Game:

Night Striker (1989)

Duration: 20:49

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Night Striker S (ナイトストライカーＳ) is a Sega Saturn title released in 1996. Like Space Harrier and After Burner, it's an on-rails-shooter that utilizes scaling sprites to give the impression of movement through a three-dimensional environment. The original game for the Z System arcade board, Night Striker, was developed by Taito while the port was handled by Ving.

In Night Striker S, the player assumes the role of "Special Secret Service Agency" head Dick Dagras. Using his Blade Runner inspired hovercar, Dagras must wage war against a terrorist organization that's kidnapped a world-renowned scientist and his daughter.

The game features 21 stages with branching paths that can lead to seven different endings. While only a handful of those stages are unique, they all vary in length and difficulty, managing to still give the game a certain degree of replayability. While the graphics probably don't hold up quite as well as some of Sega's comparable super scalers, they're still not too bad. Gameplay is fairly solid. My only real complaint has to do with how the car fires directly in front of itself rather than a little above. Essentially, it ends up blocking your view of enemies and the projectiles they're firing as you target them. Where the game really shines is in its soundtrack. Zuntata, Taito's in-house band, brings their A-game here. Then again, they almost always do.

Neither Night Striker nor Night Striker S ever made it outside of Japan. That's ashame since this is a pretty cool little game. If you're one of the many people who never played it, you may want to consider taking that hovercar out for a spin!

FUN FACT: VING, the company responsible for this and many other Taito ports at the time, has long since left the video game software market. They remain in business today but now primarily deal in hobbyist products such as RC helicopters.

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Night Striker S (ナイトストライカーＳ, 나이트 스트라이커 S, 午夜風暴S) | Night Striker (ナイトストライカー, 나이트 스트라이커, 午夜風暴) | T-19901G | Taito Corporation (タイトー, 타이토, 太东) | VING | Sega Saturn (セガサターン, 세가 새턴, 世嘉土星) | [SS] | Arcade Game (アーケードゲーム, 아케이드 게임, 街机游戏) | Shooter (シューティングゲーム, 슈팅, 射击游戏) | Railshooter (強制進行するもの, 레일슈팅) | ZUNTATA (ズンタタ, 준타타) | Blade Runner (ブレードランナー) | 1CC, 1 Credit Clear, No Deaths | Playthrough, Longplay | Gameplay | Walkthrough, Guide | Emulator (エミュレータ, 에뮬레이터, 游戏机模拟器) | SSF | High-definition (高精細, 고선명, 高解析) | HD | 1080p

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