Developer: Sonic
Team
Publisher: Sega
One Player
Originally released for: Sega Saturn
One of the
issues with games being preserved is significant gaps, if allowed to exist,
mean entire pieces will be forgotten in the mainstream consciousness because
they are not officially available to play. One perfect example of this is with Burning Rangers, now an extremely
expensive game to try to own a physical Sega
Saturn copy of, because it was one of the last releases for the Saturn in
the West, with no way to officially play it on other consoles or PCs. This is
in spite of the fact this was a big project from Sonic Team, the team behind Sonic the Hedgehog, and Yuji Naka, co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, in the production
head role.
Named after the
blue hedgehog, I am going to make the argument that Sonic Team clearly wanted to distance themselves from him in the Sega Saturn era. As much as Sonic is
Sega mascot's and biggest bread winner barring the Yakuza series and a few others, he can be an albatross in terms of
trying to create new games for him, which Sonic
Team have and had a haphazard history with, and in that for a Sega fan like
myself, sadly the company has drowned out interest in taking in so many other
of their intellectual properties further in terms of franchises when only a few
like Sonic get so much devotion. It is in mind that Sonic the Hedgehog was always an attempt to get a foothold over Nintendo and Mario in the Mega Drive/Genesis era, one which not
only succeeded in getting their foothold in the West fully, but eventually
became a huge figure loved beyond being an IP. For me, Sonic Team had other
desires in the 32-bit era, and whilst they did help on some games, and should
have probably helped a lot more on the 3D official Sonic game we never got for that system, I am glad for the games we
got from Sonic Team on the Saturn.
Even if I half suspect now having played Burning
Rangers that they wanted to entirely separate themselves for the blue
rodent who a smash hit designed for the West who became big, it was worth it.
It is weird we
never got an official Sonic Saturn game, even if it had been terrible, but we
did get two very unique games from Sonic
Team. One of them has been preserved in Nights into Dreams (1996), a very unique title which clearly was a
work of love they created a Nintendo Wii
sequel for, and rereleased in a high definition upgrade. Burning Rangers sadly was not given this same treatment, which is
tragic as it really is a little gem. It is a fire fighting game, which like Nights… and its unique combination of
dream worlds and flying mechanics, means that Sonic Team were at least trying to move away from the mascot
platforming of Sonic into two very
unique games. Fire fighting has had a couple of games based on the theme –
probably the other prominent one is Human
Entertainment's The Firemen (1994)
for the SNES, from the developer
famous for working on the Fire Pro
Wrestling franchise alongside very idiosyncratic titles and a Playstation One sequel to The Firemen. Burning Rangers does however have a futuristic slant on the
proceedings, feeling like the cool nineties anime series we never got in
existence, where fire fighters now do not need the cumbersome fire fighting
uniforms, but sleek body suits with the ability to briefly fly and leap large
spaces for their job. Instead of water too, or other extinguisher compounds
like power for electronic equipment, they effectively use ray guns now. This is
especially useful as fire itself has advanced in the future, per colour coding
for severity, upgraded to even green flames which seemingly chase fire
fighters.
Structurally,
this is a three dimensional game with one foot in what was becoming more
dominant in the console era – the longer length games with saving functions,
cut scenes and longer levels – but still an arcade game at heart, in that you
have a clear route to take, with the virtue of a voice in your character’s ear
to tell you where to go, encouraging you to get better when you replay the
game. To finish levels quicker, find all the civilians you can rescue, not just
those inherently saved in in-game graphic cut scenes, and make sure to get a
higher grade. Your main attack, unless you charge it for a room clearing blast
which sacrifices them, to literally avoid feeling a little too hot under the
collar, are gems produced by the extinguished flames. Collecting these keep you
a shield to protect yourself, in the same way having rings prevented Sonic from
losing a life in one hit, and are also needed to spend to use the teleport to
save civilians. A higher grade is given per level for as many civilians as you
can find, as many gems as you can get and retain, and also for getting the
levels of fire down to nearly zero percent, as per a meter, if not entirely at
zero, alongside your efficiency at dealing with each stage’s boss.
Doors may only
be opened with switches, some need key cards occasionally, and beyond the
dangers of fire, as it always had since Prometheus scorned the gods to bring it
to mortal man, the second stage onwards brings in robots, usually the security
for the places hit by the disasters, which does emphasis the dangers of
artificial intelligence when they confuse rescue services as hostile threats.
Fittingly, there is no true antagonist(s) to the game, no evil cabal behind
acts of pyromania, even by the end stages all feeling like the episodic stories
in an anime series before a main narrative comes in. The story we get here is
where, in a futuristic setting, the threats even if involving a giant monster
fish to slay still are accidents and incidents as in real life, where there is
less concern for a pyromaniac behind them but to just rescue people caught in
the burning environments and try to prevent the fires spreading. The bosses add
a three dimensional run-and-gun gameplay, using jumps and air dashes to avoid
their attacks, but most of the game is trying to avoid being burnt in the
fires, preventing them from getting too high in intensity, and completing the
goals to get to the end of each stage.
The thing that
needs to be addressed is the graphics. Burning
Rangers is one of the last Western releases for a console which was always
plagued with the issue of whether it could push polygonal graphics. It was a
machine originally designed for sprites, and is acclaimed for its sprite games,
but even in spite of the fact Burning
Rangers was made on the cusp of the Sega
Dreamcast’s Japanese launch on November 1998 in Japan, a console where this
was not a problem, this game which came out in the same year still shows the
virtues of when the Saturn could be
used at its best. There are clear moments when Burning Rangers struggles to put its effects together, but I
commend Sonic Team for a game which
still looks good enough to show how the Sega
Saturn could do polygonal games. The irony is that the game’s one problem
is one which befalls games even on the Sony
Playstation, which never had concerns about its graphical capabilities, that
the camera is not perfect. This is still superior to games from the Saturn, the Playstation and Nintendo 64
which can be awful for their cameras in three dimensional games, in that even
if you have moments of precarious platforming and the camera cannot be instantly
placed behind the player where they are, they used the shoulder buttons on the Saturn controller to move the camera
instantly to your left or right flank, allowing you to position it with ability
to check what is ahead. There is also a button to allow you to control said
camera more to focus on targets if need be. Having a voice in the ear to tell
you if you are going the wrong way, a senior female member of the Burning Rangers named Chris Parton as
your eyes, or a later voice who takes over due to plot events, really helps
with this even if there were moments, usually the underwater scenes, which can
lead to you getting lost. Alongside the fact the latter does not have oxygen
depletion as a game function, thank lord, even when there is the issue that you
can accidentally be blasted by fire without spotting it, I will forgive it when
it is part of the game’s really interesting game mechanic for this.
That being how,
even without the threat of a variety of different fire colours, their colours
dictating how more blasts are needed to clear them, fires can explode from anywhere.
Sound is important, to the point the game tells you to make sure you can
clearly hear your sound system, because not only is Chris' voice your guide, but you get a sound cue
warning when fire is about to explode from under you or the wall. The button,
down on the control pad, to do a back flip to avoid it may not always work than
just use the air dash to escape, especially on the level in a space station
when an outer wall breaks and threatens to suck you into the vastness blackness
of the space outside, but the emphasis on keeping your ears and eyes alert for
fire is actually a distinct mechanic I commend. There is even, if not exploited
as much due to the game's short length, the real concept of the back draft,
which is when you open a door in a burning building, and the suddenly
combination of air into a room with combustible gases causes an explosion of
fire which can harm the person who open the door. This desire to make a fire
fighting game, even if exaggerated, which does show the peril of the job is
admirable, when it comes to having to briefly carry a child on your back and
avoid fire jets, and the basic game mechanics emphsing how the team behind this
wished to make a game which was not the same as many where you killed anyone
you met rather than rescued them. Yuji
Naka is a controversial figure now he was arrested and jailed in 2023 for
inside trading, and neither did it help that his game with his own studio Balan Wonderworld (2021), clearly a
project of love about dreams like Nights...,
of helping people and one which even has actual musical numbers, got tarred and
feathered by the public beforehand, but he as a producer and creator is still
important. A game like Burning Rangers
has to be commended for trying something different, making it clearer they were
not interested in just repeating the success of Sonic the Hedgehog again. The game's director Naoto Ohshima, who designed Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman from
the Sonic franchise, would after
1998 move from Sonic Team and work
under a variety of different companies, even if it did mean also working on Balan Wonderworld among other titles.
Even the
production design is carefully put together as, for all my jokes about this
being an anime, this has cut scenes, when not in-game graphics being used, outsourced
to TMS Entertainment, a legendary
animation studio behind the likes of Akira
(1988) who were collaborating with Sega
a lot at this time, including on animated work based on their properties like a
1995 animated series based on Virtua
Fighter. Even the voice cast, for the original Japanese version, though the
English one we had was not a slouch either, has prominent names, the most
notable being Yūko Miyamura as the
female lead Tillis, who already by this game had her iconic character of Asuka
from Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) under her belt among other roles.
It adds a lot to a game which, whilst a short arcade game at heart, was aiming
to be a bigger title from a major arm of Sega.
Story wise, you an either choose Tillis herself, or the male lead in Shou
Amabane; Shou is your typical lead, whilst Tillis is the youngest member who we
learn can communicate with dolphins in a sequence undoubtedly from Sega in its charming goofiness. Sadly we
never got a sequel which let us play the other team members, unless you find
the secret codes to do so, but at least they are prominent, even having the
gruff veteran, in his mid-thirties, who is named Big Landman, which is
hilarious he goes under Mr. Landman when greeted. Nonetheless, like the cut
scenes, it adds to the game as much as the score by Naofumi Hataya, Fumie
Kumatani and Masaru Setsumaru. It
adds a lot as between some bombastic rock opera theatrics, they also indulge in
dark ambient appropriate for the threat of the main game alongside jazz, which
is unconventional if somehow right for the tone.
Stage one, of
only five, sets this up at a science lab where after the introductory training
piece you quickly learn the ropes. This is a game where, at your best, you will
be able to dash through levels quickly, find all the civilians to rescue when
you learn the stages, and take in that beating the game once includes an option
for randomization in the stages, which adds a nice addition for replay value.
Finding survivors, including more available when stages are replayed, leads to
the sweet touch of having emails you can access in the main menu thanking you
for rescuing them, alongside being the source for secret codes for extras when
rescued. For the opening stage, it is pretty conventional and teaches you all
the gameplay mechanics minus any robot enemies, with real emphasis throughout
that this is the daily life of a fire fighter team even if from an awesome nineties
anime series we never got. Based on the episodic stories before the major plot
how this game is effectively structured as, the first stage scenario is merely
caused by the ill-advised decision to cultivate a giant sentient plant which
caused the disaster in the first place and is the boss to dispose of.
Stage Two,
probably a favorite even though swimming in maze-like tunnels in the game can
get confusion, is the SeaWorld
equivalent, if an underwater tourist site which forgot to tell anyone that they
had a tour with children there unknown about, and had a giant monster fish which
became the issue. The very cheesy and charming details very much of Sega come through here, including
befriending a dolphin, if you play Tillis, who guides you along in a funny and
sweet moment. Stage Three is definitely where this shows itself as a short game
unfortunately releasing itself at a time when, with the Sony Playstation dominating the market, long campaigns in video
games were becoming more prominent, as this is already escalating itself with
an incident in outer space on a space station which marks close to the end of the
story, something you would have to wait for in another game after a few more
stages before. Thankfully, whilst a longer game could have been much more
ambitious, we got here at least a hybrid of an arcade game which is designed
with love and works, not pointlessly long either in this case as we are already
dealing with zero gravity movement or the issue of how outer walls of the
station collapse and leads to damage if you get nearly sucked through into the void.
With huge spoilers ahead, another voice as mentioned is presented after this
stage, that of a young woman preserved in stasis on a nearby satellite for a
then-incurable disease. Unfortunately her father, when he built the satellite's
artificial intelligence, did not code it to not try to collide directly into
the Earth, causing unforeseen and apocalyptic damage, when it got the eventual
memo a cure was found decades later.
How this leads on
includes the one abrupt gameplay change, fun but feeling not as thought-out as
the rest, of having to negotiate a space cruiser carefully past hazards to
reach Stage Five and the final act, but after that everything is dandy. It
leads to a surreal neatherrealm in the satellite with cautious platforming on
thin platforms over void, leading you to fight a monster for a final boss
before the happy ending. And after that, all that there is to say is the disappointment
that this game never was followed upon or ever got a re-release. Nights into Dreams, as mentioned
earlier, was clearly a game which was loved to the point it had a Japanese only
Playstation 2 release in 2008, a sequel in Nights:
Journey of Dreams (2007), and a 2012 high definition re-release. The
character themselves also has made appearances in the likes of Sega crossover
tennis and kart racing titles, so they have a legacy. Burning Rangers only real legacy is one or two references, such as
a race track in Sonic & All-Stars
Racing Transformed (2012) based on the game, but that is it. It is not
great, and again ties into the issues of preserving the past, especially as the
game in its original form on aging CDs costs more than rent for some houses
nowadays, and is tragically also really good, a highlight of the console lost
officially to the past as said past is not kept in the spot light.