Debbie Does Damnation (1999)

Director: Slain Wayne

Screenplay: Slain Wayne

Cast: Ernest Brummer, Jeanin Lake, Tony Nittoli, Lisa Pete, Charles Pinion, William Smith, Michael Sonye and Slain Wayne

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Now I’ve got your horn motherfucker.

We are in for something out of the ordinary, and not for the widest of audiences, when in stark black and white a cannibalistic demon is munching through corpses in a room with a nude woman tied up on her stomach on a nearby table, ready to be his next meal. A stop motion skull spider with a British accent named Tregor comes to the rescue, on condition to kill the cannibal and go on a quest on his behalf for the Devil’s horns. Unfortunately she gets eaten by a stop motion Hell Dragon and Tregor is forced to find another woman for the quest, one named Debbie who has fallen into Hell recently, despite her guardian angel attempting to save her, and will be centre to multiple sides taking note of her.

A labor of love that looks like it took years to even complete, there will be many stop motion monstrosities onscreen, as there will be a lot of full frontal nudity, as initially Debbie finds herself is Hell without clothes, and a lot of content which will be off-putting for many. There will be content which has not aged well, content that will be random and abrupt, or just perverse, and there will be moments I still have to admire the fact the forty plus minute production even got made. Debbie finds herself in a war over the Devil’s horns, Satan himself reduced to a hornless head who wishes her to get them back, betrayed by two men who have the horns and are now about to start warning with each other in the film to get both for themselves. One of these two men, introduced briefly with two mouse traps on his cheeks, is the MVP for all the profane dialogue with eloquent choices of wording he has as a torture loving figure in the midst of a lo-fi medieval fantasy war with the other betrayer with soldiers and stop motion figures.

Debbie Does Damnation is only corpse paint away from a black metal video at times, scored to ambient music with guitar noodling, full of evil deviants from the Morph plasticine family tree and built from sets varying from Forbidden Zone (1980) to a bizarre avant-garde theatre production primarily using cardboard. Within such sets is stuff that is definitely not-PC nowadays, moments where this is a very unconventional fetish video, and stuff that is unintentionally ridiculous as other moments are pure bravado in getting them onto the screen with clear hard work and visible duck tape. It is unconventional to say the least, all which has to be ingested as really rough material, yet made with love by a porn director with a taste for kink. It was made before he fully went into the video porn director’s chair with titles which do not hide their content, some sounding a tad extreme for comfort, and others involving Kung Fu Girls 3 (2003) which do however ask interesting questions of what they are about even as porn films from the straight-to-DVD era. More so as I learnt of this film from Annie Choi of Bleeding Skull, this is a bizarre experience to get to, strange but undoubtedly a labor of love, hard earned in getting finished and crafted in a way I have to admire even if its own stream-of-consciousness will throw a lot of people off.

As Debbie finds herself with clothes, a sword and a quest between a civil war, as female warriors fight male ones, we see a film shot on Super 8, the director’s last bang (according to the making of including with this) before his full porn career began. In context, it makes sense how its attitude is with zero fucks given in wanting to do whatever it wants. Said to exist with the “R Rated version” I saw and an x-rated version, director Slain Wayne literally built the sets to what feels like being in someone’s skull for a near hour. Made from the gut of what was cool or sexy or deliberately edgy, I openly think aspects of this production are juvenile, some of it is tasteless and an issue, like a monster dubbed “a fucking spud monkey” said to be possibly on crack, but also has moments I have to admire. Even if you have to get into the gruel, weird improvised dialogue in the post-synched dialogue, or the fetishistic moments, like the random scene of Debbie being spanked by a warrior, or a scene of women being threatened with torture that show its hand for wanting to be kinky too, there are others where you did not need to take the time to have all the extensive homemade stop motion monsters which would have been painstaking to animate on any budget, but this nonetheless decided to have. Its extensive use of Barbie dolls in cutaway scenes or mannequin body parts to depict decapitations, sword stabbings and being eaten by plasticine hell hounds makes this considerably a higher bar in terms of a film trying to make a memorable micro budget film, even if it is a very nihilistic take on Hell where no one survives or is safe, even a flying skull finding itself forced into being a flesh light against its will. Its aspects of kink and very rough dialogue will put people off, and I will not defend it whatsoever; the virtues of the film come from the moments away from these which are ridiculous in tone and in actually being realized.

Even its sense of perversity at times has to be admired for its complete disregard for the expected, as you have a sex scene with a Mistress of Darkness involving a man bobbing for tentacles between her thighs, and if that is off-putting to hear, obviously Debbie Does Damnation is not recommended. But with that scene actually a highlight for intentional bad taste and funny lines, there is someone to admire of a film which is completely gunning to be memorable, and never is a lazy ironic way either. It is one which truly lives up to the notion of putting your heart and soul into a project, even if said project is as profane as this. 

Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric/Grotesque

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Games of the Abstract: Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (1996)

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

One to Two Players

Originally for: Arcade

 

Whilst the Street Fighter franchise has had a strong lineage in Capcom's history as a games developer, there have been once or twice deviations from the template for characters from the franchise, and not just cameos. The crossovers, whilst in the fighting genre, between the likes of the Marvel comic franchises, games developer SNK and even Tatsunoko, the legendary animation studio, have been some I grow fonder of, despite being terrible at fighting games, because they allow some of the obscurest figures of everyone's history a chance to appear in the games. Even the infamous hiccup that was Street Fighter: The Movie (1995), the original arcade version by Incredible Technologies, stands out as very different not only from the home console versions by Capcom themselves, but also as a weird case of bringing in these Western developers, and chasing the digitized character bandwagon Mortal Kombat created, allowing singer/Neighbours soap opera alumni Kylie Minogue to stand toe-to-toe with the late actor Raul Julia in the least expected battle possible.

Note so far these are still fighting games, though we have had one or two deviations even outside of the fighting genre over the years like the RPG and card battle crossovers, like Namco x Capcom games, or a game like Cannon Spike (2000), a Psikyo developed Capcom game where they used Cammy from the franchise as a playable character in a three dimensional area shooter. We have yet to see Ryu play tennis or Zangief in a go kart, as even with Nintendo crossovers, Ryu is performing hadouken on a Pikachu in the Smash Brothers franchise. Puzzle Fighter, even in 2017 with a free-to-play mobile phone remake being released from Capcom Vancouver, is another exception, which crosses over into the Darkstalkers franchise, one tragically lost to never getting a modern day follow up, but was in full swing at this point, the pair of them being mashed together here to give us a puzzle game.

The character roster is eclectic, from only eight to say the least from just the main roster. There is a notable emphasis, which is cool with hindsight and very clearly done, on the female cast, which has five characters over the three males. Whether this was targeting a male audience or not as a game, or was as much focused on potential female arcade players back in its initial release, it is great either way, and it does suggest, even before we get to the "super deformed" chibi art style, how these Capcom had an incredible set of character designers for this era. It also really emphasises how, in general even if they did sexualise a few of these characters, female characters that you could also play, or stood out as side characters, or even antagonists, became something which you can applaud Capcom for as you can literally go through the rosters of their fighting games, and then other genres, from the nineties into the 2000s and find so many that stand out and/or became beloved as much as the male ones. From their costume designs to personalities which made them figures who gained fans, some of the strongest female characters in gaming, even if they were initially side characters or were occasionally made sexualised, came from Capcom and you can find enough to fill an entire crossover fighting game with just a female cast. It is actually disappointing that the discontinued 2017 Puzzle Fighter, with twenty three characters to choose from until the mobile game was taken from circulation, had only six women in the cast despite that fact. Even if the crossover fighting games usually had more men, you had a murder's row of distinct figures from the women let alone men or actual monsters to choose from over the decades, altogether just making Capcom bad asses in their artists and designers for making everyone, male or female or beast, stand out even in obscure games just from how they wore a coat let alone their characterisation.

Even the stoic male martial artist template created with Ryu, visually iconic, stands out far more than so many games trying to reach the success of Street Fighter II (1991), and forcing really bland male protagonists based on him on us the players. Ken, his player two from the games, is here too as the pair makes sense to include, but in terms of a game which is playing to cuteness and comedy, they come off as a chibi straight men in a more eclectic cast. A personal favourite from Darkstalkers, Felicia the catgirl, is here and whilst she was explicitly designed in the original game for some blatant sex appeal, with her fur hiding little, she is played here as a cute sentient cat girl with goofy mannerisms which is why I fell in love with the character. Likewise Morrigan from the same Darkstalkers franchise, a literal succubus and also deliberately provocative in her design, not only got to be the poster girl and protagonist for the final game, even if she is the only one of the franchise's cast seemingly referenced in the modern day, but she gets to be more goofier here. The pair really emphasised how strong the cast of the Darkstalkers franchise was, where the closest to a conventional martial artist also happened to be a werewolf, fitting as the third female member from the games was one introduced at this period in the first sequel, Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge (1995), a Chinese "hopping corpse" (jiangshi) named Hsien-Ko who stood out as distinct even among one of the most distinct fighting game rosters for all the franchise.

Introduced in the spin-off franchise Street Fighter Alpha 2, in 1996, Sakura is a plucky underdog schoolgirl who admires Ryu and wants to be strong as him, fitting the game as a likable younger selectable character alongside Chun-Li, the first female character of the Street Fighter franchise, so obvious to include in this game as one of the most iconic characters to come from Capcom. There is a few secret characters and ones introduced in the console versions. For the arcade game, there is also Dan Hibiki of the first Street Fighter Alpha game as the instructor onscreen, before you put a coin into the original arcade machine, teaching the game mechanics. He is perfect for this comically minded game as he was literally Capcom taking the piss out of SNK, their biggest rival in 2D fighting games in this time period, a parody of their archetypical leads who was meant to be useless as a playable character. If you can play him even here, his gameplay is deliberately broken to make him useless still, but he managed to be a joke that got a fan base in the main fighting games, and people learning to humiliate opponents by beating them with Dan as he started to be modified to be a credible fighter without losing the gag. [Huge Spoiler] It is funny that Dan is set up as the final boss, only to follow a trademark from Street Fighter and other games from Capcom, the surpirse cameo of Akuma, the legendary and dangerous mirror to Ryu, who beats Dan up easily and challenges you instead. [Spoilers End]. Later console versions also included Hsien-Ko's twin sister, and a secret character you could unlock was an obscure character, but one loved enough to keep appearing in Capcom games, by the name of Princess Devilotte de Deathsatan IX. Gloriously named, she was from Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness (1995), a fighting arcade game which pilots in robots, and is clearly a tribute to the Doronbo Gang, the antagonists from Tatsunoko's Yatterman animated franchise, one which influenced so much Japanese popular culture in having a female villainess aided by two male lackeys, even the Pokémon anime series with Team Rocket, and would appear through their leader Doronjo in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.

The outlier is Donovan, who time stamps the game to the history of Capcom, as in 1994, the first Darkstalkers did well enough to warrant its sequel Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge, which created new characters like Hsien-Ko who became beloved, but also attempted to creating a new protagonist named Donovan, pushed to become the figurehead of the franchise as a half- dhampir, a half human and half vampire who hunts the Darkstalkers. He does get a fascinating ending to that game, becoming corrupted as he continues his campaigns, and stands out with a distinct style, be it his sword or the psychic girl Anime who followed him, brought here and becoming another new character by herself in console versions of Puzzle Fighter. However, it is damning, unlike boss characters which were removed for Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers 3 (1997) for space for new characters, Donovan feels like he never appeared because no one wanted him. It is a cruelly funny punch line that, whilst nowadays only Morrigan gets to represent the franchise for Capcom for the most part, back here even when it came to a sequel to Puzzle Fighter back in the fighting genre, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix (1997), Donovan was not even allowed to get into the spin-off cure fighting game, told to leave and close the door behind him.

If the review is going to be short here, it is only because the actual puzzle game mechanics are based on rock solid foundations. You link same coloured gems, in clusters which form together with enough into giant gems, which need the use of a spark gem the same colour (or a rarer multicolour diamond) to clear away. Speed is of importance as, least for the CPU opponents, they will own you as you start to dump "garbage" onto the opponents' grid as you clear gems, timed to not be useable as regular gems which becomes dangerous as they start to climb in height up the grid. It is completely solid gameplay wise, and it is really pointless to extrapolate on a fun game which is this simple is premise. My biggest disappointment is that there is not as much around this gameplay in terms of individual endings. The style of the game is great - particularly the "chibi" character designs, based on an art style of deliberately distorting characters into smaller, squat versions none as a "super deformed" style which appears in manga and anime for the likes of comedic moments. It stands out here, and the entire presentation is bright and wonderful, making me wish there were more cut scenes and humour to what we got.

Barring an intermission and an end credits which adds more humour, this feels like a game which is still great, but could have been expanded further and further in a franchise of its own, something which happened to Taito when they took the Bubble Bobble franchise and made the spin-off Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move one in the puzzle genre, the latter becoming its own beloved concept which embraced its aesthetics and is as loved. Tellingly Capcom would instead make Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, a return to the fighting game genre, but one which took this entire art style and gave you everything I wanted here in terms of the comedy and wackiness of the proceedings. What you got here in this puzzle game thankfully - with its ports in the day for the likes of the Sony Playstation to Sega Saturn, to a HD remix for the Playstation 3/Xbox 360 era which changes touches - was something Capcom should have still been proud of, and has been available still thankfully, as it is a lot of fun. I only wished we got a franchise from this that became the wackier Capcom crossover puzzle game to their awesome fighting games.

Games of the Abstract: Burning Rangers (1998)

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.