My Favorite Games - Tetra Star The Figher
Eons ago on Tumblr I found an animated gif of a Famicom or NES game that looked amazing. It featured a scrolling ground texture and a spaceship. I didn't know what it was but every once in a while I would try to find it. Eventually I just did a search for every single Famicom and NES game that featured a spaceship and found Home Data's "Tetrastar - The Fighter" and as it turned out there was an english translation rom available. So I started playing...
I would describe Tetrastar as a rails shooter in the vein of Starfox or Panzer Dragoon, but for the NES. The ground scrolling effect is amazing, it's much more convincing than 3D world runner for the same system. In addition the sprites seem to scale effectivley enough to give a sense of depth. Every stage has it's own gimmick. There's even a story with cutscenes (and also one of the most bizzare cutscenes I've ever seen in a videogame)
And not just that but the entire soundtrack is classical music arrangements, done in chiptunes. And there's also rudimentary voice samples - when you select your secondary weapon the game calls out which one you switched to.
You will need a controller with a turbo function because you have to jam the fire button for every shot. There's also, unfortunatley, full screen flashing for some attacks - something I wish a romhack would fix. I would also reccomend using an emulator with save states as with any shoot em up getting through the entire 30 minute game in one go can be brutal.
I think I like this game because it's the platonic Ideal of a videogame to me. There's some dazzling graphics, there's a little story, the game is nails hard. As I said, each stage has it's own gimmick, they typically start with a cutscene, and then ends in a spectacular boss battle.
It's much closer to Starfox than it is to, say, Space Harrier. Space Harrier (which I played the GBA remake recently) is a kind of game where you just shoot at stuff randomly? And then it goes to another stage? And it just kinda goes on forever and ever.
The backgrounds and scrolling ground really give Tetrastar a sense of distance and depth. It really does feel like you're kinda flying over the surface of a planet a little. Even if the camera is mostly fixed.
Anyway, yes, the most bizzare cutscene - I will spoil part of the game if you care about it. But in the game earth is suffering from an alien invasion and in order to pilot the Tetrastar through the galaxy you have to get your navigation robot, who's been kidnapped on the moon. After you rescue him he helps you through most of the game, but if you get hit during a certain stage aliens board your ship and the little robot dives and takes the bullet for you, and then dies in your arms. AND THEN the robot is put in a space coffin and given a space burial. It's incredibly melodramatic. There is a true ending where the robot doesn't die too, if you manage not to get boarded. Watching this my brain was lit on fire a little, and that's what really cemented this game as being one of my favorites.