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Vanark

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Vanark (known in Japan as Astro Trooper Vanark (宇宙機動ヴァンアーク)), is an Action Rail Shooter developed by Bit Town and published by Asmik Ace Entertainment (both of them previously collaborated in the Sidewinder series) for the PlayStation 1 in October 7, 1999 in Japan, and released in April 10, 2000 for North America by Jaleco USA. As a Rail Shooter in the vein of games like Star Fox (particularly, Star Fox 64, released two years prior), you control a starship fighter in which, armed with a variety of weapons, you have to destroy enemies and bosses in different stages as you fight over an alien invasion on the partially-colonized planet of Mars. Unlike most games of the genre, between missions you take control directly of your main character and roam around the command ship, by walking in pre-rendered backgrounds a la Resident Evil 1 or Final Fantasy VII to advance the story, with some minigames added that can change some plot details.

Year 2200 A.D. The human race has finally made the Earth inhospitable to them (stop us if you had seen this setup before) and had fled to Mars to colonize it. A group of scientists, disgusted with the humans' treatment of their former home, had created a giant bio-laboratory on Mars to change the ecosystem of the former red planet. From this bio-laboratory, now called X-Laboratory or X-LAB, gigantic plants and other creatures had appeared and are multiplying and threatening the colonization of Mars. And everyone who tries to interfere gets attacked by a weapon system that uses the asteroid belt to launch a barrage of asteroids and guided missiles to anyone who dares to interfere with the X-LAB's plans.

Enter the Mars Defense Force (or M.D.F.), after being attacked by a group of asteroids from the X-LAB, they were given the mission of locate the weapon array system, deactivate it, go to the Zero Field, the base from which the plants and monsters are spawning, and to destroy X-LAB and its leaders. For this purpose, a small team of pilots is formed under the name "Vanark", and with the most advanced weapons and a small number of starship fighters, they are humanity's only hope of survival.


START UP TROPES

  • Bottomless Magazines: As usual for many space shooters, every weapon can launch as many lasers/missiles as you can, but for firing missiles you need to aim to an enemy to acquire a lock first.
  • Continuing Is Painful: If your ship gets destroyed, you have a limited number of credits to try again. But you will be booted back to one checkpoint and it will dock points of your rank if you finish the stage.
  • Forced Tutorial: Before flying the MK6 starship, the player must complete a mandatory flying tutorial to get used to the controls of the game. Unlike most examples, you can replay the tutorial again as long as you are in the command ship sections.
  • Lethal Lava Land: Stage 4 takes place inside a geothermal generator zone, with the magma always present at the bottom.
  • Shower Scene: Only in the original Japanese version. After clearing Stage 1, the new pilot Duo (Deo in the English version) is introduced this way.

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