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Ristar Game Review

Ristar is a 1995 platform game by Sega for Sega Genesis. It is one of the greatest and most underrated titles for this system.

The game stars an anthropomorphic cartoon star who uses his hands and long, stretchable arms to both move and combat enemies. This game is above all else a platformer, but with a very prominent puzzle approach to it as well, especially in the first half of the game’s run (the second half is conspicuously devoid of those). And the puzzles are very well realized, easy, but for me perfect as I do not like extensive, overly complicated puzzles.

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But back to the platforming. This is a wonderful platformer that benefits from an original style of gameplay with the star of the game using hands to kill opponents instead of jumping on them or shooting them. The controls are mostly excellent and the utilization of the hands was perfect, ranging from killing enemies to grabbing things (health, points) to grappling on high ceilings. The grappling was particularly stellar.

As for the difficulty level, it’s somewhat uneven. The first half is much easier in comparison to the second half of the game, but that’s supposed to happen in any game, so I was fine with that. But I wasn’t fine with some bosses near the end being way too easy to beat as they should have been progressively more difficult, and that also goes for some of the levels too.

But most are excellent. Ristar’s level design is uniformly fantastic and the world-building is amazing. Basically, this star-shaped creature gets to go from one planet to the other, and all planets are unique in their own way. Planet Flora is cute and easy, Planet Undertow is a vast, wonderfully realized ocean world, Planet Scorch is much more difficult as this dangerous fire world, Planet Sonata is different for incorporating music and puzzles into its gameplay, Planet Freon is too easy, but visually stunning in its icy landscapes and Planet Automaton is this superbly conceptualized technological world.

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All worlds and levels have their advantages, but I have to commend the last boss the most. Yes, I ended up playing him for the longest time as it took me a couple of days to beat him. He is an utter beast with a very cool SF look to him and a range of different, increasingly more dangerous attack moves. This boss is the apex of this game – its most intelligent, hardest and most memorable element.

Ristar is absolutely stunning in terms of graphics and character animation. The guy looks so cute and his facial expressions and movements are instantly endearing and wonderfully cartoony. The worlds are again marvelous to behold with great color palettes, a perfect cartoony style to them and a very polished execution.

The sound in Ristar is a bit weaker. It’s good and serviceable, but the soundtrack itself could have been more memorable as certainly the game and the graphics demanded more effort on that part as well. The game runs smoothly, it’s fun and engaging with a fine repeat value to it while its plot is much better than many other platformers of its time. It’s a game that then deserved and now deserves more love. It remains one of the most sadly underrated Sega Genesis games.

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Thanks to amazing graphics and character animation, terrific world-building and a creative, fantastic gameplay, Ristar is a hugely underappreciated game and an absolute Sega Genesis classic. Yes, the soundtrack is inferior and the difficulty level is uneven, but the game is so cute and so much fun to play while also being genuinely demanding, especially in the powerful beast that is most certainly its last boss.