About This Character:  Ristar is a cartoonish, humanoid little guy with a star-shaped body.  He uses his arms to move and fight enemies.  Deep in space, a seven-planet system is held in a grip of terror by space pirate Kaiser Greedy.  Ristar is called upon to restore peace to the galaxy.  He travels through many colorful landscapes, fighting bad guys, and making the wrong right on a planet-by-planet basis.

    "Ristar" is one of the cutest, most beautifully-designed video games I've ever seen.  It's virtually non-violent, as Ristar merely bounces the bad guys off of his body.  This is a "must-play", and one of the most original video games ever made in terms of design, story idea, and gameplay.  It's of medium difficulty, and such a blast!


History:  The character of Ristar was in development for quite some time before his debut in 1995.  As a matter of fact, Ristar developed from an idea that ultimately became the character of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1992.  Yuji Naka, head of Sonic Team, said that they were originally working with a rabbit character in their game.  The rabbit had ears that could extend and pick up objects.  This rabbit idea, cute as it was, needed to be phased out due to the fact that the game got faster and faster.  The character needed some power over his enemies.  It was then that Naka thought of a character he was toying around with years before; a hedgehog.  Hedgehogs in real life can roll themselves into balls; Naka's hedgehog character rolled himself into a ball and slammed into his enemies.  So the rabbit became a hedgehog..."Sonic" was born.

    A few years later, the original rabbit idea was worked on separately after Sonic's release.  This new game developed into a prototype called, "Feel".  The rabbit resemblance was phased out by this point and the character no longer used his ears.  Feel's arms were his weapons.  Changes were made in the main character, including several name changes.  "Dextar" was one of the name ideas, also "Ristar the Shooting Star", "Dexstar", finally settling on "Ristar".  An homage to the original rabbit idea exists in the first level of the game; rabbits that use their ears to attack are enemies for our little star guy.

    The game's back-up story has some differences between the original Japanese version and the Western versions.  In Japan, this game takes place in the seven-planet Valdi System.  Kaiser Greedy, the evil space pirate, makes the leaders of these planets obey him.  The inhabitants of Planet Neer pray for a hero before Greedy's mind control possesses them.  Their desperate cries for help reach Star Goddess, Oruto.  In turn, Oruto awakens one of her children, the heroic Ristar.  Our hero's sole purpose is to free the people of these planets.  Ristar must stop Kaiser Greedy and each of the seven planet's brainwashed leaders to restore peace.

    In Mega Drive/Genesis versions outside Japan, the character of Oruto is not seen.  This character is replaced with Legendary Hero, a shooting star that protects the Valdi System who is also a father figure to Ristar.  The story was changed from Ristar being awakened by Oruto, to Legendary Hero being kidnapped by Kaiser Greedy, and Ristar must rescue his father as well as free the people.  However, the Oruto storyline is still used in the Sega Game Gear version.  In Europe, the Valdi System is called the Vadji System.  Planet Neer is known as Planet Flora everywhere outside Japan.

    There were also many small changes between the Japanese and international versions that add up to the two games being very different.

• Planet names change between the different versions of Ristar, depending on the area of which they were marketed.
• Enemies in the Western versions were made to appear more threatening, and an "angry" sprite of Ristar was used throughout the entire game.
• Basically, Japan's "Ristar" went more for "cute", where the international versions were going for "tough".
• Most of the idle animations were removed from the Western versions.
• A skiing sequence was added to the start of Round 5.  Sprites for a skiing Ristar DO exist on the Japanese ROM, but are completely unused.
• Itamor was changed from a giant mechanical cat to an ice monster.  In Japan, there's a pun of "cat tongue" that works in that language.
• Anti-gravity shoes were added to Round 6.  The "swimming on air" sequence still exists in the Japanese version, and the same shoe sprites DO exist on the Japanese ROM.
• The ending of the Japanese version of the game shows Kaiser Greedy, Inonis, and Uranim abandoned on a desert planet/moon.  The ending of non-Japanese versions show Ristar being reunited with his father.
• And many other small details too numerous to mention.

    "Ristar" sold well enough to be popular at the time, but it wasn't the huge, smash success that it should have been.  Thus, "Ristar" did not become a popular franchise.  Although a real work of art for a 16-bit game, 16-bit games themselves were taking a back seat to the 32-bit and 64-bit technologies.  This game received far more positive reviews than negative, and is considered by nearly all video game buffs to be the most overlooked Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis game of all time.

    Quite unlike Sonic, Sega's popular mascot character, Ristar did not fare too well in the years following this game's release.  Ristar briefly appeared in the opening sequence of the Japan-only Sega game, "Segagaga" (2001).  He wasn't even a playable character!  Ristar was also one of the capsule toys in the game, "Shenmue" (1999)...again not a playable character.  A Ristar comic strip appeared in the unofficial online continuation of the UK's "Sonic the Comic" (2004) for a short time, and he also made a brief cameo in #50 of "Sonic the Hedgehog" (June, 1997) from the American publisher, Archie.

    Ristar is an endearing character and I hope that we can see a rebirth of his popularity in the years ahead.

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