is a three-dimensional
shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs
) are a sub-genre 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 types of charac ...
released by
Konami
, is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. Konami has casino ...
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
is an arcade style rail shooter and third person action-adventure video game series created by Shigeru Miyamoto, produced and published by Nintendo. The games follow the Star Fox combat team of anthropomorphic animals, led by chief protagon ...
'' and ''
Galaxy Force
is a third-person space combat simulator game developed and released by Sega for arcades in 1988. The player assumes control of a starship named the TRY-Z, as it must prevent the Fourth Empire from taking over the entire galaxy. Gameplay involv ...
'', 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
*
External links
*
{{Gradius series, state=collapsed
Arcade video games
Arcade-only video games
Rail shooters
1997 video games
Gradius video games
Video games developed in Japan