Classic of the Month - Blazing Star

Manufacturer:	Yumekobo/SNK
Genre:	Shoot 'em up
Board:	Neo Geo MVS
Year:	1998

So far during this run of classic shoot 'em ups I've talked about games from my childhood. For this month's classic, I've gone for one that came out in 1998, when I was 23 and rediscovering gaming after several years away.  SNK's Blazing Star, for their Neo Geo MVS system, was one of the biggest and most visually spectacular sprite-based shoot 'em ups ever made.  It was an unofficial follow up to 1995's Pulstar, but where that game ripped off R-Type in almost every way, Blazing Star stands up better on its own feet, with numerous gameplay improvements and an attempt at a deeper plot than most shmups, told through a series of anime-style cutscenes and pre-rendered CG.

According to Wikipedia, the plot of Blazing Star is as follows:

Sometime in their past, the planets Remuria and Mutras started an interplanetary war that showed no sign of ending. The endless fight between the human-like inhabitants of the two planets had gone so long that weapon development moved into dangerous territory: Organic Weapon Production combined with alien technology. Soon, a sentient weapon - Brawshella - was born. Brawshella gathered all animal life on both planets and forced them to do its bidding and attack the humans. In a week, the humans were assimilated by Brawshella.

Yet, once they were assimilated, they found no other purpose in life but to continue fighting each other. After a while, four of the assimilated fighter pilots regained their consciousness and remembered their pasts. Upon discovering their humanity, the pilots were conflicted with following Brawshella's orders or fighting it to fully regain their independence. The pilots finally turn against the machine in a battle to rediscover themselves and reclaim their planets.

All of this is pretty much unknown to the player, who simply has to two one of six pilots and their fighters:

• Hell-Hound flown by Caster
• Windina flown by Leefa
• Aryustailm flown by J.B.
• Peplos flown by Asayuki
• Dino 135 flown by Naomi Y.
• Dino 246 flown by Kaoru Y.

Each ship has different speed, power ratings and bullet patterns, but the basic mechanics is the same for all.  Tap the A button for the main weapon, tap rapidly for a more powerful shot, hold the A button for a charge shot (a la Pulstar) or hold A then tap B as you release A for burst shot.

Actually playing the game, it looks as frenetic as any bullet-hell shmup - especially in two player mode - however, Blazing Star is not that hard compared to most shmups.  Where as other games you can't complete no matter how many coins you shove in, Blazing Star can be completed by new players with just a handful of continues.  Some hardcore gamers say this detracts from the game play, even compared to its forebear, which was much harder, however, I would argue it makes a nice change to have an arcade shoot 'em up that isn't completely unfair and littered with cheap bosses.

Here's an interesting bit of triva though, the popular internet put down 'Fail!' apparently derives from Blazing Star's Engrish game over screen, which says, "You fail it! Your skill is not enough, see you next time, bye-bye!" I bet half the kids saying 'Fail' weren't even born when Blazing Star hit the arcades.

Let's see this amazing looking game in action:

There are literally dozens of shmups I could blather about, but there are a lot more other classics to discuss, so for now, that's the last shump I'm going to talk about. Next month, I promise to get as far away shoot 'em ups as I can.

MTW