Star Radish (スターラディッシュ) was originally deemed to be SNK Playmore's 2009 April Fool's joke. The official website appeared on April 1 and was marked with the "Events" tag. It was advertised as a 1986 game that was a "callback to the classic shooters" and promised to be out sometime in the summer of 2009.
Originally it was unknown whether it was a gag or a real upcoming project, but select lines on the game's website seemed to imply the former. The biggest indication that it was a joke was the game being announced as a new title for the Neo Geo, years after the company stated they would no longer produce games for the system. Mikadosoft is also not a real game company from the 80s and the game controls featured a Famicom controller rather than the standard Neo Geo button layout. Even so, some amused fans were at the time at least expecting more news about the page, fake or not.
On July 30, 2009, Doki Majo Plus was released in Japan for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi consoles. It was at this time that SNK Playmore revealed that Star Radish was to be featured as a mini game within the Doki Majo Plus video game. Star Radish footage was included in the video game trailers for Doki Majo Plus. Since the release of the game, amateur footage of the game has been uploaded.
Story[]
The following is a rough translation from the official site:
Star date, AD 2009...
Earth was suddenly assaulted by aliens from space code "256AU". The 13 colonies, which contained 98% of the population, were breached and nine billion people were annihilated. Dubbing their intruders the Vegetalis, those remaining gather their spirits to make one last stand...
Their last hope: "The Star Radish Strategy". The mission is to improve the working space dolls for combat and send them to destroy the enemy's mother ship, "Urizen". Chosen for the mission is the prototype doll crafted by the Mikado corporation, "US-A-00". The genius Professor Candle sacrificed the last days of his life to see her made.
Codename "Radish", alias "Radiko", she sets out to fight with a 1/655,350,000 chance of success and fulfill her duty as a space doll.
Characters[]
- Radiko - a cheerful girl who pilots a white ship with slim chances of success.
- Professor Chukki - a white mouse who gives advice on the website's gameplay section.
- Urizen - big bad mother ship of the enemy.