For game club we played our third “non-Sonic game made by Sonic Team”, after Nights and Billy Hatcher. Similarly, Ristar has somewhat of a Sonic feeling but with a heavy focus on a different gameplay hook.

Ristar is just one of those nice 90s Mega Drive platformers. It’s bright and colourful; not unlike Rayman but with crunchier pixel art. The hook I mentioned is that our hero can stretch his arms, to grab things or pull himself towards an enemy or platform. This leads to lots of fun and dynamic gameplay mechanics like swinging, smacking yourself into baddies to attack, or into a wall to climb it. This mechanic continues to be used inventively over the course of the game, along with other level-specific gimmicks layered on top.

A notable fact about this game is the localisation, which in the transition from Japan to the West adds some small touches but otherwise removes text and ridiculously changes most of the enemies’s faces from cutesy wide-eyed stares to angry eyebrows, like it’s the boxart of a Kirby game. At least the Mega Drive localisation kept all its content, whereas the Game Gear version (developed simultaneously by a third party) cuts a level internationally due to executive meddling.

Speaking of the Game Gear game, I played through it on stream and was delighted by it. It keeps most of the level themes, but cuts the volcano planet and replaces the water planet with levels in a cloudy rainbow land and on a ship deck. It also has two unique bosses, adds plentiful stars as a minor collectible, and otherwise has its own level designs for existing planets. It’s well worth playing alongside the main game, but I wish it struck out even more on its own.

My big problem with the game is how much the difficulty ramps up in the final two planets, especially the bosses, but with save states it doesn’t present too much of a problem. It’s overall a very well-made game with plenty of character, and it fills another gap in my Sega curriculum!