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(c) 1990 HUDSON SOFT
(c) Inter State Kaneco
Vol.30
Release : 1990-7-6 (¥6500)
HuCard (4 Mbits) HE1097
Shooter / Vertical
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Released in America as
SUPER STAR SOLDIER
( TGX040052 )
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Super Star Soldier is a vertical shooter my Hudson Soft and
was the first 'Star Soldier' to be released for the
PC Engine system (the first episode originally came out for
Nintendo's Famicom system in 1986, read this page's info
section for more information).
The player flyies the Neo-Caesar spaceship and fights his way throught
eight fast and intense stages. The first stage reveals a huge space station
where the player will have a hard time dodging a constant flow of
zillions of tiny ships and bullets, and things only get worse.
As any adrenaline pumping shooter,
Super Star Soldier is packed with power-ups. Small
ships are spreaded around every stage and drop color-coded floating pods when
destroyed : Red for standard vulcan gun, Blue for
laser rings, Yellow for flame thrower and Green for
lightning bolts. Each weapon can be upgraded several times and trigger
powerful mega-bombs as they reach their maximum charge. Secondary
weapons are also available such as homing missiles and rotating shields.
Interestingly, the weapon system is also used as a shield. When hit, the ship
looses a weapon level. Reach zero and the ships blows up for good.
Finally, and following the Star Soldier's tradition,
two and five minutes time-attack modes are available.
During those, the stock of ships is unlimited and the goal is
to blast as many items and ships as possible, and hit the
highest score. This option is related to the
yearly Caravan contests held in Japan
by Hudson Soft (read this page's info section for more
information).
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Star Soldier first came out for Nintendo's Famicom in 1986 (picture on the left)
on cartridge,
and for the MSX system on Hudson Soft's proprietary card format - The Bee Card.
It seems
to be highly related to Tehkan's vertical shooter Star Force released in the
arcades in 1984 and converted a year later by Hudson Soft for the Famicom
and MSX systems.
It looks like the Star Force license was later aquired by Tecmo, which
released games such as Super Star Force (Famicom, 1986) and Final Star Force
(Arcade, 1992). As a side note, Star Force and Star Soldier were the first
two official Caravan games and were also part of the
Shooting Collection
released for the Super Famicom in 1993 (read below for more information about
the Caravan Competition held in Japan from 1985). Hudson Soft created their
own license with Star Soldier and it was logical for the PC Engine system
to host three different Star Soldier titles (or four if we include
Star Parodia). Super Star Soldier was released in 1990,
a bit late if you look at it, the PC Engine had already been around
for three years. Then Final Soldier (1991) and Soldier Blade
(1992) followed. Then nothing until 1998 with the release of
Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth for the Nintendo 64, the first Star Soldier
title to use polygonal 3D. Recently, Hudson Soft released in 2005 its last
episode of the series (so far) for Sony's PSP system (a little
more than twenty years after the first Star Soldier).
Star Soldier also recently re-appeared in special editions,
like for Nintendo's Gameboy Advance in 2004 where it was part of the Famicom
Mini series or for the Playstation 2 where it was upgraded
and part of the Hudson Selection Vol. 2: Star Soldier released in 2003.
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Hudson Soft started the popular Caravan Competition event back in 1985.
It was a yearly and national contest where kids from all over Japan
(over sixty locations throughout the country !) could compete and play
their favourite video games (often shooters) and win prizes and
fame. This is what the
Caravan Mode is all about, players competed for the highest
score in two and five minutes short games. The Caravan competition
initially started with Nintendo's Famicom and for the first three
years, kids competed against each other first in Star Force (1985)
then later Star Soldier (1986) and Hector'87 (1987). As a side
note, the highest score for the 5 minutes plays for Star Force was 314900,
Star Soldier was 1051500 and Hector'87 was 1068000.
Then, the PC Engine system hit the shelves and, logically, the competiting moved
on to this support. The games that followed were Power League
Special Version (1988), Gunhed Special Version (1989),
Final Soldier Special Version (1990), Super Star Soldier (1991)
and Soldier Blade Special version (1992). I am not sure
what happened next, but the competition carried on for a few
years. Notice the 'Special' inserts in some of the latest games.
Those HuCard games only have the Score Attack mode on
them and are very rare and expensive as you can guess. Curiously,
I have never seen a Special edition of Super Star Soldier,
I do not think it actually exists. Naxat Soft tried to organise similar
events from 1991 to 1993 with games such as Spriggan and Nexzr,
called the Summer Carnival tournaments.
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Teaser Text from the American version:
Move fast and blast ! It's a nonstop explosion of fire power and you're
streaking through space, right in the middle of it ! The Brains Cult you once
defeated is back, badder than ever. But your finger's in the trigger of an
incredible new techno-attack ! Scorch the Scorpion with a nuclear sting. Fire
your head-seeking sidewinders. Then power-up to launch your doomsday
Super Bomb ! Blow those Brains out and save the galaxy. Then challenge
your friends with a special competition time more to prove who the Super
Star really is !
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Game Staff (Copied from the end credits) :
Game Designer
Tadayuki Kawada
Programmer
Yamasan
Sugisan
Designer
Yokochin
Mars Saeki
Promoter
Mr. Aoyama
Producer
Mitsuhiro Kadowaki
Patient Producer
Raoh Shimada
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Technical Advisor
Mr. Ueyama
Planning Advisor
Mr. Fujiwara
Music Composer
Dr. Nakahashi
Mr. Hoshi
Sound
Mr. Sasagawa
Mr. Hoshi
Lu. Iwabuchi
Mr. Takimoto
Mr. Takahashi
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Special Thanks
Mr. Oyama
Mr. Utoh
Mr. Matsuo
Mr. Tamito
Denden
Mr. Motouchi
Mr. Harako
Mr. Ogura
Mr. Fujiti
Mr. Ohta
Z. Onji
Mr. Yasuda
Miss Akiko
Ewa
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Hyper Kumasan Team
Footlose Kawada
Jiroh. Kurubushi
Faw
Wakagimi
Yokoyama Koumuten
Soul Best Japan
Super Special Thanks
Hideo Takada
Hidetoshi Endoh
And You...
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
O
V
s
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Super Star Soldier is fantastic and plain fun. I find it a bit hard though,
especially because of the 'die and start again' feature
found on so many other early shooters of the time. As a side note,
things get a bit confusing here as you sometimes continue, and
sometimes start again from the beginning of the stage. Go figure, I never
really managed to find out what's going on there. The pace
of Super Star Soldier is incredible and the intense and fast music just
adds an amazing tension to the game. If you happen to be fan
of Compile and shooters such as Aleste, Zanac or Gunhed, you will
certainly enjoy Super Star Soldier.
Hudson Soft did here a fabulous job and created one of the
best opus of the series - in my taste. A memorable shooter.
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