Ristar

Ristar (known as Ristar the Shooting Star in Japan and Korea) is a video game developed and published by Sega in 1995 for the Sega Mega Drive and the Game Gear.

Japanese version
In a far off galaxy, a space pirate Kaizer Greedy uses his mind control to make people obey him, the inhabitants of Planet Neer pray for the legendary hero before Riho takes The Elder. The mother of the shooting stars, Oruto, awakens one of her children, Ristar, to stop Greedy and the brainwashed leaders to restore peace to the Valdi System.

International version
Ristar's father The Legendary Hero is kidnapped by Greedy and Ristar needs to save his father.

Why It's Stellar

 * 1) Awesome and colorful graphics for a Mega Drive game, even for a 1995 game that came out at the mh:awesomegames:PlayStation era, which first started in 1994 in Japan.
 * 2) Tight and responsive controls, similar to Bionic Commando and Dynamite Headdy, Ristar can grab objects, platforms and enemies from far away, Ristar is very fine to control even when he's on a poll. This means that the players won't struggle to complete the game longer, thanks to how the controls are responsive.
 * 3) Challenging boss fights, the boss fights reign from decent to good to awesome.
 * 4) Nice sountrack, in fact the developers wanted a good soundtrack for this game, like the developers of Doraemon: Yume Dorobou To 7 Nin No Gozans. No matter which theme will play, the soundtrack will never become bad at all.
 * 5) Ristar's design is awesome and cute at the same time, like the aliens from Alien Hominid
 * 6) *In fact, Ristar made cameo appearances in the obscure dreamcast game SeGaGaGa and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.
 * 7) The final boss is challenging and has great patterns, Greedy is a nice final boss and his attacks are fine.
 * 8) The Japanese version has more passwords to use.
 * 9) The Game Gear version has different boss fights to challenge, and the Game Gear version has the Japanese story.
 * 10) As mentioned in WIS #7, the passwords can help you and let you go back to levels since this game has 5 continues. (If you use the level select code.)
 * 11) The Game Gear version has stars to collect. These collectibles will give you a 1UP once you collect a hundred of them, thus making this game have more secrets than the Genesis version, thus making it a bit more replayable and easier.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The Game Gear version is inferior and suffers from screen-crunch. This can be caused due to the screen resolution of the Game Gear, similiar to the Game Gear port of Mortal Kombat not having Kano as a playable character.
 * 2) *It doesn't help that the framerate is worse.
 * 3) While the boss fights are fine, they overstay their welcome.
 * 4) The infamous "Play with me" quote.
 * 5) You cannot save your score after you beat the game, making the score meaningless.
 * 6) The bonus games are flawed, as the prizes you get are treasures that just improve your score and reveal passwords.
 * 7) Just like Dynamite Headdy, the localization can be quite strange and weird.
 * 8) The game was going to get a sequel with extra playable characters that would use different body parts, but it was cancelled due to the game not selling many copies, mainly due to the game being released when the Genesis was about to be discontinued and the Saturn was being released in the west.

Reception
During it's release, Ristar gained positive & mixed reception by critics. Sega 16 had it at 9/10 while Honest gamers gave the game a 10/10, while Nintendo life gave it a 9/10, Thunderbolt gave it a 9/10. Both the Mega Drive and Game Gear ports were praised for there amazing graphics, sound and gameplay. This game was well received enough to be put as one of the nineteen Genesis games on Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pak for Sega Genesis games.

Trivia

 * As said on WIR #5, Ristar made cameo appearances in SeGaGaGa and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.
 * The game originally had a sequel but was cancelled.
 * While not receiving a sequel, Ristar is considered to have a spiritual successor in the Werehog levels in Sonic Unleashed.

Videos
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