One of the most enjoyable and memerable games I've ever had the pleasure to play.
been a better time to play this Genesis/Mega Drive classic.
As it was released in 1995, many people may look back and decide that the game was released too late in the Genesis era to create any real impact, in terms of promoting the console and the game itself. Ristar is a success as a platformer on many levels. From an era of many great platformers Ristar still manages to shine within the competition, it introduced new ways to play through Ristar's "grabbing" action, visually beautiful and interactive worlds, an outstanding soundtrack and most importantly, it was a game of mass enjoyment.
It kinda annoys me when people try to compare Ristar to the Sonic the Hedgehog games. Sonic became an international iconic figure for the games intustry, not just Sega, Sonic alone sold many, many Genesis/Mega Drive consoles. Whilst the Sonic the Hedgehog games deserved most of the praise it recieved, Ristar still easily remains one of the greatest titles on the system. Ristar took a different approach to attacking enemies to Sonic, Ristar's ability to grab enemies enabled you to do more than just destroy them, a similar feature seen in Nintendo's Wario games. Whilst the environments in Sonic were really, really good, if not a little repetitive among the series, the fact the game plays at a high enough speed for the most part enables a lot of it to go unnoticed. I realise people don't play early platformers for there repeating backgrounds, but the bright and colourful worlds of Ristar only made it more of a pleasure to play. They are not too linear either, there is plently of areas to explore using Ristars abilities, you are not playing for time in this, the enemies and their environments really should be appreciated. The music is another strong point of the game, years on you will still remember the catchy little tunes you originally heard in Ristar. You can't help but feel the change of music is appropriate for each stage too, from the angelic christmas like tunes of Freon, a Snow level, to the frantic mass of beats in Scorch, a fire level. However the game isn't purely on stages such as a level with fire, one with water, one with snow etc. it keeps a very similar stage structure to the Sonic games so you will experience the different weather changes and such. Of course the story to the game isn't necessarily brilliant, but then again it is a simplistic, intruiging story that will make you want to play till the end, the kind of story a platformer would have.
It is however the character of Ristar himself (I'm guessing its a he :O:P) that makes you often think that the game is worth playing, the little quirky noises and gestures he makes throughout the game is underniably going to come across as 'cute' and funny to the majority of players. When playing a platformer it helps if the gamer actually likes the character he/she is going to be playing over the variety of stages. Characters like this can often go over the top when noises are included, they can become very annoying but Sega has got this just right, its a pleasure to play as Ristar.
The game works perfectly, its stuctured brilliantly, theres enough variety and visual pleasure to make you never want to put it down. It is without a doubt one of the most enjoyable and memerable games that I have ever played. It's little charm will make you want to come back again and again.