Ich möchte anmerken, dass ich das Spiel per GG2SMS-Hack auf einem Master System gespielt hab, mit entsprechender Vergrößerungen des Bildes. Leider hing das Spiel bei Level 3-1, wo scheinbar am Ende ein Vogel auftauchten sollte, was vermutlich dem Hack geschuldet nicht passierte, wodurch ich nicht weiterkam. Das will ich dem Spiel natürlich nicht ankreiden, nur werd ich deshalb auch keine Wertung abgeben, da ich das Spiel weder abschließen noch regulär verlieren konnte. Wenn ich aber eine Wertung abgeben würde, wären es 4 Sterne. Ich war echt beeindruckt, was hier aus dem System geholt wurde, und dadurch auch etwas traurig dass es keinen echten Master System-Port hat. Grafik und Animationen sind spitze, die Musik gut, und die Greifmechaniken, die Ristar auf dem Megadrive ausmachen, fantastisch umgesetzt. Ich bin wirklich überrascht, wie viel man aus dieser Mechanik auf dem alten 8-Bit System rausholen konnte. Etwa gibt es einen Gegner, der einen Speer zurücklässt, wenn man ihn besiegt. Diesen kann man greifen um ihn dann zu werfen. Der Speer bleibt dann an der nächsten Wand hängen, und man kann den Speer durch die Greifmechanik nutzen um weiter hochzuklettern. Auf nem Game Gear bzw. Master System. Was hingegen etwas nervig war, war wie schnell Gegner wieder gespawnt haben. Man dreht sich nur kurz um und schon sind sie wieder da. Aber das hat mir jetzt auch nicht die Lust an diesem echt guten Spiel geraubt.

I got this game around Christmas of 2003 when I was 7 years old and just discovering sega's back catalog of games. I'd already played ristar on the Genesis and adored it to no end. I even remember an older cousin and I popping in the boss rush code from gamefaqs printout I had prior to even having the Genesis game and him just annihilating everything up to kaiser greedy without much experience with the game otherwise. That's how special the game is to me, lol.

As for this 8 bit version, it follows the same philosophy as Sonic 1 8 bit in that it has the same general structure but a handful of different mechanics and levels. Ristar GG features an exclusive pirate ship stage and two exclusive bosses. The snow stages also revolve around picking up bombs and hauling ass to various checkpoints before they explode....not to mention this weird time rabbit boss that is able to freeze time and bounce about while you're stunned.

What makes this version particularly impressive is how much it was able to keep in tact from the 16 bit version compared Sonic's GG outings. Swinging poles were pretty much Ristar's equivalent of the loop-de-loops of Sonic, and they weren't sacrificed in this port. There's plenty of opportunities to swing about and launch yourself at high speeds despite the limited hardware- even in the aforementioned exclusive stage.

Again, I can't say in good spirit that it's the better game over its 16 bit counterpart, but it's still worth a run if you enjoy the source material.

Played for RetroAchievements. I haven't played the original but just from screenshots I think the 8-bit style really suits this game. It looks great on Game Gear, and it's pretty fun. The final boss is unfair until you know what to do at which point it's pretty easy, and I wish it had some kind of save system (it has "passwords" which are just cheat codes, but no saving passwords? Hello???) but other than that it's super fun. Lots of completionist stuff to do too, at least with RA; will definitely go back to this someday.

The 8-bit version of Ristar on the Game Gear is if anything even more impressive to look at than the Mega Drive version when considered within the restraints of it's hardware, looking as good or better than many games on 16-bit hardware. Much like the graphics the controls are completely uncompromised too, Ristar controlling near identically to how he does in the 16-bit version. It also mostly doesn't suffer from the same mean difficulty curve towards the end apart from a cruel final boss rush, the levels following a similar path to Sonic the Hedgehog 8-bit with a mix of direct ports, alternate levels with the same themes, and completely original worlds which ends up making Ristar 8-bit worth playing even if you've played the original.

A deeply impressive Game Gear version of the Genesis' best game. It still looks and plays incredibly well and a lot of the little extra animations such as Ristar's idle actions are still present. Planet Freon has been largely reworked and now features a boss fight with a rabbit in an hourglass while Planet Undertow has been replaced with the single stage Planet Terra. My only complaint is that Greedy's black hole instant kill attack is much much harder to avoid here because of the narrower room and the fact that you can't hold on to the enemies you grab. I got the hang of it eventually but it took a lot of trial and error and at least doubled my playtime just from the boss fight alone.

Much like the Sega Genesis version, this may actually be the best game on the system. I admittedly haven't played many Game Gear games though so this opinion may change but this is going to take some beating.

The term demake gets thrown around kind of a lot nowadays to just mean "remake I don't like" but I always thought of it to mean remaking a game on weaker hardware. In this case, we have Ristar for the Sega Game Gear, which is far weaker than the Sega Genesis.

TBH? It's by far the most impressive deconversion of a game ever made, to the point I much prefer it to the Genesis version. All the levels I disliked such as the water levels are replaced with new more straightforward levels like a cool rainbow level (be sure to play the Japanese version of GG Ristar!) or bomb disposal level. I just enjoy not having to play with the swimming physics again.

The music and graphics are a bit of a downgrade of course, but GG Ristar punches far harder than its weight class would suggest. I could listen to its version of the OST for ages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZIuBpTd9P8

Also, even the English version retains the story from the Japanese original which was changed in the English Genesis release. Very neat! But I think the coolest technical achievement is how they managed to replicate the ending effects on Game Gear! https://youtu.be/SxdHf1xz0w4?t=2254

It's the same Ristar you know and love, only with all the filler bits removed and replaced with mostly more interesting things imo. The new collectibles are really fun to casually walk through and I appreciate how many extra things there are to grab such as enemy shields and spears. Easy rec for fans of the original.