Game:

Space Invaders (1978)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 58:28

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3

A game by Gamesare released February 26th 2007, also known as "Solar Rescue Densetsu" and "Lunar Rescue Denetsu". Download it here: https://kliktopia.org/details/Solar%20Rescue%20Denetsu%20(Gamesare,%20NewKlear).html
https://www.create-games.com/download.asp?id=6645
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f2830.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20091002122639/http://www.gamesare.com/games/srd/srd.htm

A new take on Taito's Lunar Rescue, you pilot a ship across three stars to rescue the stranded astronauts, contending with environmental hazards and fuel crises along the way. Features 3 selectable worlds, an unlockable extra world, and two bonus modes.

The game was initially developed by TSAP-MEDiA, but picked up by Gamesare and finished off with the addition of new levels and modes. If you'll pardon the cynicism, this might account for some of its problems: This playthrough was stitched together from multiple recordings because the game's 'storyboard' appears to be seriously broken, forcing me to level warp to see everything.
World 1 kicks you back to the level select after 2 levels, meaning it can't be completed, rendering world 4 inaccessible and its final level unused. If you access world 4 via editing the save data, it'll loop back to world 3 after its fourth level, also preventing you from completing it! And world 4's final level is unused, because the final level of world 4 is actually the third level of world 1, meaning you can't even get the ending legitimately!!

There's a number of other glitches and quirks, including a continue screen that seemingly drops you in the middle of world 2 no matter what; instances where the ship would explode in the refuel bay until the lives were exhausted; the ship flying out of bounds and unable to reset; the refuel bay inexplicably flying off-screen... and level 4-3 has a hole in its bottom-left corner that'll just instantly finish the level if you fly into it. You still can't clear the world this way, so it's not much help.

It's definitely got a boffo presentation, with slick graphics and keen music, and very much a game that's tough but satisfying to master. The extreme length and haphazard difficulty of some levels is a bit of a nuisance though -- Europa is perhaps the toughest of the initial three worlds, and the single-use fuel cans make charting out long levels a bit of a crapshoot, putting you in a walking dead state.
That, and it perhaps doesn't make accommodations to folks unfamiliar with Lunar Rescue, as members of The Daily Click grumbled about its manual -- it drops paragraphs of lore on you, but doesn't actually tell you *how* to rescue people, with most folks seemingly scorching them with their thrusters on first attempt...!
The bonus modes are cute arcade throwbacks, but feel a bit pasted-on. The Asteroids clone features some nauseating scrolling backdrops, and despite claiming you have 5 lives, will kick you to the title screen the instant you die. Space Invaders meanwhile has no waves, meaning it can be finished incredibly fast, and neither mode has a high score table either. A wasted opportunity...!

The download on Gamesare's website features a credit for Xing Interactive, a Netherlands-based publisher who licensed computer games for release in the European market, often in compilations. I don't know if this game was ever released via those means.
The game was later sold for a dollar on iOS on August 16th 2011, apparently the same game but with slightly iffy touch controls. It has long since been delisted and evidently lost to time, so it's unknown if it rectified any of these issues.

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