DECISIVE ENCOUNTER
FEALTY IS DUE
The Red Star is a 3D Side View Beat 'em Up game developed by Acclaim Studios Austin, loosely based on the graphic novel of the same name by Christian Gossett, which takes place in an alternative future Soviet Union where there's magic. It was originally slated for a 2004 release on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox by Acclaim, though following their bankruptcy, it would only see release on the PS2 in 2007 by XS Games. In 2010, it was also ported to PlayStation Portable (lacking multiplayer in this version) and iOS.
There are three playable characters:
- Makita, a Nokgorkan rebel who emphasizes speed and fast melee combos.
- Kyuzo, a bodyguard who is slow but does a lot of damage.
- Maya, a "warkaster" (fancy name for war sorcerer) who gets more powerful when the protocol meter is filled. Unlocked after the game has been beaten once.
The game at first appears to be a 3D Contra-ish game with Beat 'em Up elements, but then you reach the first mini-boss. The camera changes to an overhead view, and you suddenly get bullet patterns fired at you. This happens for about nine out of ten bosses in the game, with up to five bosses per stage for 19 stages.
The Red Star provides examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Makita, who is the best character in the game when it comes to melee attacks. Maya qualifies too, though she mostly lets her magic do the talking from a distance.
- Co-Op Multiplayer: Two players can team up against everything the game throws at you. Can be slightly disadvantageous in some of the Bullet Hell fights, as the characters can block each other.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: One of Kyuzo's weapons is a flamethrower.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The Susk Marauder shows up unexpectedly and is very different from everything else you fight in the game, being a giant insect and one of the very few bosses in the game that's not mainly a Bullet Hell style boss.
- The Grim Reaper: Skeletal, ghostly enemies with capes and scythes appear in the penultimate and final stages, and Troika himself seems to be going for the look.
- Lightning Bruiser: Makita is the fastest character, and has no problems racking up damage. The character select screen even labels her "Speed".
- The Man Behind the Man: Troika is stated to be the chief assassin of the Dark Lord Imbohl in the manual, but said Dark Lord doesn't show up in the game.
- Mighty Glacier: Kyuzo is slow, but makes up for it with serious firepower and the highest defense. Fittingly, he's labeled "Strength" in the character select.
- Mooks: As expected from the type of game, you'll be taking out a whole lot of them.
- More Dakka: Most mini-bosses and bosses. Because, duh, Bullet Hell. Kyuzo's machine gun is going for it too.
- New Game Plus: When you beat the game and save, you get to start at Chapter 01 again with all purchased upgrades carried over. You're not going to get everything maxed in the first playthrough, so...
- Non-Indicative Name: The Crawling Plague? It's an RPG launcher, not a bioweapon.
- Shout-Out: By the boatload.
- The whole game is a love letter to old arcade action. The most obvious are Kontrawall and Ikarius.
- A surprising reference to Zoolander of all things: the third mission has a pair of tanks called "Blue Steel" and "Magnum."
- Stationary Boss: Most bosses just sit there and fire at you.
- Unexpected Shmup Level: Yes, actually. Chapter 08 is a sidescrolling shmup battle against the Hydra SuperKrawl.
- Zeppelins from Another World: Multi-kilometer-long Magitek airships called "Sky-furnaces".
