You can ignore them if you don't like them. That's fine. I'll still post my (ir)regular posts too.
STARFLIGHT
Sega Genesis 1991
I first rented this game back in the early or mid 90s. At the time there were two systems competing for supremacy, the Genesis and Super Nintendo. There were other systems, the lesser background systems, but for me it was just the Gensis and the SNES. I personally owned a Genesis and my brother had a SNES. So I actually ended up spending a lot of my time playing the more obscure Sega titles. Fortunately there were enough unique games to keep me occupied for hours and hours on end. One such title that I happened upon was Starflight.StarFlight is a game any fan of either Star Wars or Star Trek would dream of playing. It was a massively open world space simulator. It gives the command of a single ship tasked with figuring out a mystery that is threatening your homeworld of Arth. Hiring crew, buying ship upgrades and getting news and orders are all done from the home planet and then it basically opens up the universe and says "go play". Several other species populate the vast universe and will react differently to the player based on several factors. The game features hundreds of star systems to explore with every planet fully navigable. That's right, you can take your ship down to any planet and disembark your land rover to mine for resources or gather up local wildlife. The planets have different weather and temperature effects that force you to change your approach on each unique planet. It's amazing.
The combat is pretty basic, but surprisingly fun. Combat can basically be avoided against other local species through negotiation. When it does come to fisticuffs the battles are fought on a 2d field in which you fly around and shoot at each other. It's like Asteroids but you have a few different weapons. Not too advanced but it is fast paced and easy to get a handle on.
Starflight also has a basic economic model that allows you to mine for minerals on planets and sell them at bases. This allows you to purchase more fuel and upgrade your ship. It's a basic model but it does encourage exploration as you look for resource rich planets. When playing there are few greater feelings than finding a planet that has a huge resource haul.
I spent hours on this game way back in... well sometime in the 90s. This is one of maybe two or three Genesis cartridges that I actually own to this day. I was drawn in by the vastness of this game, an open world sandbox style game far before that become so popular. In certain ways Starflight was like Uncharted Waters in space which is probably part of the reason I loved this game. Hidden gems were left throughout the universe for the players to discover and trying to locate these were part of what kept me playing so long. There is the hidden Eden planet with huge resources, a planet suspiciously like our own 3rd rock, and various alien homeworlds. Something I personally liked to do was take the "planet bomb" black eggs and destroy an alien homeworld. I made some enemies for life on that one!
Rating - Then
Even though I spent a lot of time on this game I don't think I would have rated it particularly highly. I imagine I'd have been drawn by the lure of the more popular SNES games. Though I put a lot of time in on the Genesis, I wasn't exactly a standard bearer for Sega. I loved this game, but certain factors brought it down a bit. The sound was sparse and what was there was in that terrible Sega tone. The graphics were lacking and I remember not liking them. The gameplay and fun were Starflight's redemption for my younger self.
Score -7
Rating - Now
So it's been a while since the last time I played Starflight. I recognize now that this game was ahead of its time in some ways. I'm sure that console fans would've derided the lack of linearity at the time. I see that it was really a step towards the sandbox style of gaming that is so strong in modern Western gaming. The replay value of the game is something I appreciate. Few games at the time kept me playing like Starflight. I won't jump the score much, but I will admit it's better than I would have believed at the time.
Score - 7.5
So there is my inaugural Retro Game Reviews post. I didn't start it with a big name game or even one that many people knew. I'll hit the big classics at some point, sure. Covering the more unknown games I put a lot of time into is important for me though. So look forward to more of these at some point and I promise to post some more soon.
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