Ristar (Euro, USA, 199408)
Ristar, released as Ristar the Shooting Star (リスター・ザ・シューティングスター, Risutā za Shūtingu Sutā) in Japan, is a platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis in 1995. A Sega Game Gear version, also titled Ristar which featured similar gameplay in different level designs, was also released in the same year.
The game stars a humanoid cartoon star who uses his hands and long, stretchable arms to both move and combat enemies. Reception for the game has been generally positive, but the game's initial release was overshadowed due to the imminent ending of the Genesis's lifecycle and the beginning of the Sega Saturn and other fifth generation video game consoles.
Ristar is a 2D sidescrolling platformer. It is similar to games in the Super Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog series, except for focusing less on jumping and speed, and more on Ristar's stretchable arms game mechanic. The player uses Ristar's long, stretchable arms to grab objects, throw objects, and climb or ascend/descend levels. His arms are also used as the main means of attacking enemies; through pulling himself towards them into a "headbutt" motion to defeat them.
The game also features "Star Handles" that, when grabbed by Ristar, spin him around and shoot him off in a given direction. If enough momentum is gained, Ristar performs a move called the "Meteor Strike", which makes him invincible and able to kill any enemy touched. When enough momentum is lost, flight ceases, and he drops to the ground back into his normal state. Every level ends with a special "Star Handle", which is used to launch Ristar through the end of the level. Bonus points are awarded based Ristar's altitude is when finishing it. Additionally, every level also contains one hidden handle that sends Ristar to a bonus stage, which involve getting through an obstacle course within a given time limit. Completing the level in a particularly fast time will earn a continue, and after the game is completed, special codes are awarded depending on how many were completed.
The game contains six planets; each planet contains a 2 standard levels, with a mini-boss in the first level and a major boss after the second level. After all are completed, the game concludes with a final boss fight.
Ristar's health is shown as four stars in the upper-right corner of the screen. Taking damage removes one star, and losing all stars causes Ristar to lose a life. Stars can be found throughout the levels, which replenish his health.
The game stars a humanoid cartoon star who uses his hands and long, stretchable arms to both move and combat enemies. Reception for the game has been generally positive, but the game's initial release was overshadowed due to the imminent ending of the Genesis's lifecycle and the beginning of the Sega Saturn and other fifth generation video game consoles.
Ristar is a 2D sidescrolling platformer. It is similar to games in the Super Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog series, except for focusing less on jumping and speed, and more on Ristar's stretchable arms game mechanic. The player uses Ristar's long, stretchable arms to grab objects, throw objects, and climb or ascend/descend levels. His arms are also used as the main means of attacking enemies; through pulling himself towards them into a "headbutt" motion to defeat them.
The game also features "Star Handles" that, when grabbed by Ristar, spin him around and shoot him off in a given direction. If enough momentum is gained, Ristar performs a move called the "Meteor Strike", which makes him invincible and able to kill any enemy touched. When enough momentum is lost, flight ceases, and he drops to the ground back into his normal state. Every level ends with a special "Star Handle", which is used to launch Ristar through the end of the level. Bonus points are awarded based Ristar's altitude is when finishing it. Additionally, every level also contains one hidden handle that sends Ristar to a bonus stage, which involve getting through an obstacle course within a given time limit. Completing the level in a particularly fast time will earn a continue, and after the game is completed, special codes are awarded depending on how many were completed.
The game contains six planets; each planet contains a 2 standard levels, with a mini-boss in the first level and a major boss after the second level. After all are completed, the game concludes with a final boss fight.
Ristar's health is shown as four stars in the upper-right corner of the screen. Taking damage removes one star, and losing all stars causes Ristar to lose a life. Stars can be found throughout the levels, which replenish his health.
Ristar (Euro, USA, 199408)
Ajouter
Technique
CPU
- maincpu 68000 (@ 7 Mhz)
- genesis_snd_z80 Z80 (@ 3 Mhz)
Chipset
- YM2612 (@ 7 Mhz)
- SEGA VDP PSG (@ 3 Mhz)
Affichage
- Orientation Yoko
- Résolution 255 x 224
- Fréquence 50 Hz
Contrôles
- Nombre de joueurs 4
- Nombre de boutons 7
- Type de contrôle joy (8 ways)
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Screenshots de Ristar (Euro, USA, 199408)
Les clones de Ristar (Euro, USA, 199408)
Story
Much like other games from the same timeframe, such as Gunstar Heroes, the game's story varied between the Japanese language release and its English language counterpart. In all versions of the game, the events take place in the Valdi System, where an evil space pirate, Kaiser Greedy, has used mind control to make the planets' leaders obey him.
In the Japanese version, the inhabitants of Planet Neer (Flora in the English language version) pray for a hero before Greedy's mind control minion, Rhio, snatches the planet elder. The desperate prayers reach the nebula of the Star Goddess, Oruto. She awakens one of her children, Ristar, with the sole purpose of granting the wishes of the innocent people. He must stop Greedy and the brainwashed leaders of each world in the galaxy to restore peace to the galaxy.
In the English language version, Oruto is omitted altogether. Instead, Ristar has a father figure, the Legendary Hero, who is a shooting star that protects the Valdi System. Rather than Oruto awakening Ristar, the Legendary Hero was kidnapped by Greedy, and it is up to Ristar to rescue his father as well.
The Japanese version of the game ends with Greedy, and two underlings, Iounus and Uranium, stranded on a deserted planet or moon, with a picture of Ristar appearing in the space, while Greedy simply stares at it. The ending scene shown in the English shows Ristar being re-united with his father once again.
In the Japanese version, the inhabitants of Planet Neer (Flora in the English language version) pray for a hero before Greedy's mind control minion, Rhio, snatches the planet elder. The desperate prayers reach the nebula of the Star Goddess, Oruto. She awakens one of her children, Ristar, with the sole purpose of granting the wishes of the innocent people. He must stop Greedy and the brainwashed leaders of each world in the galaxy to restore peace to the galaxy.
In the English language version, Oruto is omitted altogether. Instead, Ristar has a father figure, the Legendary Hero, who is a shooting star that protects the Valdi System. Rather than Oruto awakening Ristar, the Legendary Hero was kidnapped by Greedy, and it is up to Ristar to rescue his father as well.
The Japanese version of the game ends with Greedy, and two underlings, Iounus and Uranium, stranded on a deserted planet or moon, with a picture of Ristar appearing in the space, while Greedy simply stares at it. The ending scene shown in the English shows Ristar being re-united with his father once again.
Development
Conception
Ristar developed from an idea originally put forward during design talks for the character who would later become Sonic the Hedgehog.Yuji Naka, head of Sonic Team, recalled in 1992:
At first we used a character that looked like a rabbit with ears that could extend and pick up objects. As the game got faster and faster, we needed to come up with a special characteristic to give our character some power over his enemies. I remembered a character I had thought about years ago who could roll himself into a ball and slam into enemies. Hedgehogs can roll themselves into a ball, so we decided to go from a rabbit to a hedgehog.Some years later, the game starring that rabbit-type character was developed separately from Sonic, and eventually evolved into a prototype called Feel. The rabbit resemblance in Feel was already lessened somewhat in the prototype, as the character no longer used his ears, but rather his arms. After some changes in the main character, and going through several names, that game eventually became what is now known as Ristar. The name also went through further changes during development of the Western versions, going from Ristar the Shooting Star to Dexstar, and finally to Ristar.
Back in late 1994, Sega was originally pitching Ristar to be the successor of Sonic the Hedgehog. However, the game never received a ton of exposure or sales, mainly due to being released just three months prior to the Sega Saturn, Sega's newest video game console, overshadowing it.
Localization
A number of small changes were made in localizing the version released for English speaking countries. The story was altered slightly; in the Japanese version, a Star Goddess, Oruto, summons Ristar's help, where in the English version, Oruto is omitted completely, and Ristar's father, a "Legendary Hero", is referenced instead.
The boss of the ice themed level, Itamor, was changed from a large cat robot to an ice monster type robot. In the game, Ristar must grab hot dishes of food, and throw it in Itamor's mouth. In Japan, it was considered clever to use "hot food" to defeat a cat, due to a Japanese culture reference regarding a "cat-tongue" not liking hot food. In English-speaking regions, that reference is non-existent, so it was changed to a "cold ice monster" being defeated by being melted by "hot food".
The rest of the changes were very minor edits in effort to appeal to western audiences, such as minor graphical changes to make Ristar and other character's faces look more serious, renaming levels to names more descriptive of their looks, and adding a few non-interactive scenes to show more continuity in the game, such as a skiing sequence before the snow themed level, or putting on anti-gravity shoes to explain why Ristar is floating in a particular level.
Reception
Reception for the game has been largely positive. On release, Famitsu magazine scored the Mega Drive version of the game a 29 out of 40,Sega Official Magazine gave the game's original release an 87% rating, praising the gameplay, graphics, and music, but complaining that the game lacked some originality and borrowed a lot from other platforming games at the time, such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Dynamite Headdy, and Earthworm Jim.Sega Pro praised it for both its similarities and differences from the Sonic the Hedgehog series, stating "If you judged games purely by their visual looks, then you'd be forgiven for thinking that this WAS Sonic the Hedgehog. But when you actually sit back and start playing it, you'll discover that this is a much slower, strategic game. There is a big puzzle element here, which should make it stand out from the hundreds of other platformers in the market".Sega Power made a number of similar points, comparing the gameplay to a mix "between Sonic and Dynamite Headdy", but criticized its short length and lack of originality, and only gave it a 74 rating, "...if you like Sonic games, you will like this" but that "...it's not as good as Sonic either.
While it didn't receive much attention upon its initial release due to Sega's shifting from the Sega Genesis to the Sega Saturn video game consoles, leaving the game behind, it did garner positive reviews in its later re-releases. IGN gave the Virtual Console version an 8 out of 10, praising the game's graphics, music, and gameplay, and closed with saying "platformer fans would do well to give this one a look"Gamespot praised the game as well, especially its graphics, stating, "Visually, the developers made the best of the system's limited color palette and employed every graphical trick they could to make the game look snazzy. Ristar and his enemies have a good variety of animations, but what you'll probably notice the most are the colorful, multilayered backgrounds that constantly flaunt animated details in the form of moving clouds, falling debris, and rampaging creatures that have a habit of hurling things at you from a distance." Sheffer of the First Battalion gave the game a fairly positive review mentioning it's "quite the hidden gem", and that Sega "truly went the extra mile for the pixel art of this game".
While it didn't receive much attention upon its initial release due to Sega's shifting from the Sega Genesis to the Sega Saturn video game consoles, leaving the game behind, it did garner positive reviews in its later re-releases. IGN gave the Virtual Console version an 8 out of 10, praising the game's graphics, music, and gameplay, and closed with saying "platformer fans would do well to give this one a look"Gamespot praised the game as well, especially its graphics, stating, "Visually, the developers made the best of the system's limited color palette and employed every graphical trick they could to make the game look snazzy. Ristar and his enemies have a good variety of animations, but what you'll probably notice the most are the colorful, multilayered backgrounds that constantly flaunt animated details in the form of moving clouds, falling debris, and rampaging creatures that have a habit of hurling things at you from a distance." Sheffer of the First Battalion gave the game a fairly positive review mentioning it's "quite the hidden gem", and that Sega "truly went the extra mile for the pixel art of this game".
Legacy
In a 2006 interview with Ristar designer Akira Nishino, he said of Ristar:
Ristar, as a character, has only made a few minor cameo appearances outside of his two original games in 1995. He was featured as one of the collectible 'Gachapons' (capsule toys) in the 2000 Dreamcast release Shenmue. The next year he briefly appears in the 2001 Japan-only Dreamcast game Segagaga. The game parodied Sega itself during the timeframe, and Ristar was shown in the game's opening sequence. Ristar did not make any more appearances until 2010, where he makes a cameo appearance in a downloadable track for Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing due to the high demand for him to be in the game. He also made an appearance as a flagman in the sequel, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, in 2012.
In October 2012, Ristar was listed by GameSpot as one of the examples of lost video games of the 1990's that deserved to return in the future.
Will Ristar come back? Probably not. Of course, as a game developer, I would love to see it happen. At the time of the original, I was thinking of a sequel. It got as far as a character design for that sequel, but it didn't happen for various reasons. But since fans have a say in such matters, your input is greatly appreciated.While Ristar has never received any sequels, it has received further attention in later years. The Sega Genesis version has seen re-releases in several compilations, including Sonic Mega Collection, Sega Genesis Collection, and Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. It has also been released for digital download released for the Wii's Virtual Console service and Steam.
Ristar, as a character, has only made a few minor cameo appearances outside of his two original games in 1995. He was featured as one of the collectible 'Gachapons' (capsule toys) in the 2000 Dreamcast release Shenmue. The next year he briefly appears in the 2001 Japan-only Dreamcast game Segagaga. The game parodied Sega itself during the timeframe, and Ristar was shown in the game's opening sequence. Ristar did not make any more appearances until 2010, where he makes a cameo appearance in a downloadable track for Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing due to the high demand for him to be in the game. He also made an appearance as a flagman in the sequel, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, in 2012.
In October 2012, Ristar was listed by GameSpot as one of the examples of lost video games of the 1990's that deserved to return in the future.
