Alien Soldier

Alien Soldier
Alien Soldier cover art (Japanese version)
Developer(s)	Treasure
Publisher(s)	Sega
Composer(s)	Norio Hanzawa
Engine	Proprietary
Platform(s)	Mega Drive, Virtual Console
Genre(s)	Run and gun
Mode(s)	Single-player

Alien Soldier (エイリアンソルジャー) is a side-scrolling run and gun video game developed by Treasure for the Sega Mega Drive. The game was released in Japan and Europe, but not in the US (one of the few to be released in this pattern), but it can be rather expensive due to its rarity in either region. The game was playable in America on the Sega Channel cable service and has been reissued for PlayStation 2 as part of the Sega Ages Treasure Box disc. The Sega Ages version, whose disc also includes Treasure's Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy, exceeds the Mega Drive's intrinsic sprite display limit, which eliminates slowdowns or missing graphics during busy scenes (e.g. boss fights with many explosions). Also, the player can select either the sprite-based pixelated graphics of the original game or a new mode that uses higher-quality sprites re-created by Treasure. The game was re-released again on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console download service in Japan on October 9, 2007, in Europe on November 2, 2007, and in North America on November 5, 2007.

The game is listed in Guinness World Records Gamers Edition 2010 under the category "Most boss battles in a run and gun game".

The message that appears on the Press Start screen "VISUALSHOCK! SPEEDSHOCK! SOUNDSHOCK! NOW IS TIME TO THE 68000 HEART ON FIRE!" is a reference to the Motorola 68000, the CPU of the Mega Drive.

Main characters

• Epsilon-Eagle - The protagonist and playable character. Epsilon-Eagle is a member of a genetically engineered race capable of parasitic co-existence with machinery and animals, including humans. Epsilon was the leader of the criminal organization "Scarlet" before he was attacked by a special forces group. He hid inside the body of a young boy in a research facility for children with paranormal powers. When Xi-Tiger found him there he held a young girl hostage in order to force Epsilon to reveal himself. The young boy went into a rage and morphed into a hybrid with Epsilon-Eagle. After this, Epsilon-Eagle's evil side was in conflict with the good in the boy and he turned on his old terrorist organization (in particular Xi-Tiger).

• Xi-Tiger - Xi-Tiger was a senior member of Scarlet, and took command of the organization after Epsilon-Eagle had been ousted, but quickly became unpopular as a leader. Xi later attacked the research facility, and sensed Epsilon there. Taking a young girl hostage, Xi threatened to kill the girl if Epsilon did not reveal himself. Xi-Tiger killed the girl and fled after Epsilon transformed.

• Epsilon1 - Implied to be Epsilon's evil twin, although they do not resemble each other except that both have bird features. Appears only once, as a giant mechanical eagle with laser cannon wings, despite apparently being shown as a grayscale version of Epsilon-Eagle on the game cover. It is suggested in the game's intro that when Epsilon's good and evil sides of his spirit were struggling, the evil side split away to find a new body to inhabit, which supposedly ended up being the aforementioned mechanical eagle.

• Seven Force Kaede - Mysterious human Scarlet host encountered on level 20. Actually she is said to be the girl that was killed by Xi-Tiger. Seven Force has several forms, including her human form. Seven Force is very similar to her counterpart from Gunstar Heroes, mainly because the boss changes its form using the same pieces. The background music for her boss fight is remix of the Gunstar Heroes' Seven Force, and the boss directly before her also appears in Gunstar Heroes. Despite her name, Seven Force only has 6 forms: Her human form, as well as Valkyrie, Medusa, Sylpheed, Artemis and Sirene Force.

• Z-Leo - The final boss. Z-Leo is a massive, well-armed, anthropomorphic cyborg lion. He has a cannon for a left arm, a mechanical claw for the right, and twin laser cannons on his back. Z-Leo also sports his own distinctive "Z" logo on the right side of his chest armor.

For style purposes, the Japanese game is presented with an English introduction with Japanese subtitles.

Gameplay

Stage 1

Alien Soldier is unique among side-scrolling shooters in that, instead of long levels with several minor enemies before reaching the boss, the levels are notably short and easy before reaching a boss. This results in the game being mostly boss fights. The game has 25 levels and 31 bosses in total, and two difficulty levels, Supereasy and Superhard. The difficulty of the two levels is largely attributable to the lack of continues (and password-based "saving") available in the Superhard game, which is enabled by default.

The top of the screen is dominated by a status bar which gives information about the player current and maximum health, the current and maximum energy of the selected weapon and the current and maximum health of the boss of the stage.

The player can alter the status bar at the beginning of the game to show each details either in numerical format, a bar format, a series of "????", or a combination of the three. If the player wants more challenge, it is possible to make all of the details to be "????", thereby denying any visual information of the health of the player, weapon energy and the health of the boss. Similarly, if the player wants to be more careful, the player may change the status bar to give numerical details so as to know exactly how much health and energy remains.

Another feature is that if the player were to be hit by an enemy or projectile that would have been fatal, the player's current health will always be reduced to 1 first. The player will only die if he gets hit thereafter, reducing health from 1 to 0. This, in a way, gives the player a second chance to recover and continue with the game.