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The SEGA Five: Ristar’s Coolest Bosses

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w5ristar
 
Ristar has some of the most spectacular and varied bosses I’ve ever experienced in a sidescrolling platformer. Though they aren’t all hits (such as Scorch’s somewhat irritating Simon Say’s sub boss) the five bosses below will remain some of the most memorable experiences I’ve had on the Genesis (and Game Gear), Ristar’s rogues gallery has some star players that are worth highlighting. I’d like to note that I purposefully left out the final bosses of the games, partially to avoid spoiling people who haven’t beaten these cult classics, and to highlight some more varied experiences from the games.

Some of these bosses never received official names. This article will be referencing the names used in Ristar Star Cluster for this article.

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Retro Review: Ristar the Shooting Star

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 Ristar title copy

SEGA’s catalog is quite literally littered with spectacular characters and franchises that either never took off or never made it to the west. We each have our favorites and one of mine is a little game for the Genesis called Ristar, a glowing example of SEGA’s mascot aspirations that was unfortunately unable to find an audience.

Back in the early Genesis days, SEGA was looking for their Mario killer. After Alex Kidd failed to save the Master System from being anything more than a speed bump to the NES’s growing monopoly, SEGA knew it needed a mascot that could capture the imagination (and money) of gamers. As we all know, they would eventually come up with Sonic the Hedgehog. Along the way, however, they created some other concepts, including a bunny that could throw things at enemies. This concept would percolate within SEGA for years, until it was finally released in 1995 as Ristar.

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My Life with SEGA kills some time on the SEGA Genesis with “Time Killers”

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Introduction by A.J. Rosa: When Strata’s weapon-based fighter Time Killers hit arcades in 1992, my brother and I soon monopolized the cabinet. It was funny, violent, gory and ridiculously entertaining. Being SEGA boys, we were itchin’ to see this bloody whore ported to the Genesis, or even better, the SEGA CD. Hey, that was our new toy, and we thought it was AWESOME!

By the time it landed on our favorite 16-bit hero, 4 years had passed. SEGA Saturn, Sony’s PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 were already duking it out. On top of that, Time Killers had been surpassed by other fighters. Unlike its contemporaries, such as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, it didn’t receive an annual sequel to keep the franchise alive.

So, was this port worth the wait? Lauren and I will share our feelings with you as we try to hack each other into pieces. Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel!

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Art of SEGA: Ristar the Shooting Star

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artofsegaristar
 
All Sonic fans are familiar with the work of Yuji Uekawa. He has been the franchise’s primary character designer for nearly two decades now, taking the reigns in 1996 with Sonic 3D Blast. He’s most notable for completely redesigning Sonic and his friends for the new millennium in Sonic Adventure, and has played a pivotal role in the character design of most Sonic and Sonic Team titles since then.

Before Sonic though, Uekawa had Ristar. He was Ristar’s lead character designer, designing all of the characters in the game including Ristar himself. Unfortunately, there is no art book for Ristar, so we had to rip the designs straight from the Japanese version of the manual, which is filled with beautiful illustrations of Ristar and other characters, as well as a few nice instructional comics and backgrounds. We’ll also be including the sprite artwork from the credits.

The character artwork was taken from SEGA Retro’s Ristar manual scans. The sprite artwork was ripped by Dr. Schnaps. The various bits of trivia and character information can be sourced to Ristar Cluster. Enjoy!

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SEGA Tunes: Ristar’s Du-Di-Da!!

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Planet Sonata is probably my favorite stage in Ristar. The first stage has you carrying metronomes to song birds and gradually activating the instruments for the stage’s background music. It all culminates in the stage’s boss fight, which attacks you to the rhythm of this theme! Planet Sonata is a perfect example of what makes Ristar special: it’s creative, unique, and introduces gimmicks and elements that are then discarded for the rest of the game in favor of other gimmicks.

If the early stages of Ristar don’t grab you, I would encourage you to at least try to stick around until Planet Sonata

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SEGA Retrospective: It’s Ristar Week, c’mon!

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RistarWeek

I’d like to welcome you to Ristar Week! This week we’ll be focusing on Ristar’s depressingly short run as a video game star, looking back on the character’s two games. Sonic Team’s star-faced hero never got his due back when he first came around. Debuting just a few months after the release of the 32X and just a few months before the US debut of the Saturn, Ristar came out at a time when the Genesis was no longer a console SEGA was interested in selling. As a result, Ristar was ignored and became a cult classic. This week, SEGAbits will be giving Ristar his long overdue respect.

  First, though, a little history lesson.

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My Life with SEGA’s “The Next Level” and “No Limits” – audio commentary edition

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Welcome to The Next Level/No Limits audio commentary, featuring My Life with SEGA’s A.J. Rosa, SEGAbits editor Barry the Nomad, and Kori of The Website of the Dead. Here they discuss the process of making the two My Life with SEGA short films The Next Level and No Limits, the Panzer Dragoon series, as well as SEGA’s past, present and future. Expect to find this commentary on the upcoming The Next Level/No Limits DVD. In the meantime, we’re hard at work on the VCD version of the short films, which as previously revealed is to have special SEGA CD/Saturn box art. We’ll have more information on how you can get your hands on that special release very soon!

Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel!

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The SEGA Five: Five Game Gear games that need to come to eShop

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3DSGG copy

This may not surprise you, but I was a Game Gear kid. While everyone else was bringing their Game Boys to school, I happily chugged away on my full color backlit power house, playing Sonic Triple Trouble, Lion King and Lucky Dime Caper. So when I heard the 3DS was going to have its own handheld centric Virtual Console, I was stoked. Finally, some of my favorite games from childhood would be available to play on a modern screen!
 
So far, SEGA’s selection of Game Gear titles have been pretty solid, with only a handful of mediocre Sonic games ruining what is an otherwise fine selection. Yet, there are still some spectacular titles missing from the line-up, titles which should be given their due before SEGA calls it quits on the Virtual Console.

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Vidya Retro Highlights: Sonic 4 Episode II Co-op Run

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YouTube: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

Twitch: [Link] [Uncut]

Ever wondered what its like to play Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II online with a friend? Me and Sonic Retro staff member Guess_Who, (With GeneHF and Retro user AndrewRoks1998 also providing commentary!) play through the game despite the struggles, frustration, and desyncs that got in our way in this Vidya Retro highlight. You can watch the misadventures segmented on YouTube or on Twitch in 60 frames per second.

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2014: The Year of the SEGA Console – join us as we celebrate SEGA hardware all year long!

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YOTC
Twenty-five years ago, the SEGA Genesis graced American shores, where it would come to dominate the console market for years and make SEGA a household name. Twenty years ago, the Saturn was released in Japan and went on to become SEGA’s biggest success in their home country, though success that would unfortunately not be repeated abroad. That same year, the SEGA Pico and 32X left some US gamers scratching their heads as they introduced weird concepts of what gaming hardware could be. Finally, fifteen years ago on 9.9.99, SEGA released their swan song, the Dreamcast.

We at SEGAbits love a good anniversary, and 2014 is full of them. Throughout 2014, we intend to honor these core pillars of SEGA’s hardware legacy with 2014: The Year of the SEGA Console. We’ll be devoting entire weeks to certain games, entire months to certain consoles, and we have several special guests planned for the SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show. We’ll write about the Genesis and how it introduced many of us to SEGA. We’ll look back at SEGA’s quirky art house console, the Saturn, and the many ups and downs the console experienced. We’ll remember the Dreamcast for the good times and unique and innovative experiences it delivered in the twilight years of SEGA’s time as a platform maker. We’ll give the 32x some overdue respect. Finally, we’ll all get SEGA Picos so that we can tell you about games like Tails and the Music Maker and The Great Counting Caper With the 3 Blind Mice!

Hope you’re looking forward to 2014 as much as we are, it’s gonna be a blast!

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Arcade Review: Dream Raiders

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One of the newest entries in Sega’s arcade lineup, Dream Raiders has just arrived at my local arcade (Round 1 in Puente Hills which houses a lot of Sega games and Sega owned UFO catchers) and is attracting quite a few arcade goers. But is your short time with Dream Raiders worth the price of admission or is it all ride and no game?

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SEGA Tunes: Ecco The Tides of Time CD’s Motion E

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I really wanted to feature a track from an Ecco game this week. I thought about featuring tracks from the Genesis or Dreamcast games, but I’d really like to save those for something else later in the year. So I’ve decided to go with something from the SEGA CD!

The Ecco series is renowned for its amazing, atmospheric soundtracks and the SEGA CD tracks from Spencer Nilsen are no exception. These tracks are absolutely beautiful and go so far as to sample sounds from actual aquatic animals to compliment the game’s atmosphere. The quality of this music should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Nilsen’s work on SEGA CD. He was the same man who produced Sonic CD’s spectacular soundtrack.

To make up for a few weeks of inactivity, I’ve decided to feature another track from the game below. It’s too short to warrant its own Tuesday Tune, but serves as a nice compliment to Motion E. It’s called “The Machine”. Check it out below the fold.

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SEGAbits Summer of Art/Season of Colors Contest: the Silver and Bronze winners

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Oboro in snow

There can only be one winner, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also have stuff for the people who got second and third place. Above is one of the many entries sent into us by SEGA Nerd’s Kopke, aka Manuel Garcia Melgar. This awesome depiction of Hotsuma from SEGA’s criminally underappreciated Shinobi PS2 was one of several entries that nearly won him the grand prize. Here’s the one that came the closest. Please click it to see it in its full resolution glory!

Check below the fold for Manuel Garcia’s silver winning entry, as well as our bronze winner, Chase Svent!

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GT vLeH wNqM i

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SEGA Memories: 2003’s strange case of Beta-7

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beta7
 
2003 was a strange time for SEGA fans. It was the first year following the Dreamcast’s discontinuation with no new games released, new SEGA titles began to release on rival consoles, and a shocking conspiracy unfolded behind the doors of SEGA of America and Visual Concepts. In March, 2003, SEGA and Visual Concepts began beta testing NFL 2k4 – which later was released as ESPN NFL Football. In an effort to fine tune the game, a couple dozen gamers were assembled at an office park in Winter Park, Florida with the promise of trying out an exciting new product. Each gamer present, now given the role of video game beta tester, were given code names: Beta-1, Beta-2, Beta-3, etc. Each beta tester was paired with another tester, and the pairs were tasked with testing various modes and features. One innovative feature which SEGA was keep to promote was the game’s “crash-cam”, a mode which allowed players to experience the game in a first person perspective complete with a simulated on-screen helmet. The privilege of testing this mode fell on the pair of Beta-7 and Beta-8, with Beta-7 being the first to try it out. At first, everything was normal for Beta-7. The new mode was described by him as “SICK” and “awesome”, everything was going great… until he blacked out.

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The SEGAbits Summer of Art/Season of Colors Contest winner is….

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Sean Tagg’s Lego Outrun cabinet!

We received some awesome entries over the course of this contest, but this one was not only among the first we received, by the entry that consistently remained in the top three even as other entries slowly began to trickle in. In the end, this piece gets the gold medal because it hits all of the right notes: it is not just passionate, but also creative. When I think of art, I don’t typically think of LEGO, but it’s impossible to deny that this is not only something that is most definitely art. This took a lot of time and patience to put together. Sean had to find all of the right pieces and place them in all of the right places, and that takes some dedication.

Congratulations, Sean! We did get some other excellent entries, including one that very nearly took the Grand Prize. We’ll be making announcements regarding second and third place winners, as well as the two additional runner ups, within the next few days.

Check out this contest announcement if you want to find out what he won!

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