Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus

n/a

Main title Salamander Life Force Salamander 2
Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus
System(s): Sega Saturn
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo
Original system(s): Arcade boards
Game total: 3
Sound driver: SCSP/CD-DA (2 tracks)
Genre: Compilation, Shooting
Number of players: 1-2
Release Date RRP Code JP 1997-06-19 ¥5,8005,800 T-9520G
Non-Sega versions PlayStation

Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus (沙羅曼蛇 ＤＥＬＵＸＥ ＰＡＣＫ ＰＬＵＳ) is a compilation of the three Salamander games, all developed and published by Konami as spin-offs of the Gradius franchise. The compilation never left Japan. The games are identical to their arcade counterparts, bar a few touch-ups.

Games included

• Salamander
• Life Force
• Salamander 2

Story

Salamander

Latis is a planet covered by water. A prophecy tells of a giant dragon that will travel from thousands of light years away and swallow the heavens and the earth.

The Salamander Army of the Bacterian Cluster has invaded the planet, and the Latis army is helpless to resist. The Prince of Latis has entered the battle in his starfighter, Lord British, but he was overwhelmed and asked from help from the planet Gradius, which is said to have defeated forces from the Bacterian Cluster before.

Life Force

Two years after the war with the Bacterian Cluster ended, peace has been restored, but planet Gradius is now facing an unprecedented crisis as a super organism called "Life Force" has appeared in outer space. It is an enormous life form that absorbs everything it touches and grows continuously. The Vic Viper must destroy it before it consumes planet Gradius as well.

Gameplay

Salamander

Salamander is the 1986 sequel to the 1985 game, Gradius (before Konami produced a more direct sequel, Gradius II in 1988, thus relegating Salamander to a spin-off). It is a one or two player cooperative spaceship shooter, in which player one controls the Vic Viper from Gradius, and player two controls (the debuting) Lord British. Two-player games can be started from the main menu or by pressing  START  on a second control pad at any point during gameplay. While gameplay is broadly similar to Gradius, Salamander has a different and more traditional power-up system, in which players simply pick up upgrades left behind by destroyed enemies, rather than collecting glowing orbs to increment through a predetermined list. It also differs from Gradius by swapping between horizontal and vertical scrolling stages.

The ship can be moved in any direction using the D-Pad. It shoots with (or for rapid-fire). The main weapon can be upgraded to the Laser, which shoots long lasers that pierce through multiple targets, or the Ripple Laser, which shoots ring-shaped projectiles that expand as they travel to cover a large area. Players can obtain an upgrade that augments its main weapon with missiles that are fired in volleys above and below the ship. The ship can also collect up to four options (called "multiples") that follow it and replicate its fire. Multiples spread out when the ship moves away from them, allowing them to cover a wide area. Power-ups are collected as items that are sometimes dropped when enemies are destroyed.

The ship is destroyed if it takes a single hit from an enemy or collides with terrain. All power-ups are lost when the ship is destroyed, but multiples can be collected again. It respawns instantly if the player has extra lives remaining; otherwise, the game ends. There are no continues and no extends, but players can set the number of starting lives from the options (between 2 and 7) before starting the game. After finishing the game, it loops from the beginning at a higher difficulty. There are six difficulty levels (Saturn Easy, Easy, Normal, Difficult, Very Difficult, and Saturn Difficult). There are also options to toggle the slowdown from the arcade original ("Wait Control") or to stretch the image to fit the width of the screen.

Items

Items are dropped by reddish-colored enemies when they are destroyed or when an entire wave of enemies is destroyed.

	Speed Up
	Increases the movement speed of the ship, up to 5 levels.
	Missile
	Allows the ship to fire volleys of missiles concurrently with its main weapon.
	Multiple
	Creates an option, called a "multiple," that follows the ship and replicates its fire. The ship can have up to 4 options following it. If the ship is destroyed, the options float in place and can be collected again.
	Laser
	Changes the main weapon to long, piercing lasers.
	Ripple Laser
	Changes the main weapon to ring-shaped projectiles that expand as they travel.
	Force Field
	Creates a force field at the nose of the ship that protects it.

Stages

	Bionic Germ
	Meteorite Space
	Burning Chaos
	Volcano
	Asteroid Hell
	Fortress Zone
	The final boss is the Zelos Force, a big red orb that the players must destroy before it leaves. After it is destroyed, the rest of the stage is an escape sequence.

Life Force

Life Force is a modified version of Salamander that extends the premise of the first stage, where the Vic Viper flies into a massive alien life form, to the entire game. Some of the artwork, particularly the space stages and the mechanical enemies, was redrawn or recolored to maintain consistency with the new organic setting of the plot, though the stage layouts remain largely the same. The power-up system from Gradius was also re-introduced. As before, the game can be played by one or two players simultaneously, with player one controlling the Vic Viper and player two controlling Lord British. Two-player games can be started from the main menu or by pressing  START  on a second control pad at any point during gameplay.

The ship can be moved in any direction using the D-Pad. It shoots with (or for rapid-fire). The main weapon can be upgraded to the Laser, which shoots long lasers that pierce through multiple targets, or the Pulse Laser, which shoots ring-shaped projectiles that expand as they travel to cover a large area. Players can obtain an upgrade that augments its main weapon with missiles that are fired in volleys above and below the ship. The ship can also collect up to four options (called "multiples") that follow it and replicate its fire. Multiples spread out when the ship moves away from them, allowing them to cover a wide area.

Power-ups are chosen by collecting glowing green capsules, which increments the power meter, a list of power-ups at the bottom of the screen, by one position. When the desired power-up is highlighted, the player can choose it with or (which also returns the power meter to its initial state where no power-up is highlighted). The list of power-ups is in a different order for each player.

The ship is destroyed if it takes a single hit from an enemy or collides with terrain. All power-ups are lost when the ship is destroyed, but multiples can be collected again. It respawns instantly if the player has extra lives remaining; otherwise, the game ends. There are no continues, but extends are given at 100,000 points and every 300,000 points after that, and players can set the number of starting lives from the options (between 3 and 6) before starting the game. After finishing the game, it loops from the beginning at a higher difficulty. There are six difficulty levels (Saturn Easy, Easy, Normal, Difficult, Very Difficult, and Saturn Difficult). There are also options to toggle the slowdown from the arcade original ("Wait Control") or to stretch the image to fit the width of the screen.

Items

Items are dropped by reddish-colored enemies when they are destroyed or when an entire wave of enemies is destroyed.

Power Up

Increments the power meter by one item. The power meter contains the following power-ups: Speed Up: Increases the movement speed of the ship, up to 5 levels. Missile: Allows the ship to fire volleys of missiles concurrently with its main weapon. Pulse: Changes the main weapon to ring-shaped projectiles that expand as they travel. Laser: Changes the main weapon to long, piercing lasers. Multiple: Creates an option, called a "multiple," that follows the ship and replicates its fire. The ship can have up to 4 multiples following it. If the ship is destroyed, the options float in place and can be collected again. ?: Creates a force field that protects the ship. The ship can have up to 3 force fields protecting it; the first is placed at its nose, then above it and below it. The item order for the second player is: Missile, Laser, Multiple, Pulse, Speed, ?.

Stages

	The Stomach Muscle Zone
	The Kidney Zone
	The Stomach Inner Chamber
	The Liver Zone
	The Lung Zone
	The Brain Area
	The final boss is the Zelos Force, a big red orb that the players must destroy before it leaves. After it is destroyed, the rest of the stage is an escape sequence.

Salamander 2

At the time the latest entry in the Gradius franchise, 1996's Salamander 2 is a true sequel to Salamander, sharing similar gameplay but with more elaborate graphics and stages.

Stages

	Stage 1
	Stage 2
	Stage 3
	Stage 4
	Stage 5
	Stage 6

Production credits

Salamander and Life Force

• Programmer: H.' Deluxe'ueda, H.Sato -Aki-, Akind.Takaki, Shutaro
• Designer: T.Sagawa, Mariko
• Sound: Yamane(Kai), AKT, Akira Yamaoka, Midnight Zombie
• Movie Sound: Miki-up, Suzuki Kyouta, Akira Yamaoka
• CGI Designer: Makoto Toyama
• Movie Converter: Kenichiro Imaizumi
• Logotype & Product Design: Yumiko Nozawa
• Special Thanks: Original AC Staff
• Supervisor: Halky
• Producer: Kazumi Kitaue
• Development by: KCET

Source:

In-game credits

File:Salamander Saturn credits.pdf

Salamander 2

• Programmer: Akind.Takaki, Shutaro, H.'Deluxe'ueda, H.Sato -Aki-
• Designer: T.Sagawa, Mariko
• Sound: Yamane(Kai), AKT, Akira Yamaoka, Midnight Zombie
• Movie Sound: Miki-up, Suzuki Kyouta, Akira Yamaoka
• CGI Designer: Takahide Murakami
• Movie Converter: Kenichiro Imaizumi
• Logotype & Product Design: Yumiko Nozawa
• Original AC Staff: Tango, Qchan, Satonyan, Masato Hijima, Sonshi Sdr, Kaori Nishimura, Yas, Motohisa Ando, You Takamine, Naoki Maeda, V Kobe Yzz, Takaaki "Q" Kumemura, K.Iwashita, Yamamoso Type2, Takeaki Hasegawa
• Supervisor: Halky
• Producer: Kazumi Kitaue
• Development by: KCET

Source:

In-game credits

File:Salamander 2 Saturn credits.pdf

Magazine articles

Main article: Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus/Magazine articles.

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Sega Retro Average
Publication Version Score Edge (UK) NTSC-J 60 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 65 GameFan (US) NTSC-J 83 MAN!AC (DE) NTSC-J 69 neXt Level (DE) NTSC-J 70 Saturn Fan (JP) NTSC-J 68 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 77 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 89

	73
Based on 8 reviews

Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus

Saturn, JP
Cover
Spinecard Disc File:Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus Sat JP Manual.pdf Manual

Technical information

Main article: Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus/Technical information.

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 MD5 SHA-1	518,413,728	1997-03-25	CD-ROM (JP)	T-9520G V1.010

Extra content

This game has extra content which can be viewed when accessing the disc on a PC.

Saturn (JP) Extra files

Folder / File	Type	Size	description
\OMAKE\24BIT	Folder	51,931,704	It contains 11 wallpaper images of truecolor. 3 sizes each.
\OMAKE\8BIT	Folder	17,345,592	It contains 11 wallpaper images of 256 colors. 3 sizes each.
ABS.TXT	TXT (Abstract)	150	About this game.
BIB.TXT	TXT (Bibliographiced)	85	About original game
CPY.TXT	TXT (Copyright)	47	Copyright
KAIHATSU.DOC	TXT	30,553	Messages from the developers.

References

NEC Retro has more information related to Salamander