is a three-dimensional
shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a Video game genre, subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain typ ...
released by
Konami
, commonly known as Konami, , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading card ...
in 1997. A spin-off of the long running
''Gradius'' series, the title retains most of the gameplay characteristics of its 2D counterparts including the same powerups and display system.
Gameplay
''Solar Assault'' is similar to other rail-shooters like ''
Star Fox
''Star Fox'' is a rail shooter, space flight simulator, and third person action-adventure video game series created by Shigeru Miyamoto and developed and published by Nintendo. The games follow the Star Fox combat team of anthropomorphic a ...
'' and ''
Galaxy Force'', where the player must move both horizontally and vertically.
Like the other games in the Gradius series, there is no health bar, meaning one hit ends up in death;
however, this time the player may be able to collect a "shield" power up which can take one hit or two hits before the ship's destruction. The other major gameplay change is the ability to adjust the speed, which is necessary to time the avoidance of certain obstacles and enemies. There are three ships to choose from: the Vic Viper, Lord British and Alphinia.
[
]
Release
''Solar Assault Revised'' is an updated version of ''Solar Assault'' released later in 1997, and introduced a new arcade board that was co-developed by Konami and IBM which allows five boards to be stacked on top of each other, as well as several modifications to the game, like the all-new level "Fierce Blaze", new attacks to the "Speed Demon" level boss and a total revamp on the "Abyssal Forest" level, with a new color palette and some new enemies, making it much harder than the original. The US version of the game was based on this one, just simply renamed as "Solar Assault".
Notes
References
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External links
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{{Gradius series, state=collapsed
1997 video games
Arcade video games
Arcade-only video games
Gradius video games
Rail shooters
Single-player video games
Video games developed in Japan