Star Cruiser (Sharp X68000) - Reintroduction

When we think of the first FPS, we usually think of something ID Software did. Wolfenstein 3D if you're normal, Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D if you're not. If you're willing to go a bit out there, you'll say Battlezone. A lot of the stuff in-between is usually out there enough that you could call them pretenders for whatever reason or obscure enough that nobody is really advocating for them. But there's a curious omission in these discussions.

Star Cruiser is that omission, being a RPG/FPS/space sim hybrid at a time when that's a really impressive thing to put out. It is also, for my money, the first real FPS, depending on if it was released before Midimaze or not. I'm not entirely sure why this game has escaped so much notice, but since it was Japanese-only for the longest time in a genre which, by numbers, primarily originates in North America, the UK and former Soviet states, and is enjoyed by the type of gamer who does not enjoy games that come from Japan...well, I have my theory.

Before I played the Genesis version, which by what I've read, is very different than the original computer versions. Foul language, money, and apparently other things which I seem to have forgotten are changed. It promises to be worth coming back to this game for no other reason.

The story is, as told through an intro text crawl, it's the 25th century, humanity has expanded to the stars and met with a group of aliens called the Galactic Council. Which is an interesting choice, assuming it was a choice and not wonky translation. There's some sign that the translation isn't the best, though I will say that I'm not going to read it in the original language if I can get away with it. Rebels, dissatisfied with humanity going at peace with aliens, rebel, but are quickly put down. The rebellion leader, Geist Nidoman is never found.

In an expanding nearby system, the federal government is unable to maintain security and it becomes full of pirates and criminals. An evil organization called VOID became going over human space, with a leader called Dark Champion, who I am sure is not connected to Geist Nidoman whatsoever. (I do not actually remember much of the plot, except the war crimes) It seems that the galaxy is entering a dark era. Fortunately, there are hunters who will stand in the face of evil. (Bounty hunters, they just like omitting the bounty part because it sounds cooler)
 

Thus we enter our protagonist, who is unnamed at the start. He's got into a bad firefight with some ruffians, and now his ship has crashed inside the hanger of the ruffians mothership. This part isn't explained as much as implied to you. Nor are the controls, either in the game itself or in the accompanying text file with the translation. As I doubt there's a translated manual floating around, I brute-forced it. Numpad moves and enter/space is menu.

What the text file does explain, however, is that if you keep checking the crashed wreckage, you get a thousand space dollars...check it twice more, and you get 100k. The reason for this is that the game can be very grindy. Since I can't come back here, I'll go for 200k but try to avoid spending that until it becomes clear that not spending that is going to add several hours to the playtime. (By normally checking the wreckage, you have 2k in total) This is different than the Genesis version in basically every way so far, since we started in a training sim, and garages fix everything for free. I have no idea if this is supposed to be like American money or if this is yen with a dollar sign. For the later, roughly 100¥ is $1 USD, so 2k is $20 USD, 200k is $2,000. (For European readers, while there's supposed to be a 1=1 exchange rate, it's closer to 1.3 USD to 1 Euro, I have no idea about any other currency)

On the opposite side of the start is a...let's go with tank, sitting there, waiting for me to touch it. You can interact with things by moving up towards it. Movement uses the numpad rather than the arrows. Once you've touched it you're taken to a combat screen, like a JRPG. Here, the two of you duel it out. Space fires and shift activates strafing, but befitting that this is the game's first encounter and likely everyone in Japan's first FPS, this is easy for a skilled player like myself. This nets me $30. Note, this means I need to fight about 75 guys before I can reach my starting capital if this is any indication of what I get from random enemies.

Past this is a fork in the road, one leading to a locked door, and one leading to another person. This is Daniel, who is friendly. He offers to help, but our hero is too badass for this. Daniel asks what our hero did here to result in this situation. All hero says in response is that his $400k starship is wrecked. So, we're going to have to steal a fancy new type of starship from this base. Which is good, since apparently these are the bad guys. Portraits are still anime-esque, but at least the artists have actually observed a real human at some point.
 

Behind him is a lever which opens the locked door. Further on is a short maze full of guards, locked doors and levers. I have a limited amount of energy, but this is not terribly difficult. Since I can shoot enemy shots, and enemies here die in one hit, most of the foes don't offer me any trouble. Quickly enough, I find a starship and Daniel tells me to take it and get out, while he blows up the base....and I try the starship again and the same thing happens. Turns out that this is Daniel's spaceship and I need to find the new one elsewhere. You have all this text and you couldn't tell me that? I know the translators messed around with the writing a little bit, make it clearer!

After going back through the cleared maze, I find the new type of starship and get a cutscene of my guy escaping and heading out into space as the base explodes. Immediately after, Daniel calls us up to ask us how the new starship is going. Premature asking of this aside, he mentions our hero's name, Brian. Brian mentions that the ship is the...Star Cruiser, and while the design is very good, the equipment isn't. Now we've got to head to Ganymede to have it tuned up.

 

Now we're in space and have the whole solar system to explore. But if I remember the game from before, and I mostly don't, there's not going to be any point in doing anything but heading to Ganymede. The problem here is that finding Jupiter is not entirely straight-forward. That is, assuming you don't use your eyes and head for the planet, like I failed to do. It does help that there are enemies right outside the area as soon as you start.

Space combat is how you'd expect, mostly normal. Numpad moves, up and down are reversed. Space shoots, enter is menu. The up and down arrows control your speed, so adjusting that in the heat of combat is tricky. You go more or less normally. What's weird is that enemies don't move like you'd expect. They go around you in a circle while shooting at you sideways. Shooting at you sideways. It's also fairly difficult to get away, but generally speaking, as long as you can get a bead on them, it's not too difficult to shoot them and their shots down. It's just that getting a bead on them is tricky. Each gives either 150 or 400 credits, which doesn't seem too bad. 

Ganymede is a ground level town, meaning you aren't in your ship, and you move around...like any normal town in a JRPG. Except you're slowly using energy as you move. Hope you weren't planning on wandering around that much...This may be why the translation includes the money cheat.

Ganymede has quite a few buildings to explore, unfortunately the first two are a shuttle service to Io and a place where I can get a new gun. Useful, but I want to wait until I know what the actual damage is first. Fortunately, place number three has the recharge garage. Full charge is under 400 and a repair is a 100, pretty close to what I just earned. Whereupon I find out that my ship is otherwise fine. Hmm, that glowing shield bar says otherwise, am I supposed to fix that on my own? Yes, and it turns out that with that, it costs 624 for energy repair. Putting me under the 2k I'm supposed to start with. Uh-oh. There's also a place that repairs shields a bit down, but I'm not sure what their actual price is at this moment, beyond 150 for presumably very little shield.

Location number three is the Great Red Spot. (Wasn't it Big Red Spot?) Brian straight-up tells the bartender he wants his ship turned, because that is what you tell bartenders. Of course, since the bartender immediately tells us that the kind of people who tune up starships are "meisters", because calling yourself an engineer is passe. (Next time on the FPSmeister...) Brian, who already knows this, asks where to find one. He tells me to go to the slums beyond the forest, because meisters choose secluded places full of bandits.

 

It's not too hard to find the path to the slums, because someone's in front of it. A...friendly (?) woman who seems like she's trying impersonate Michael Jackson. No further interaction, she then disappears. Fair enough. Well, inside this are a few non-random encounters, which have two guys, who are not very hard, but until you realize there are two of them, can cause a little confusion. Unfortunately, I get gotten a few times and despite the increase in damage, they give me $30 an encounter. Not per ship, per encounter. They do increase as some of these guys get tougher...to $50 and $60. So I head out into space and take out a few hostiles. After fixing myself up, I'm now slightly above where I started.

While there are some assorted drops here, like bags of money and free energy, a lot of this is just grinding away at a series of hostiles. Enemies do the whole strafing thing, constantly, along with turning around far faster than you. I imagine at some point these guys will become tricky, but for now, these are only noteable in the volume they come in. Soon enough, I'm at my destination.

The meister, who answers the door like he lives in the Upper East Side, asks what he can do for Brian. He goes out and says he wants to modify his unique and non-replaceable Star Cruiser, which he technically isn't the legal owner of. How much does this cost, you may ask? $2000. For the record, with the stuff I have from the wreckage and the stuff I picked up, I have enough for that and the next level of gun. Perfect!

The guy continues to tell me that he's made several machines usable, automatic tracking bullet, beam booster and ore processing machine, all #1. Beam booster is important since there's a category on my dialog HUD for it, but I don't know what it is. I guess the ore processing machine allows me to get asteroids or something. The automatic tracking bullet is beyond me. The meister then tells me to find Meister Hidari in the colony in the asteroid belt, since several systems on the ship are beyond him.

And this is where I'll leave off, with a simple, easy to follow objective as my next goal. As insane as this game feels so far in terms of grinding, it's still eons ahead of what I was doing in Elite. Remember, if I didn't cheat in that, I would have spent eight hours getting a slight amount of money. In this, I'm still above what I started with and even when I get the next gun, I still will be.

This Session: 1 hour 10 minutes