Retro Achievement Mastery 1 - Ristar

So a year ago, I started my journey on Retro Achievements. I’ve been posting about it a lot of Cohost, where every mastery, I talk about the game. But I started at like, game #40. So I have a lot of posts I just never made. Gonna fix that here. We’re starting from the start.

If you’re wondering what this series is, I basically play a game, and then do a review of it. Simple. Retro Achievements is a site where you can play a game, and it gives you achievements for it. Simple as well.

My first choice for a game to master was Ristar… Ristar is my favorite game of all time. I’m literally named after it. You may not have realized Lizstar is a Ristar pun, but now you do. This game is in my DNA. I know this game better than I know my own hands. I am way too close to this game.

In Ristar you play as uh, Ristar. He’s a 90s Sega mascot, so he’s cut from the same cloth as Sonic. He’s inspired by a pitch for Sonic, which was a bunny that grabbed things with its ears. That idea evolved all the way to this. Basically, Ristar was built with one core philosophy in mind. You experience most games with your sense of sight. Can we make a game where you use your other senses? This game is all about the sense of touch. You play as a child exploring the world, reaching out and touching things, or feeling them. This game’s working title was Feel for a reason.

Ristar can jump and strech his arms out, just for you. He’ll grab anything he can reach, which depending on what it is, will have different effects. He might swing around on a pole. He might hand on a thing, or climb ladders. He might turn switches. Or he’ll grab the enemy and slam his entire head into it. You’ve gotta figure out what everything does in the classic way. Grabbin’ it!

Ristar is slower paced than Sonic. He takes his time, sauntering through levels, exploring. It’s got a lot of that same DNA though, and is just as fun. The levels are colorful, well designed. And the music is, of course, fantastic. This might be the prettiest Genesis game. It was pretty late in the console’s life cycle, so it’s not a big surprise.

The main time when Ristar speeds up is with the star poles. Ristar can grab these poles and spin around them, gaining increasingly more speed as he spins, before he releases and flies through the air. He’s hard to control, but you can explore and get to new areas this way. Again, all about that exploration!!

The story of the game depends on if you’re playing the JP version or not. This game actually changes a lot with the American release. In the JP release, the evil Kaiser Greedy is invading the solar system, and is taking over the planets and their leaders with his mind control magic! The people pray to their goddess Oruto for help, who sends her son Ristar. The US version keeps that kind of, except there’s no Oruto. Instead, his dad is the Galactic Hero who goes to stop Greedy, but is defeated, and Ristar has to save both the star system, and his dad. I guess they thought Americans would freak out about a non Christian God? Some of us would. There’s also other changes, like changing a cat monster to an ice monster, but both versions are fine to play.

This is not an easy game. But if you play it, you’ll find a LOT to enjoy about it. It is endlessly charming. Ristar is so cute, and he has so many fun idle animations, like making snowmen! It’s a good challenge, Greedy is one of the hardest Genesis boss fights. And of course, it’s just fun. The devs of this wanted to make a sequel, but Sega never cared about it much, and sent them all away to work on Nights into Dreams. Which y’know, is a good game. But I wish more had been done with my boy.

The actual set was good too btw. Though it had an achievement for grinding out points, which was kinda boring and annoying lol