PixlBit

He's no ordinary star, he's Ristar!

Released for the Sega Genesis in 1995, Ristar is a fun and imaginative platformer. The story goes something like this: the evil tyrant Greedy wants to take over the universe, so he corrupts the leaders of the planets. Ristar is called upon to fly to each planet and defeat the corrupted leader, making them good again. Throughout the course of the game, Ristar will travel to six different planets, and then face Greedy himself in a final showdown. 

You can tell that Ristar is copying Sonic the Hedgehog to a certain extent; he's wearing gloves and shoes, and has a "cool" attitude (just like Sonic). The planets are typical for the most part: forest planet, water planet, fire planet, music planet, winter planet, and machine planet. Each planet has two levels and a boss. Between each level, they give you a map of the planets (the solar system), whichI thought was cool. 

Ristar has a unique gameplay mechanic; instead of simply jumping on the bad guys, Ristar reaches out and grabs them with his hands. Hold down the button and Ristar will keep a tight grip on the baddie; let go and he'll bounce his starry body into them and send them back where they came from. Ristar also uses his hands to swing around poles and hang on to handles. The meachanic is used very well throughout the game, and I must say, Ristar has some long arms!

The best planet by far was the music planet Sonata. In the first level, Ristar has to get a metronome to a sad bird. In order to do this, you'll have to throw the metronome into gusts of air and have machines pick it up and move it to another spot. Once the bird gets it, he happily flies off, singing a melody. Each bird enhances the overall melody of the song. It's really great. However, the second level of planet Sonata is by far the most difficult in the game (bouncing and spikes don't go together). Thankfully, if you die or even use a continue, you'll start at the most recent check point in the level. 

For me, the boss battles shined the brightest in the game. Each boss has his own personality, and each one is unique in the way you fight him. For the first boss, you have to attack the guy's pet monkey. The second boss is a hammerhead shark. My favorite boss was the boss of Planet Sonata. A big ugly bird sings atrociously on a pirch; once you knock him off the pirch, a smaller bird sings a graceful melody while the ugly bird attacks you. Eventually he swoops down and knocks the smaller bird off the pirch and begins his terrible singing again. What a creative and fun boss that was! But all of the bosses were great, especially the final boss battle. 

The only downside I have to this game was that there were a few times when I didn't know what to do. The first level of Planet Automaton especially confused me, as it seemed the programmers just wanted to make a wierd level. At one point, I literally had no clue what to do; the answer was something I really didn't expect, but this was the last planet before the final boss, so I suppose they wanted to make things more difficult. At the end of each level is a bar; Ristar grabs it, spins around really fast, and the goal is to shoot up as high as you can in order to get the biggest height bonus. Each planet will end with Ristar flying through space and your total points are added up. 

The music is great too. The main theme of Ristar is catchy and memorable; each planet has its own theme. The first level introduces the theme and the second level has a different version of the same theme; I thought that was cool. The boss theme is great, and the final boss theme is ominous at first, building up to an exciting climax as you battle the evil Greedy. And I have to say, I really enjoyed watching the end credits. 

It's funny, Ristar has a normal mode and a hard mode; no easy mode. It also has a password system, which is used to put in cheats and codes such as stage select, boss rush mode, no continue limit, super difficulty mode, and more. Ristar is a very good game, and no wonder, it was developed by Sonic Team. 

Final Verdict--4 Stars: Recommended

This game is fun all the way. Sure, there are some frustrating parts in the game (especially level two of Sonata Planet), but overall the game is great. Ristar is a very loveable protagonist; he seems all cute and friendly, but then he can get tough and rough with those bosses. Ristar is just one of the many mascots on Sega Genesis (I should do an article on that sometime). Ristar is available for download on the Wii Virtual Console (that's how I played it). If you like platformers at all, I recommend it. It's unique and fun. And really, how many games are there where you get to play as a star? That's pretty awesome. 

Join me every Saturday as we take a look back at all kinds of retro games, good and bad.