Arcade version, and the fourth stage in the console/computer versions. He specializes in throwing shurikens and teleporting to random places with smoke bombs.
- The console versions adds these as regular enemies, as well.
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Nintendo Hard: The game is so notoriously difficult that the NES version is actually easier. - No Hero Discount: In the NES version, the villagers gladly sell items and weapons. Darn good, but you'd think they'd give the gunman saving them a bit of leniency in terms of payment (especially since the money is also the game's score).
- Pixel Hunt: The wanted posters required to end the stage and fight the boss are hidden, so they must be shot and uncovered, otherwise the stage loops. You can buy them instead, but it's not worth the trouble.
- Power Up Mount: In the Arcade and NES versions, the player can obtain a horse that allows him to move faster and absorb up to 3 hits before dying.
- Shout-Out: The enemies and bosses being robots in the German version is a nod to Westworld.
- Spiritual Successor: Received one a whole 19 years later called Red Dead Revolver.
- Victory Fakeout: After Wingate is eliminated along with his goons, his theme starts up again as "he" was actually a body double, and then the real one appears. Though given that the game repeatedly refers to the Wingates in a plural sense, it's possible they're just brothers and you're fighting them one at a time.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Each stage begins by displaying a wanted poster of the area boss, his name, and the weapon he uses.
