Reviewed
01.30.2001
Publisher
Taito
Developer
Taito
Format
CD
Origin
Import
Available
1993
(Japan)
Exclusive
Yes
Difficulty
Adjustable
Dimensions
3D
View
3rd
Person
Genre
Flight/Shooter
Player(s)
1
Options
6
Button
Arcade
Stick
CDKey
Flight
Stick
Pro
CDX
Requires
n/a
Importable
100% |
INTRO:
> Back in the days I used to spend a lot of time and money in arcades,
games like Taito's Night Striker were hot. Along with The
Ninja Warriors, these two games comprise the best of what Taito had
to offer Sega Fans of the 16-bit era. The best way to sum up what
Night Striker is would be to say it's part Galaxy Force (SMS, Genesis),
part Thunderblade (SMS, Genesis), and part Space Harrier (SMS, Genesis,
32X, Saturn). That sounds great in theory, so let's see if Taito/Zuntata
made it happen...
> By the way, importing is your only option for this game. It's a
worthy import game too, as everything in the game is in English.
Too bad a savvy US publisher never released it here.
GRAPHICS:
> Even though Taito made decent use of the revolutionary ASIC chip in Mega
CD, the resolution of the sprites is weak. As a result, the ships,
buildings, enemies, and various obstacles always look zoomed in too far.
That's my gripe. The good part is everything moves really smooth
(kudos to the ASIC chip usage). All the levels take part at night,
but Taito used lots of bright colors to increase the contrast among objects
(good thing). As you can probably tell or guess by now, the view
is similar to the games I mentioned in the intro. Your forward motion,
with four direction movement, mirrors those games as well. Heck,
even the enemy bullets and some bosses look just like the ones in Space
Harrier.
CONTROL:
> Simple. Move and shoot... Like Thunderblade and Space Harrier,
there are objects in the cities to avoid. Sometimes there are only
a few enemies, but sometimes there are enough on screen enemies and bullets
to cause a little slowdown. At the end of each level is a boss which
must be disposed of. A classic flight shooter.
SOUND:
> Although not as good as the Ninja Warriors soundtrack, Zuntata did a
good job on Night Striker. The game is bursting with 80s techno-pop,
both in original and arranged flavors. The sound effects are few,
but decent. They surely could have added some more variety in that
department.
FUN:
> The game consists of 6 rounds within a tree of progression. There
are a total of 21 stages in the tree with 9 different scenes. What
the preceding means is that there are 9 levels, of which you can choose
6 (via the tree) to complete the game. There are a limited number
of continues with a difficulty setting, which makes the game playable by
almost anyone. As for lasting fun, this game doesn't have much depth.
It's a classic nonetheless.
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