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Post by Sarge on Jan 3, 2018 17:27:49 GMT -5
The ’90s were an interesting era for gaming. The incredible success of mascot-driven platformer Sonic the Hedgehog touched off an protracted and bitter turf war between Sega and Nintendo and their own mascot, Mario. And inspired by this success came many other mascot-driven platformers from other companies eager to try to find their own hit, or maybe even displace Mario and Sonic from the top of the heap. History was not kind to many of these mascots, however. But was Ristar among them? Born of the minds behind the Sonic games, Ristar is a bit of a holdover from the original development ideas from Sonic. Originally, Yuji Naka intended for the main character to be a rabbit that would extend its ears to grab enemies. However, Sonic went a completely different direction, as is evidenced by history, but the ideas were never truly left behind. The character went through several iterations until we are left with Ristar, a shooting star which extends his arms to grab enemies and objects. This mechanic leads to a much different feel from the Sonic games, very nearly a combination of Sonic’s design sensibilities with Bionic Commando’s traversal methods. And it makes for an absolutely spectacular game. While the Sonic titles were notable for the ability to either blast through stages or to take the time to explore, the slower pacing and stretch-and-grab mechanics allow for a tighter experience. It maintains some of the openness that was a hallmark of Genesis-era Sonic Team games, but it provided a nice balance between the rather open and meandering Sonic games and the tightly-designed Mario games. That the game is a joy to behold is also a large part of its appeal. Holding to the Sonic design ethos, there are jungle stages, the always-necessary ice and fire stages, a water stage, and a technological area, among others. They are lavishly detailed, maximizing the Genesis’ limited color palette, and the sprite work and general art design is stellar (no pun intended). Even the soundtrack is well-composed, comprised of tracks that fit the areas in question, and always having a nice beat to them. So if the game is that great, then why on Earth wasn’t there a sequel? Well, it might have something to do with being released only three months before the Saturn’s debut and the advent of a new hardware generation. The Genesis was very nearly dead, and much like other nearly-gone consoles, some of its best games came out at the end of its lifespan yet didn’t receive the marketing push or the public recognition they deserved. So rather than being a follow-up to Sonic and spinning off its own series, the game languished in obscurity. And it’s truly a shame. Sonic has had tremendous difficulty to this day making the transition to 3D, and one wonders if perhaps Ristar could have stood a better chance in the conversion process. As it is, we’re left with an excellent one-shot wonder that almost fools us into thinking that perhaps the mascot-platformer should have never died.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 3, 2018 18:36:11 GMT -5
Ah Ristar, nothing but love for this game from me. Of all that additional IP's Sega created back then, this one seemed the most polished and refined, something that surely should have become another iconic mascot for them to keep going for years to come. I guess history decided otherwise.
It's also a bit of a shame, I'm guessing with the push of the 32x and Saturn, that Ristar seems like the last of its kind. A game that truly pushed the limits of the Genesis in every department and it shows. It's like how impressive Kirby's Adventure was on the NES. It feels like the SNES got way more cases like that and some developers even backtracking to release games on it late into the 90's (Capcom with Mega Man & Bass). In retrospect it's just really neat to see games that pushed old platforms to the max, the Genesis probably could have kept doing a little more than what we got to see in the end. Even a straight up Ristar 2 would have been awesome.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 3, 2018 20:51:33 GMT -5
Absolutely. I think that was really the end of an era. I like to imagine what a new Ristar on Saturn would have been like.
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Post by anayo on Jan 6, 2018 8:08:59 GMT -5
Ristar’s graphics and music are drop-dead gorgeous. I could tell right away this was a 1995 Genesis title with production values like Earthworm Jim’s or Vectorman’s. However, it’s easy to see why Ristar didn’t make much of a splash. He’s just not a interesting or cool-looking character, which may have been problematic during the mascot animal craze dominated by Sonic the Hedgehog and Ninja Turtles. With characters like NiGHTS on the Sega Saturn, there’s such a blatant disregard for coolness that it goes full orbit and ironically accomplishes the very quality it ignores. If you have the gumption to sell your game on the back of what amounts to a flying clown visiting kids in their dreams, that self confidence and conviction of one’s artistic vision in utter disregard of how dorky it is is actually kind of endearing to me. Ristar’s a bit bland for that, though. They did a great job imbuing a talking star with arms and legs with as much personality as possible, but I thought Ristar looked lame until I sat down and played the game myself. On the other hand, lame video games with interesting box art have been known to sell well (Reference: Discovering the Mystery Behind the Phalanx Cover Art) If Ristar had gotten better marketing, though, I guess it wouldn’t be a hidden gem today. The game’s only flaw in my view is the lack of power ups. It seems unfulfilling to me that Ristar’s abilities are exactly the same throughout the entire game. I’m playing Jewel Master currently, and the game looks dreadfully average, but when I start off as a weakling and am slinging fireballs everywhere by stage 4 it's really fulfilling. Ristar seems like the vice versa of this. It also seemed weird to me that the developers went to the effort to add hidden treasures and bonus stages, but all these serve to do is raise your score. Ristar isn't Centipede or Robotron 2084, though. I felt Ristar would have benefited from a power up system with the hidden bonus stages tying into this somehow, maybe like Sonic’s “collect blue spheres” stages rewarding you with a chaos emerald at the end, or maybe a currency system and an in-game shop like Lords of Thunder. Also, do we have any consensus for how to pronounce “Ristar”? I used to call it “wrist-ar”, then I heard a youtuber calling it “wry-star”. Now I’m inclined to just call it “ree-star” as if it were written in katakana (リスター).
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Post by Ex on Jan 6, 2018 9:42:57 GMT -5
I always pronounced Ristar like "rhys-star". With the "rhys" sounding like wrist minus the T. No idea if that's right though.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 6, 2018 13:34:24 GMT -5
I've always said Wry-Star. As in "rise" and "star". That made the most sense to me, and was likely the combination of words they were going for.
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Post by Ex on Jan 6, 2018 22:21:44 GMT -5
Looks like it may very well be "ree-star": "I've always pronounced it "REE-star", and here's why. I called both the ESRB and Sega's game counselors back when Ristar was a new game. The pre-recorded ESRB message pronounced it "REE-star", and multiple live Sega game counselors pronounced it this way as well."From: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ARistarIf the official SEGA guys said "ree-star", I guess I'll go with that.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 7, 2018 2:17:30 GMT -5
I think I grew up calling it "Rhystar" then switched to "Rie-star" after hearing it like that more over the years... but "Ree-star"? haha WTF.
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Post by anayo on Jan 7, 2018 18:05:47 GMT -5
I guess it's kind of like Y's or Gaiares, which I had no idea how to pronounce until I saw them written in katakana (イース = ii-su, ガイアレス = gai-a-re-su). I'm not going to go total weeb and call Ristar "ree-su-taa" but if we're unsure whether it's "wry-star" or "wrist-ar" I might lean toward something closer to whatever its creators called it. XD
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Post by Sarge on Jan 7, 2018 23:36:05 GMT -5
To me, it's all about whether it's actually that portmanteau or not. If I find out it's not, I'll try to start changing how I say it. Wouldn't the first time I got a pronunciation wrong. Ninja Gay-den and Whys say hi!
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