Games of the Abstract: Sin & Punishment - Star Successor (2009)

 

a.k.a. Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Skies

Developers: Treasure; Nintendo SPD

Publishers: Nintendo

Two Player

Nintendo Wii / Nintendo Wii U

 

In the era of the Nintendo 64, the developer Treasure worked on three titles for the console. Mischief Makers (1997) became a cult hit people such as myself want to be preserved and re-released, but also found itself originally being a 2D platformer finding itself stuck on a console which wished to ditched 2D for polygons, which it fought against by adding polygonal effects to the boss battles but was always going to stick out in terms of selling. Bangai-O (1999), which was released on the N64, was a Japanese only release, will be more likely known for its updated and worldwide release version for the Sega Dreamcast. Sin & Punishment (2000) was the final game they released, and it never even left Japan, at the time when the N64 was winding down in importance. Yet the game became one talked of greatly in admiration, and eventually in 2007 for the Wii's online service the game was finally released in the West. A fascinating one-off, an on-rail shooter on the N64, Sin & Punishment has even been re-released as part of Nintendo's push in 2021 for Nintendo 64 games on an online subscription for the Switch, finding itself among Super Mario 64 (1996) and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) as some of the first games to be included for people with childhood nostalgia for that console, which really says a great deal of that game's legacy in spite of being a game released at the end of the N64's lifespan when it went out to pasture. In the late 2000s, there another incentive to release the prequel on the Wii virtual store, as Treasure was lucky enough to have a sequel commission for the titular console.

The plot is complex - the original game is known, despite only having three and a bit stages, and thus being a short game as a result, for a complex narrative. The sequel's only key note is that the male lead Isa Jois the son of the two original male and female leads, possessing non-human inheritance as well from his father from the prequel game. Aside from this, the plot is honestly one you will only have fully fleshed out from the paper manual, but even in what is onscreen in cut scenes still engages. In a version of the Earth where there is an Outer Space and an Inner Space as a result of multiple dimensions existing, a figure taking on the form of a young woman is sent from Outer Space to our Inner Space, developing amnesia and being taken in by Isa, who is sent to destroy invaders like her from outside of Inner Space but ends up bonding with her, dubbing her Kachi and wishing to protect her despite the fact she is hinted at being a dangerous and destructive entity if she was ever to awaken from her human shell and learn her real self again. This does not impress a group known as the Creators, in the game's lore part of a cycle of destroying and rebuilt multiple Earths, who send the main villains, a group known as the Nebulox in the Western releases, and the less silly sounding G5, or Gathering of 5 Countries, in the Japanese version to take them down or at least have Isa take out Kachi himself.

If this sounds like a stereotypical anime in presentation, it does but this becomes part of the game's aesthetic charms, Treasure's biggest trademark for me getting into their games being that, alongside their huge reputation for incredibly well made and inventive games, being their eccentric charm. With these continuing the trend from the prequel of looking alarmingly childlike in their faces despite being older, Star Successor even in its English dubbing does feel like binging on a hyper dramatic sci-fi action anime series from the era this game was made in. With a large portion of the game in this far flung Earth is getting to what Mt. Fuji in Japan has become, taking anything down in the way, Treasure decided to make as bombastic and hyper-stylised a game as you could get, and it stands out considerably in a great way.

As an on-rail shooter, you are in the curious position where you are entirely restricted in the screen unable to move until you clear the screen of enemies, or on a continuous plane of tracking, through scenarios in each chapter, but have the advantage (barring floating over lava or thin air) of moving anywhere in that restricted space. This is almost cinematic as you can get structurally in the truest sense but with the fact you will have to manoeuvre and strife as much as you would do in a vertical or horizontal shooter. When the original game had a jump button as an important tool, the jump button returns but it is probably useless when you are able to the ability to hover that takes the heavy weight of the game alongside the strafe button, which allows a temporary invincibility and dodge if you carefully use it. Some chapter stages are permanently in the air, others allow you to vary this and take the risk, and the dodge button will become your friend. One boss battle on a railway track even makes hovering too long a risk for a memorable challenge, as you can be blown off if you float for too long, whilst another has you (if you choose Isa) riding a vehicle on a desert highway, whilst Kachi rides a bird creature, as giant sandworms jump out into the open air in the background.

Sin & Punishment's sense of freedom is contrasted by the fact you will be strafing for your life as the screen is covered in many glowing orbs, beans and even rockets of death. It is a game, despite its difficulty opinion having cute monkeys, where the Hard Mode states "you will be punished". Even the Easy Mode will test you, with the option alongside two player mode to use the original Wii Motion Controller, the Classic Controller, or even the GameCube controller when the first version of the Wii console had backwards compatibility. Either control, you have movement independent to the target for shooting, which can be moved separately as an onscreen crosshair away from your character. Even on the Classic Controller as I did, this can be done without being cumbersome. A melee attack is with the tap of the shooting button, whilst a super charge on a separate button is also very useful especially for bosses.

The motion controls, briefly used and vital for me for targeting for the final boss, which is about protecting someone you care for from projectiles coming at a dozen rather than hitting the enemy, are good. Even for someone using the classic controller, a conventional controller stuck into the end of Wii Remote, this game is one in danger of being left abandoned by the technology being obsolete, which alongside the tragedy of such a game being lost, is potentially sad when the game, with its unconventional mechanics, will eventually be grasped and let a player enjoy the game even more so once they experimented with its very unique method of motion and shooting. You will learn to coordinate moving and moving your gun's target separately at the same time, and even with the classic control, organising the target whilst strafing works perfectly with only the potential of hand cramp from requiring the dodge roll so much being a danger. I blame the Nintendo controller's design for that, not the hard work of this game's developers.

It is perfect mechanics for a game either way, and whilst a short game still, for Star Successor you have a very ridiculous plot balanced out in its sincerity, with the adding weight that Treasure, underappreciated for this in their work, are masters of never creating a generic level or boss from the little exposure I have had with them already. Here they created a true action spectacle that, as mentioned, is cinematic, this alien world of a future Earth compelling even in Wii's standard definition appearance. You start in industrial corridors but quite soon into the game, encouraged to shoot even non hostile life forms which fly on mass for points known as "popcorn" enemies in this genre, you witness a fully fleshed world of strange flying creatures in the distance or hordes of mechanised and military opponents. The highway battle, fighting a creature eventually who forms from a giant lion-creature and bird creature, and you eventually befriend after a misunderstanding, is an exceptional level for any game. Treasure were known even for shifting genres or tones for levels as far back as a Mega Drive/Genesis game like Dynamite Headdy (1994), and with Star Successor you have a variety of interesting shifts in pace to work from which look exceptional onscreen as they are imaginative to experience. The highway level for example has such detail, not all to shoot, of the aforementioned giant sand worms, whilst an earlier one takes place in a nightmare fully embracing Japanese yōkai monsters and period aesthetic, from shooting giant toads to an occult female boss for the finale. The level involving not hovering too long on a railway is the strange kind of boss where you find yourself having to knock railway carts at the enemy rather than directly shoot them, followed by the sympathy you have realising you had killed a creature baring child being undercut...when the little bugger forces you to have to shoot a platform upwards to rescue a character from lava by shooting the two cranks on each side to drag it up.

It is a game where even the strange aesthetic choices, such as the characters being adult or older teenagers who yet look like children in the face, fits the eccentric but masterful craft of Treasure themselves. Naturally the boss battles for the developer are unique, where even one of the toughest for me - a sword duel in mid air a cherub faced and flirtatious Miss Psycho with a katana - became rewarding, requiring learning even in Easy mode to dodge her, whilst not going too far away to get a swipe, or a melee attack for parrying at the right time. Infinite continues are here, and for the better, as for me, if you were to go up each of the three difficulties, the point of a game like this is both the spectacle of the narrative whilst learning to improve on each difficulty level. More so as you can unlock the stages to play separately for each difficulty, this is an arcade game with enough life saving features alongside hard craft to make every stage memorable to be a worthy evolutionary follow through for this type of video game in the console era. One of the earliest bosses alone, among the side of the Nebulox, involves him into an evolutionary cycle of aquatic life forms, even a choreography of dolphins who fling explosive balls at you in somersaults, which by himself enforces the level of creativity on display here before you get the later levels with their spectacle, already as magical as it sounds unconventional as a game. Sadly an obscure game, one of the more expansive for the Wii second hand whilst thankfully not among the rarest, it had a re-release for the Wii U, Nintendo's divisive follow up console, and with their habit of archiving their past really scattershot at times, Star Successor is the kind of game in danger of being left abandoned again. That would be a tragedy as this is a game that really is something special, and in mind to how the original Sin & Punishment is kept in relevance still, something this good and idiosyncratic should, with all hope and a little praying, be kept aloft as a gem.