Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
The genre is a horizontally scrolling shooter (bullet hell), Cave's first.
The ending animation is in comic form, and this is the only Cave title in which you can read a manga by Junya Inoue.
It is Cave's first horizontally scrolling shooter, and the world's first commercial horizontally scrolling bullet hell shooter.
It was the sixth shoot 'em up game from CAVE, their first horizontally oriented shooter, and their eighth video game overall.
Though first released in arcades, the game was later ported to mobile phone platforms, each one featuring various changes compared to the original version and has since been re-released as part of the Capcom Home Arcade plug and play game system.
It was CAVE's only horizontal-scrolling shooter until Deathsmiles in 2007.
Progear was a collaboration effort with Capcom by most of the same team that worked on previous projects at Cave, a team formed by alumni of Toaplan, serving as their first horizontally scrolling shooter game, in addition to being the six shoot 'em up title from the company and their eight video game overall.
Progear was first released in arcades by Capcom in 2001, using the CP System II board.
Both Ikeda and Inoue stated that working with the CP System II platform, which marked the second time CAVE made use of an external arcade board, proved to be difficult as the hardware was underpowered compared to the previous board used for Guwange, with designers using a limited number of colors to remake drawings created in Photoshop.
Inoue stated that the main characters were named after mechanical parts, while the reason having children as lead characters was both from an idea intended for a scrapped adventure game and due to his fascination of kids fighting against evil.
Ikeda revealed that the team intended to feature four playable ships but the idea was scrapped due to time constrains, while Inoue also stated that the gender-based firepower pairing mechanic was a repurposed idea originally intended for a sequel to Batsugun.
Pete Brown of GameSpot noted it to be "a standout side-scrolling shooter with beautiful 2D graphics and a reasonable difficulty curve, the latter of which is somewhat rare for the genre".
David Jenkins of Metro praised its anime-style steampunk artwork design and accessibility, regarding it as "one of CAVE's best". oliveroidubocal of Jeuxvideo.com praised its visuals.
It was also revealed that at the start of development it was planned as a vertically scrolling shooter.
Inoue stated that the main characters were named after mechanical parts, while the reason having children as lead characters was both from an idea intended for a scrapped adventure game and due to his fascination of kids fighting against evil.
Ikeda revealed that the team intended to feature four playable ships but the idea was scrapped due to time constrains, while Inoue also stated that the gender-based firepower pairing mechanic was a repurposed idea originally intended for a sequel to Batsugun.
Because "the human eye is good at vertical movement but weak at horizontal movement", it tended to feel harder than an ordinary vertically scrolling bullet hell shooter, and Tsuneki Ikeda of Cave has said that players did not take to it as much.
Both Ikeda and Inoue stated that working with the CP System II platform, which marked the second time CAVE made use of an external arcade board, proved to be difficult as the hardware was underpowered compared to the previous board used for Guwange, with designers using a limited number of colors to remake drawings created in Photoshop.
Pete Brown of GameSpot noted it to be "a standout side-scrolling shooter with beautiful 2D graphics and a reasonable difficulty curve, the latter of which is somewhat rare for the genre".
Progear proved to be popular in arcades among Japanese players and garnered positive reception from critics since its inclusion on the Capcom Home Arcade system, with praise given to the anime-style steampunk visuals, gameplay and accessibility, though the music was criticized.
David Jenkins of Metro praised its anime-style steampunk artwork design and accessibility, regarding it as "one of CAVE's best". oliveroidubocal of Jeuxvideo.com praised its visuals.
Inoue stated that the main characters were named after mechanical parts, while the reason having children as lead characters was both from an idea intended for a scrapped adventure game and due to his fascination of kids fighting against evil.
Ikeda revealed that the team intended to feature four playable ships but the idea was scrapped due to time constrains, while Inoue also stated that the gender-based firepower pairing mechanic was a repurposed idea originally intended for a sequel to Batsugun.
No release was announced in Japan, and the game's specification is as it runs on the FB Alpha emulator using the overseas ROM.
Inoue stated that the main characters were named after mechanical parts, while the reason having children as lead characters was both from an idea intended for a scrapped adventure game and due to his fascination of kids fighting against evil.
In Japan, Game Machine listed Progear on their 1 June 2001 issue as being the fourth most-popular arcade game at the time.
The sentences quoted on this page were taken from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles exactly as they stand. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) — usable under those terms. They are the work of the people who wrote them.