Ristar™

Of all the platforming mascots forgotten in the 90s, Ristar probably receives the most respect, and it generally deserves it. It’s not just a colourful and enjoyable example of its genre; it’s even a little ahead of its time, feeling closer to a puzzle-platformer than the pure action of its contemporaries. It’s also more forgiving than similar games of its time, although some late-game obstacles and the adequate-but-imprecise controls ensure it’s not exactly easy. The developers found innumerable uses for the protagonist’s extendible arms, so challenges range from hitching rides on flying enemies to swinging between trees to having a miniboss snowball fight. The aesthetics are a mixed bag, however. While the music is generally wonderful, the sound effects are decidedly annoying, and the graphics, while technically impressive for the time, are garish and undisciplined.

Score: 6.5/10

https://www.imlgames.com/ristar/

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Ristar is a platformer that was released in 1995 and made by Sega of Japan. Right at the end of Sega Genesis life on oversaturated platformers market, so it didn't receive much recognition. They say that it might be done by Sonic Team people but most of devs in credits seem to be new. 16 Megabit ROM Power.
It also had a Game Gear port. It's not on level of 16-bit brother but it had different level design here and there so worth playing for fans.

The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version. It has Western version, which slightly tweaked difficulties, removed some cheat codes and changed enemies and Ristar graphics to make them appear angrier. Ah, and skiing intro in snow planet. And ending changes. And it includes Japanese original, too.


Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "RISTAR_UE.68K".
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "RISTAR_PC_MG_EFIGS_US_150ppi.pdf".


In a far away solar system, Valdi, an evil space pirate tyrant Kaiser Greedy is at work. Greedy forced the leaders of each of the six planets the system is composed of to work for him and kidnapped Ristar's father. Ristar The Shooting Star, cartoonish black ball with yellow star slapped on and elastic groping hands, answers the plea for help and goes out to deliver heavy cranial collision.
Or maybe it's seven planet as said in manual, but the final one seems to be just floating fortress.

You know,I remembered the game as being too slow paced many years ago but now that I've got to replay it it's actually pretty fun and doesn't waste your time. Ristar does have slower pace than usual platformer, but only slightly. He takes his time. He marches without hurry. He grabs a single enemy. And he then smashes it away with head only after you release the button. Or you can keep holding enemy and travel along, if it's the flying kind.

Or you can grab the star handles and spin around. Spinning spinning all around, then release button and shoot out like a star, still with some air control. All good fun. I do think that they break the pace slightly but you shouldn't always spin to the full speed.

Okay, actually core gameplay is nothing unique, it all lies in level design. Each planet has two rounds and one boss round. Reach round having it's own background set and music, yes. And every single of those rounds has a central gimmick that the level is build around. Maybe it's about sliding in ice. Or maybe it's a puzzle level where you have to deliver metronome to the singing birds on the music-themed planet. It's all new and varied, keeping you interested.
And yep, levels have various enemies, chests here and there, all having items inside. You get extra lives for certain amount of score so you should grab score items too. You also should learn to use hands in order to climb over the walls, there are many hidden items there.
Protip: You should charge only in very few spots underwater.

Not unlike other platformers, it has bonus stages. Each round has it's own. To get into them you have to find secret star handles. Thankfully, levels allow backtracking. Bonus stages themselves aren't some kind of minigames but little obstacle courses. Tho there are two, the last one included, that I wish we could practice some more, they are too hardcore. You have to get treasure. After the game ending you will unlock up to 4 password-cheats depending on how many you have collected. And two of them are boss rush and bonus stage time attack, so they are fun. And round select one. And "onchi" password that expands sound test. Also, you get a continue if you get treasure quick enough.

The bosses are also excellent. They do have tactics where you wait for their defences to weaken, but it doesn't feel forced. In some cases you have to smash smash smash. It's a shame that Ristar goes invincible too easily after hitting with head, it makes it extremely easy to cheese one of the last bosses. There are also minibosses in each planet, that's fun too.
Protip: If you have trouble with timing on frost monster, pay attention to it's hand.

Background and music are also pretty awesome. Music is great on technical level, with some nice snares. Uh, one day I should do some actual music study so I can describe it better. But if you close your eyes and listen to any one of those memorable melodies you can tell for what setting it's written. Graphics are also high quality for console. Unlike, say, Treasure games, it doesn't focus on any special effects. But it has excellent use of colors and backgrounds have multiple layers for parallax effect. You know, '3D'-like effect done by having multiple layers move at various speeds. I think that Genesis only had 2 layers of background but you always could make console control each horizontal pixel line groups individually, while using sprites for anything overlapping, such as buildings in Automaton planet. And I think Ristar arms become vectors when you use them.
Not to mentioning that Ristar himself has idle animation for each planet. They sure filled those 16 Megabits to the full.
Protip: One idle animation is useful in gameplay for one of the minibosses.

There are also options. Usual sound test and controls. There are also passwords. Unlike many other games you don't get passwords for levels, instead it's all cheat codes. And there is difficulty. On Normal you start with 4 life points, 5 lives and 5 continues. Enough to beat game on the first try. It's the kind of game that gets much easier once you memorize. On Hard you start with 2 life points and all “restore all life points” items get replaced with just 1 life point item. 3 lives and 3 continues. No air control when shooting yourself off star handles. And if you beat game on Hard, you will get password for Super difficulty. There you have 1 life point, 1 life but infinite continues.

None the less, that's one excellent platformer from late Genesis life. Don't miss this one out. Or else you will. And Ristar will be sad.