Galivan is Nichibutsu's homage to the Japanese tokusatsu shows Space Sheriff Gavan and Space Sheriff Sharivan. Nice!
The game's main gimmick: Taking the role of Galivan, the last remaining member of the Cosmo Police, you can switch from an unarmed human, but with kung fu techniques learned by the good ol' Thomas, into a mighty Power Ranger armed with a laser gun and other powerful weapons obtainable by POW items.
This game uses a variant of the Terra Cresta hardware, called the Galivan hardware, which downgrades the 8 MHz clocked Motorola MC68000 to a 6 MHz clocked Zilog Z80. This was probably made for cost reduction purposes. The same hardware is used by Ufo Robo Dangar and Ninja Emaki.
Revisional Differences#
There're two major versions of the game: the old version (with a build date of 12/16/1985, galivan2 in MAME) and the new version (with a build date of 12/26/1985, galivan in MAME). There's also an older version (with a build date 12/11/1985, galivan3 in MAME), but it looks completely identical to the former.
Healthbar#
In the old versions, the healthbar acts as normal. Everytime you take damage, a chunk of health is removed from the bar. In the new version, it acts as a 4-unit healthbar (similar to Ninja Emaki). Everytime you take damage, a unit is removed from the bar. This makes the new version more difficult, but also more tactical, to play.
Death Animation#
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Old |
New |
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The death animation is also different:
- In the old version, Galivan will dissolve into nothing.
- In the new version, Galivan will fall off the screen (a la Mario and Sonic).