Adorably endearing horizontally scrolling shmup with cutesy anime graphics and cut-scenes, and a fantastic soundtrack. The game takes place during the Keio period in Japan and focuses on an alien girl named Rami living in Japan with her grandparents. She is entrusted with the care of a sacred, magical key and it gets stolen during a raid orchestrated by the nefarious Dr. Pon, an anthropomorphic raccoon who plans to use the key to rule the Earth with a raccoon army (though he does employ humans and other creatures to do his bidding). With the key gone due to Rami's irresponsibility, her grandmother refuses to make food for her (to the horror of Rami) until she takes her flying dragon Spot and returns the key. Spot is under your control and you can go into the option and set speed parameters, and change to those speeds during battle with the A button. B fires Spot's flaming breath, and THANK GOD you can hold it down for rapid fire! C will fire a kamikaze attack that sends your "Option Spots" out for a powerful attack, but you'll have to wait a few seconds to get them back (you can't move or shoot). Weapon power ups can be gleaned from certain enemies, in the form of bombs, fireball power-ups, 3-way shot, very useful stars that fire in the opposite direction of where you last moved, 1ups, and an extra option Spot that homes in on the enemy. Infectiously cute graphics and a wonderful soundtrack (though parts of it do repeat numerous times) make this a worthwhile addition to your Sega CD library, especially if you like shmups! See you soon for game #11! Stay cool this summer!
5