Ristar

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Ristar

System(s): Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Game Gear
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team
Genre: 2D Platform

Ristar (JP version: Ristar - The Shooting Star) is a platform game developed by Sonic Team released for the Sega Genesis and the Sega Game Gear. It was one of the last Genesis games published and therefore never got much exposure compared to similar platform games released for the same consoles. It was re-released in 2002 (JP, NA) / 2003 (EU) as part of the Sonic Mega Collection on the Nintendo GameCube and in 2004 (JP, NA) / 2005 (EU) as part of the Sonic Mega Collection Plus on the Sony PlayStation 2 and the Microsoft X-Box. To play Ristar in the GC edition, you must play all the default games 30 times each; in the PS2/Xbox edition, you must play them 20 times each.

Storyline

In Ristar, we follow the story of a far away solar system, Valdi, that was corrupted by an evil tyrant called Greedy. Greedy forced the leaders of each of the seven planets the system is composed of to work for him, enslaved the people and kidnapped Ristar's father. Desperate, they make a plea for help. It is answered by Ristar, a tiny humanoid yellow star with long, elastic arms. To free the population and liberate his father, Ristar must fight Greedy's minions throughout every planet, restore the leaders and eventually fight Greedy himself.

Gameplay

Ristar, unlike Sonic, can't look up nor down and can only jump about his own height. Ristar's main ability, then, are his arms. To kill enemies, you must grab them with Ristar's stretchy arms and after releasing the grab button Ristar will headbutt the enemy. This is the only way to eliminate enemies as jumping on them will not work. Ristar's arms can also be used to ride spinners (these are used to move from one location to another without having to walk), climb walls, swing across poles and even find bonuses (health points, 1UPs, etc.) by stretching them into tiny breaches in walls. (You may also find them by headbutting certain sections of certain walls.)

Ristar is very different from Sonic in one aspect, however, and that is Ristar's ability to explore worlds underwater without needing to breathe. He can also swim underwater with ease.

The game has a simple health system: the player starts with 4 or 2 stars (depending on the difficulty selected), the max number of stars is 4. Every time you're hit, you lose one star. There are situations where you'll lose all your health, but these are rare. You may replenish health by getting the star pickups: a yellow star pickup will provide you with 1 star and a blue star pickup 4 stars. Ristar also has a very basic life/continue system: once you lose all of your lives, you'll be taken to a continue screen where you can choose to keep going with the game or give up. You may earn more continues by ending the special stages quickly and more lives by getting the tiny Ristar doll pickup. (Every 30,000 points you earn are also worth 1UP.)

Earning points comes mainly from toppling enemies (generally gives you 100 points) and yellow gems which are worth between 100 and 1000 points, depending on how hard they are to reach.

JP version secrets

JP version ending

JP version intro

The JP version of Ristar was not only released with a different title but with secret characters, among other things. One of the most well-known secrets was the intro: you can see a huge green star being—supposedly Ristar's father/mother just before Ristar is awakened by the plea of help from the populace. Actually, the green being is known as Oruto, who has a cluster of stars. She selected Ristar to fight Greedy. The ending was also different since you don't see Ristar running to his father's arms.

Connections with Sonic

Ristar's gameplay alone has garnered it lots of comparisons to the early Sonic games. The most significant link between Ristar and Sonic is the fact that Ristar was built on the Sonic 1 engine, including the level engine and music engine. Another strong link to Sonic was the prototype design of Ristar, named Feel — the character had a striking resemblance to Sonic, being a spherical yellow and black "rabbit," and even had identical shoes. Ristar also performed cameos along with other Sega characters in Shenmue and Segagaga.

Production Credits

Producers: Hiroshi Aso, Makoto Oshitani, Youji Ishii, Minoru Kanari
Game Planners(Directors): Akira Nishino, Takeshi Niimura
Project Director: Atsutomo Nakagawa
Art Director: Yukio Sato
Chief Designer: Takumi Miyake
Character Designer: Yuji Uekawa
Planet Designers: Koki Mogi, Kazuyuki Iwasawa, Mikiharu Ooiwa
Character Voice: Eriko Handa
Music Composer: Tomoko Sasaki
Sound Programmers: Hiroshi Kubota, Tatsuya Kousaki
Boss Programmer: Hiromasa Kaneko
Player Programmer: Shigeru Yoshida
Enemy Programmer: Maomi Hirai
Effects Programmer: Takuya Matsumoto
Manual Director: Hiroyuki Mitsui
Manual Designer: Yukiko Yahagi
Manual Writer: Chieko Nakamura
Test Players: Norihiro Sekine, Haruyuki Hashimoto, Hideki Yokaichiya
Special Thanks: Osamu Hori, Kenji Morita, Naofumi Hataya, Masafumi Ogata, Naoko Hamada, Toshiko Arisaka, Rica Terajima, Ryoichi Hasegawa

Sega of America, Inc.

Producer: Rhonda Van
Assistant Producer: Erik Wahlberg
Marketing Product Manager: Pamela Kelly
Lead Tester: Marc Dawson
Assistant Lead Tester: Lance Nelson
Created By: Sonic Team
Presented By: Sega

Box Art

EU Box art
US Box art

External Links

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