Lucky & Wild is a first person arcade shooter developed by Namco in 1993.
After the buddy-cop trend of the late 80s, Bandai-Namco decide to take a stab in the genre with a plot loosely based on Starsky & Hutch and Tango & Cash. The players assume control of two loose trigger Cowboy Cops, the sharp-dressed "Lucky" and surfer dude "Wild", in pursuit of criminals across the city in six stages.
Hurry Up! The suspect is getting away!
- After Boss Recovery: After defeating the boss of each stage, Lucky and Wild have their ride fixed in the Pink Cats Garage, restoring their health bar to the maximum.
- Airborne Mooks: Helicopters dropping explosive projectiles serves this purpose.
- Badass Driver: Lucky is always the one behind the wheel and is considered the best driver on the force. Player 1 has to concentrate on both driving and shooting unless you decide to play with three people.
- Badasses Wear Bandanas: Wild does, and he's a tough-as-nails super-cop who spends the entire game blasting at mooks.
- Bald of Evil: The Big Bad, "Big Cigar", is the only villain who's completely bald and commands a massive criminal network.
- Buddy Cop Show: The game!
- Captain Ersatz: Namco admitted behind the scenes that the entire game's concept is based on the TV series, Starsky & Hutch, with Lucky and Wild respectively modeled after each character in that order. The two heroes also bears a passing resemblance to Tango & Cash.
- Car Fu: The amount of vehicular rampage Lucky and Wild pulls off is amazing, from driving into a crowded shopping mall full of people to performing an impromptu Ramp Jump with a wrecked vehicle, running into enemy bikers during chases and forcing their ride into an alleyway for a short cut.
- Chase Scene: Each and every single stage is an intense chase scene with the two titular heroes taking on hordes and hordes of mooks in vehicular chases.
- Cigar Chomper: The Big Bad, "Big Cigar" (well... yeah), a huge-built muscular kingpin who's depicted smoking a large Havana cigar in all briefing scenes he appeared in.
- Covered in Kisses: At the end of each level as Lucky and Wild have their vehicle fixed at the Pink Cats Garage, if their performance is good enough they'll be covered in lipstick kisses from the various lady attendants as seen in the score evaluation screen (via rear-view mirror).
- Cowboy Cop: Both of them. Lucky and Wild spends the whole level shooting everything they see in order to hunt down suspects and causing property damage by the ton in order to catch a single criminal, never mind the multiple dozens of mooks they killed in the process.
- Damage-Proof Vehicle: Averted. Lucky's car will get more and more beat up as the level goes on and requires repairs once the bosses are apprehended. Even if the player somehow manages to complete the level with no damage taken, the windscreen of the car gets shot out at the start of every level (Lucky: "No! My car is trashed!"), which is handy for Lucky and Wild, as they can just shoot through the gap without worrying about their shots ricocheting inside the car.
- Exploding Barrels: Shows up in various levels, but most bafflingly in the desert chase stage. Players will have to shoot the barrels in their way to avoid taking damage.
- Family-Friendly Stripper: The "Pink Cats Garage" club Lucky and Wild visits at the end of each stage, where the attendants are fully clothed and wears cat-ears headbands and tails for fanservice reasons.
- Genre-Busting: The game is both a driving game and a Rail Shooter merged together with player 1 as Lucky having to concentrate on both driving and shooting simultaneously.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Every single one of them, where each stage have Lucky and Wild, in their own vehicles, pursuing the stage boss' getaway vehicle while shooting at mooks in their way. The stage ends with either the boss getting their transport shot to pieces (leading to a cutscene where Lucky and Wild arrests the villain) or the boss getting away.
- Giant Mook: Towards the end of the second desert stage, Bear's minions will sic monster trucks on Lucky and Wild.
- Macross Missile Massacre: The Final Boss, Big Cigar, sic a limousine with a missile launcher in the boot on Lucky and Wild, spamming dozens and dozens of missiles covering the whole screen within seconds.
- The Mall: The first level have Lucky and Wild pursuing their suspect, Jerky, into a shopping mall, where the lighting is minimal. The heroes remain in pursuit, presumably because any shoppers hit by the criminals are too far gone to save.
- Molotov Cocktail: Late into the game, criminals will fling waves of petrol bombs on the players.
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Nintendo Hard: Especially since every stage runs on a strict time limit with you trying to drive through obstacles while shooting at enemies. - Only Known by Their Nickname: The two player characters are only known as "Lucky" and "Wild". The main villain, the criminal kingpin "Big Cigar" is never referred by an actual name either.
- Outrun the Fireball: If you manage to damage Big Cigar's limousine, the warehouse will explode and cause several obstacles in your way.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Lucky wears a nice suit in every single scene, compared to his casually-dressed partner, Wild or the rest of the cops.
- Shows Damage: When Lucky and Wild's vehicle start getting wrecked, the two titular characters - whose faces are visible onscreen via the rear-view mirror - will start looking bruised and battered in conjunction with the amount of damage their vehicle received. Getting hit point-blank by projectiles will notably have Lucky and Wild bleeding all over their faces.
- Surfer Dude: Wild, or at least his appearance is supposed to resemble one.
- Time Bomb: Every now and then, enemies will drop timed explosives (the stereotypical bundle of red tubes with a clock and wires on its side) on the hood of Lucky and Wild's vehicle. These bombs will explode in a few seconds, and the player must knock them off the hood by shooting it.
- Timed Mission: Every stage in the game. Fail to beat the boss at the end of each stage and the boss will escape.
