Retrospective: Ristar

Ristar, never heard of it? Well, due to Sega’s undeniable faith in the game, having little marketing and it be one of the last Genesis video games to hit the market. It’s no wonder people haven’t played this gem of game that was created by the characteristics that also formed the once lovable Sonic the Hedgehog.

Back when Sega was known for Alex Kidd, they went to the drawing board for new creative ideas for a character. What they came up with was a rabbit codenamed “Feel” who could reach far away areas with his ears and roll into a ball to move faster. Eliminating the reachable ears and turning the rabbit into a hedgehog, they created Sonic. After the success of many Sonic the hedgehog games and whoring him out with pinball and a 3D appearance, they decided to use the rabbit for a separate game which eventually turned into a shooting star named Ristar.

When you first boot up Ristar, you hear a muffled, squeaky voice and you’ll think that this video game is going to be plagued with bad gameplay because of the sign of poor production value. But fear not, you rarely hear the voice of Ristar and the rest of the game is musically superb. You will even notice some similarities between Ristar and Sonic like the level intros and the colourful graphics.

In the game you play as Ristar, who is the son of the hero of the Valdi System, however when his father is captured by Kaiser Greedy and the galaxy is at its darkest hour, some inhabitants of a planet send prayers to the heavens, hoping a being would come and save their galaxy and hero, which awakens the sleeping shooting star, Ristar. Obviously, like any other platform game the story is nothing special, except for the fact that you’re a star that loves to grab anything and everything.

Seriously, a platformer where the main character smashes enemies with his face, is epic win right there. This aspect of reaching cliffs and combat is quite different than anything I have ever played before and it gives a breath of fresh air to the hordes similar platform games. One problem I had with this video game was the controls- they were very loose and took a while to get the hang of. An odd experience occurred while playing Ristar, the Water Planet was actually fun to play and all of the Planets held their own memorable attribute.

Ristar is definitely a video game that was thrown into the market to fend for itself. To survive on a console that was passed its prime, even though Ristar was considered popular, it didn’t do well enough for a sequel. However, in the past couple years this gem has seen the light of day on many Sega collection games that have appeared on past and current systems. So do yourself a favour if you’re looking for a fun and unique platformer to remind you why you played this genre, so much as a kid. It might not be as enticing as the once enjoyable Sonic, but it’s tons of fun with very challenging bosses and unique platforming.