Blazing Star

Blazing Star (ブレイジングスター, Bureijingu Sutã) is a 1998 scrolling shooter video game for the Neo Geo home game system. It is the spiritual sequel to the acclaimed Neo Geo shooter Pulstar, which was itself a close cousin to the R-Type franchise. A typically hefty Neo Geo ROM at 346 Mb, the game makes extensive use of pseudo-3D prerendered sprites, brief anime and CGI cutscenes (mostly during the intro sequence), and frequent English voice samples and captions. While Blazing Star is certainly a cut above a number of other shooters, some fans compare it unfavorably with Pulstar on the basis that Blazing Star was "dumbed down" in terms of difficulty and there are those that prefer the simpler 2D sprite look over the pre-rendered sprites that came to dominate many of the more recent shoot-em-ups.

Story
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 Remulians 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. Meanwhile, two pilots from planet Earth get involved in the conflict. The "Awoken" pilots finally turn against the machine in a battle to rediscover themselves and reclaim their planets.

Gameplay
The joystick and two buttons are used to play Blazing Star. The joystick moves the ship around, while button A fires the normal shot. If A is tapped rapidly, then a variation on the normal shot is used. If A is held down, then the ship stores energy for a charged shot, which is fired when A is released. The charged-shot attacks have a duration based on how long the A button is held for, and pressing B during the attack will split the projectile in some way, greatly increasing the range.

Power-ups can increase the strength of the player's guns, while also increasing the maximum power of the charged shot. The types of shots, charge-up attacks, and split shots used are dependent on the ship the player selects. For instance, the Hellhound has small energy waves as its normal shot. The charged shot, releases a continuous stream of large fireballs. By pressing B, every fireball onscreen splits into numerous smaller shots, spreading to cover a much wider range.

Ships and Pilots
In Blazing Star, the player can choose one of the 6 ships available to play, each one has unique weapons and special attacks designed to fit the players needs.

Note: The list will feature the ship name followed by it's "Type", Normal Shot, Rapid Shot, Charge and Break Attacks. The Peplos ship is the only ship in the game which cannot be powered up with any items, because of that, it starts with the full 4-level Shot gauge.
 * Hellhound (Standard) - 4 Way Shot - 6 Way Shot - Deathflame - Hell Burst
 * Pilot: Caster Mild (Self-proclaimed "Bloodwood")
 * Windina (Simple) - Wave - Tidal Wave - 3 Way Spread - Homing
 * Pilot: Leefa Chao
 * Aryustailm (Technical) - Laser - Lightning Bolt - Sword - Swordfield
 * Pilot: JB (Jan Bismarck)
 * Peplos (Difficult) - 3 Way Shot - 3 Way Rapid - Holy Flare - Divine Breath
 * Pilot: Asayuki Kizuyomina
 * Dino-135 - Shot - Rapid Shot - Spread Shot - Special Scatter
 * Pilot: Naomi Yamazaki
 * Dino-246 (Defensive) - Shot - Rapid Shot - Charge Shot - Bomber
 * Pilot: Kaoru Yamazaki

Unlike in Pulstar, the Io's located above and below the Dino ships cannot be locked to aim in a specific direction, also the Voyager of the Dino-246 cannot be self detonated, also, that feature was replaced with the "Bomber" Break Attack.

Development
Blazing Star was the first game developed by Yumekobo, a company formerly known as Aicom but rebranded to mark their new direction of working closely with SNK. Initial discussions began with the concept for a follow-up to their shooter Pulstar, however they wanted their new game to maintain a degree of independence from the original. With significant changes made to the gameplay style and setting, the team treated their new game as a gaiden and did not want to use Pulstar in the title. Yumekobo's president at the time opposed this, wanting Pulstar in the title for business reasons. At some point the game was titled Pulstar Blast. The publisher SNK entered the dispute, saying they did not want Yumekobo's new shooter to be associated to Pulstar in the west because it received poor reception there due to its high difficulty. The team settled on the title Blazing Star for its western release, chosen among others including Zero Hour and The Zenith. Not wanting to keep the names different between regions, Yumekobo's president decided to make Blazing Star the title in all regions.

The team had trouble designing the attack patterns and enemy placements to establish the right level of difficulty. Interesting combat patterns made the game more difficult, but the game was boring otherwise. The director of Pulstar thought the original game was too difficult and wanted the new shooter to have a charge shot for an easier challenge. Although much of the game changed through development, the charge shot was one of the early concepts that was kept along with the goal to create impressive scenery. Yumekobo staff believed the game's best selling point was its detailed graphics. The artists had to overcome challenges creating the textures, animation, and reducing the sprites to 16 colors each due to Neo Geo hardware limitations. The system's sprite limit restricted the number of bullets they could place on-screen. There was still some sprite flickering in the final game due to crossing this threshold.

The character Leefa has a kogal personality and was modeled after Yuko Asahina from Tokimeki Memorial at the request of the game designers. JB was modeled after the actor Jean Reno, and Asayuki was based on a character for a previous game the character designer worked on that was never released. Unique endings were planned for each character but were later cut, the details of which were divulged in an issue of Neo Geo Freak.

Release
Blazing Star was released on the Neo Geo arcade system (MVS) in 1998, and the home system (AES) on February 26, 1998. A Neo Geo CD release was planned but abandoned.

The game was re-released on iOS and Android in July 2012, and on the Wii via the Virtual Console in Japan on August 21 later that year. The smartphone versions include multiplayer support via Bluetooth and a practice mode that lets the player start from any stage they have cleared. Hamster Corporation rereleased the game for the Nintendo Switch via the eShop on May 2, 2017 as part of their ACA Neo Geo series. As with all games released under the ACA Neo Geo brand, the game includes Hamster's additional scoring modes, screen filter options, and difficulty settings. This version later came to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One digital storefronts on February 8, 2018. Blazing Star is also included in SNK's Neo Geo Mini dedicated console.

A port developed by DotEmu for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux and asm.js was released by SNK Playmore as part of the Humble NEOGEO 25th Anniversary Bundle on December 15, 2015. It was also released on GOG.com on May 30, 2017.

Critical Reception
Critics commended Blazing Star as a testament to SNK's devotion to the Neo Geo hardware and keeping classic genres such as shoot 'em ups alive. Edge wrote that side-scrolling shooters were rare to find, but the game should satisfy fans of the genre. They praised the colorful backgrounds and 3D special effects. Video Games agreed that the graphics were nice, but felt some of the backgrounds were pale and it ultimately did not offer "The Ultimate in Neo Geo graphics" as was advertised on the game's packaging. Next Level argued that the game took better advantage of the Neo Geo hardware than Pulstar with its improved background and lighting effects. Journalists found the game similar to its predecessor, but Video Games in particular thought Pulstar was the better game. They gave Blazing Star a score of 72% and felt it was too short, not challenging enough, and lacking in sophisticated level design. They did however like the bosses, as did Next Level and Edge who both appreciated the game for carrying on the large boss trend from Pulstar. Edge ultimately felt that the "frenetic, old-school gameplay...will keep the Neo Geo's devotees happy." In 2014, HobbyConsolas identified it as one of the twenty best games for the Neo Geo AES.

The iOS and Android ports of Blazing Star were well-received. TouchArcade commended the strategic gameplay, impressive 2D backgrounds, and felt it featured "some of the most intricate shooter gameplay you can find in the vast pool of shmups available on the App Store." Their biggest criticisms were the touch screen controls which they felt were sluggish. Pocket Gamer agreed about the controls, writing that their finger would get in the way of action occasionally. They still thought the game was addictive and "the equivalent of the machine in the corner that the hardened veterans congregate around, dropping in coin after coin as they inch their way up the leaderboards."

Reviewing the Arcade Archives release, Nintendo Life called it a "perfect port", noting that it even retained the frame rate slowdown when the screen is filled with sprites. Their biggest complaints were the game's aged pre-rendered graphics and the sharp difficulty increase in the latter stages, but they felt these were minor issues. They felt Hamster Corporation's Hi-Score and Caravan modes were perfect complements to Blazing Star. Nintendo World Report felt that it had an uneven level design, wishing the earlier levels had more stage hazards. They did however appreciate the game for maintaining a degree of simplicity without sacrificing gameplay depth, and called it "one of the more accessible and fun shoot-em-ups out there".

Trivia

 * The game's original name was "Pulstar Blast" (パルスターブラスト, Parusutã Burasuto) but it was later changed to Blazing Star.
 * Aicom and Yumekobo were actually the same company. Aicom was a former Sammy﻿ subsidiary until they broke away and with funding from SNK, they were renamed as Yumekobo.
 * The Peplos pilot, Asayuki Kizuyomina, has a younger sister called Amayuki, although she doesn't appear in the game, she does appear in the game's artworks.
 * Although most sites said there were six pilots assimilated, they're actually four, since Naomi and Kaoru were involved in this conflict in different circumstances: Naomi arrived on Remulia as she confused it with the Earth, while Kaoru is searching for her sister.
 * Blazing Star is famous for various catchphrases: "Hey poor player!", "You fail it! Your skill is not enough, see you next time, bye-bye!", etc. Some even believe that Blazing Star was responsible for the modern 'meme' use of the word "fail".