The Castor (カストル kasutoru), formerly the Gemini Blue, is one of two guest fighters from the 1987 Tecmo arcade shmup Gemini Wing, the other being the Pollux.
The Castor and Pollux are the only ships whose main shot is never upgraded when you collect powerups. The Gemini Wing ships have a dual-bomber system that is unique to them.
Description[]
The Castor is an average-speed fighter with a good attack power rating. Its subweapons, when fully powered up, give the Castor good coverage.
Loadout[]
Laser weapon[]
3-way Shot: This weapon pierces through enemies. However, it fires quite slowly and offers almost no frontal attack capabilities. When powered up, only the flanked shots gain power. Effective use of this weapon is to use the flank shots to deal the most damage to large enemies, especially bosses.
Missile weapon[]
Homing Missile G: Standard homing missiles with a fairly high damage rating. Fully powered up, the Castor shoots out 8 of these missiles at once.
Bomber[]
Dual Gunball Type 1: Deploying this bomber while holding down the Shot button releases a Wide Beam, which extends the full width of the screen and sweeps upwards quickly. Not a particularly powerful Bomber, but its quick deploy time makes it an effective panic bomb.
With a neutral press of the Bomb button, a Spark Hurricane is released. Circular sparks rotate outward from the Castor, damaging enemies and canceling out bullets. The individual sparks are not too damaging, but overlapping an enemy while using Spark Hurricane deals tremendous damage to large enemies.
A Gunball icon behind the ship denotes what Bomber will be active.
Slaves[]
Standard Raiden F: This is the standard Slave type used in the Raiden Fighters games.
Unlock requirements[]
Clear Stage EX-1 (Gemini Canyon).
Development history[]
In Xeno Fighters R's early versions (V.A.F. Squadron), the two Gemini Wing ships were playable, called Gemini Blue and Gemini Red. Their weaponry in those early versions were completely original, soon becoming the weapon sets of the Phyxius and Zaiva respectively. The Gemini Blue and Gemini Red return in Xeno Fighters R with names from the twin brothers in Greek and Roman mythology associated with the Gemini constellation. They were given weaponry based on attacks found in Gemini Wing.
| Playable fighters | ||
| Original ships | Amada Vipros ● Phyxius ● Zaiva ● Xelcor ● Divine Gale ● Bronze Kolibri ● Varuna | |
| Seibu Kaihatsu guests | Raiden mk-II ● Judge Spear ● Raiden mk-IIβ ● Blue Javelin ● Dark Sword ● Miclus ● Lasercopter | |
| Psikyo guests | A6M Zero ● X-36 ● Tengai ● P38 Lightning ● Twin Mustang ● Marion ● Yuan-Nang | |
| Capcom guests | P-38 ● Stearman E75 ● Michelle Heart ● Kevin Walker ● Mega Man | |
| Konami guests | Vic Viper ● TwinBee ● Lord British ● Hikaru ● Grey Layer ● Metalion | |
| Raizing/Eighting guests | Miyamoto ● Silver Sword ● Wild Snail | |
| Namco guests | Gyaraga ● Solvalou | |
| Tecmo guests | Castor ● Pollux | |
| Other guests | Miria ● Hoplon ● R-9Leo ● Opa-Opa ● Infernal Iris ● Core Cannon ● Astro Slug ● TC-17 Twin Cobra ● MiG-31 Firefox ● Fire Leo-03 Styx | |
| Related pages | Removed ships | |