YMMV / Ristar

• Breather Level: The second zone of Planet Automaton/Rewope is fairly straightforward, especially when compared with the Spikes of Doom-tastic first zone and the final showdown with Greedy.
• Cult Classic: While the game was never particularly successful despite receiving favorable reviews at the time, over the years, it has garnered a dedicated cult following of fans and demands for a sequel to the game are not uncommon even now. Its numerous rereleases on Sonic and Sega compilations (exposing it to a wider audience) have also likely contributed to the game's cult classic status as well.
• Demonic Spiders: The only way to describe the enemies on Planet Automaton/Rewope; they will hit you at least ONCE. That doesn't sound so bad until you realize you can only take four hits on the easiest difficulty setting...
• Retroactive Recognition: Some of the staff that gained their fame through the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise had actually contributed to this game beforehand:
  • Yuji Uekawa is the character designer behind Ristar. He would go on to work for the Sonic franchise, itself, most famously by redesigning all of the series' Classic era characters starting with Sonic Adventure.
  • 1995 was the year Tomoko Sasaki became a well-known composer for Sega fans, having written music for both this game and for NiGHTS into Dreams…. One of her bigger contributions to the Sonic franchise is being the voice behind the Chao in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2.
• That One Boss:
  • Awaueck, the boss of Planet Sonata/Neuos, is very troublesome to deal with. He's deadly enough while in flight, capable of dropping feathers, diving towards you and slamming the ground, but when he's on the music stand, it gets worse. The music notes he attacks you with spawn in random ways, and there's also falling debris you have to deal with.
  • Kaiser Greedy. The fight itself can take several minutes to complete, and his second phase^* when he takes the cape off is ridiculous, if you even get that far. His laser strike is almost perfectly tailored to be unavoidable, and the void he summons will kill you instantly. And he can fire the laser between one and six times. And if you die, you have to start over. Good luck.
• That One Level: Planet Automaton/Rewope's first zone is very difficult, to the point where most players give up. It's filled to the brim with both Demonic Spiders and Spikes of Doom, and it has a very difficult miniboss that suffers from Hitbox Dissonance.
• Too Good to Last: Thanks to the unfortunate timing of this game's release,^note  The Sega Saturn had already launched in Japan, and was set to launch in North America soon. it didn't sell well, a sequel was planned but never made, and it ultimately fell into obscurity.

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