Blazing Star
0Blazing Star is a side-scrolling shoot 'em up similar to its predecessor Pulstar (1995) and the classic shooter R-Type (1987). The story revolves around cyborgs that, remembering their humanity, team up to destroy artificial intelligence systems developing the cybernetic armies they were once a part of.
The player can choose from playing as one of these cyborgs, each piloting a ship equipped with different shot types, power, and speed. Tapping the fire button will unleash a standard shot, or it can be tapped rapidly for a different shot type, or held down for a charge attack. Upon releasing the fire button during a charge, it will unleash a powerful focused shot which can also be dispersed to cover a large area with smaller bullets. The effect and range of these attacks varies depending on the player's ship.
Power-ups are littered across each stage that boost the power of the ship's weaponry. There are also other items that will increase the player's score and count towards their ranking at the end of each stage. Some of these are only revealed if the player eliminates specific waves of enemies. Some of the later stages introduce more stage hazards like narrow passages. Each stage ends with a boss fight which the player must be completed in the allotted time to get bonus points added to their score. If not completed under the time limit, the player is forced to continue to the next stage without collecting additional points.
Development
Blazing Star was the first game developed by Yumekobo, a company formerly known as Aicom but rebranded to mark their new direction of working closely with SNK. Initial discussions began with the concept for a follow-up to their shooter Pulstar, however they wanted their new game to maintain a degree of independence from the original. With significant changes made to the gameplay style and setting, the team treated their new game as a gaiden and did not want to use Pulstar in the title. Yumekobo's president at the time opposed this, wanting Pulstar in the title for business reasons. At some point the game was titled Pulstar Blast. The publisher SNK entered the dispute, saying they did not want Yumekobo's new shooter to be associated to Pulstar in the west because it received poor reception there due to its high difficulty. The team settled on the title Blazing Star for its western release,[a] chosen among others including Zero Hour and The Zenith. Not wanting to keep the names different between regions, Yumekobo's president decided to make Blazing Star the title in all regions.
The team had trouble designing the attack patterns and enemy placements to establish the right level of difficulty. Interesting combat patterns made the game more difficult, but the game was boring otherwise. The director of Pulstar thought the original game was too difficult and wanted the new shooter to have a charge shot for an easier challenge. Although much of the game changed through development, the charge shot was one of the early concepts that was kept along with the goal to create impressive scenery. Yumekobo staff believed the game's best selling point was its detailed graphics. The artists had to overcome challenges creating the textures, animation, and reducing the sprites to 16 colors each due to Neo Geo hardware limitations. The system's sprite limit restricted the number of bullets they could place on-screen. There was still some sprite flickering in the final game due to crossing this threshold.
The character Leefa has a kogal personality and was modeled after Yuko Asahina from Tokimeki Memorial at the request of the game designers. JB was modeled after the actor Jean Reno, and Asayuki was based on a character for a previous game the character designer worked on that was never released. Unique endings were planned for each character but were later cut, the details of which were divulged in an issue of Neo Geo Freak.
______________
Developer(s) Yumekobo
Publisher(s) SNK
Director(s) Michio Sato
Producer(s) Takaya Ida
Programmer(s) Minoru Yoshida
Artist(s) Tomonori Nagakubo
Composer(s) Harumi Fujita
Platform(s) Arcade, Neo Geo
Release 1998
Genre(s) Shoot 'em up
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer
#blazing star #snk #arcade #90s