Saying a bunch of stuff you already know here, but I think it's useful to look at Astro Warrior through the lens of Star Soldier's 1985 success. Star Force's design legacy (thanks to Hudson and later Naxat) was the caravan shooter. Caravan modes were usually only 2 or 5 minute long blasts of action and secrets, even Star Force itself only takes about 8-9 minutes to clear a loop. I'm tempted to think that's the sort of thing Sega was angling for here; the shooter-as-epic-journey thing was really only just beginning in 85-'86 via titles like Gradius & R-Type. In that sense Astro Warrior might be better understood as an ancestor to something like Recca, with one foot still in the old world of pre-'84 shmupping. You mentioned the philosophical divide that was emerging between home & arcade design philosophies, something which would curse arcade ports throughout the 90s & early 00s as Western reviewers slammed them for only being 20 minutes long, when that's exactly what arcade players wanted (and still tyoically do). The brevity facilitates mastery, while length & variety can eventually become exhausting & repetitive if you're approaching with a scoring or 1cc mindset, a mindset which was clearly still cool with a significant set of Japanese gamers through the 90s. Unless it's something on the level of a Radiant Silvergun, Shmup fans still typically turn their noses up at 45 minute long campaigns as overlong and probably bloated and uneven and lacking in intensity for the early stretches. Even old standards like Blazing Lazers can be a hard sell.
Hopefully Master System emulation will get wider trackball support. I love hearing about trackball games and some NES games really could have used a trackball controller. Interesting how Great Ice Hockey was the only game in town for hockey for more than a year. And Rambo next? Cool.
Does the Sports Pad support Genesis games that supported the Mega Mouse? I know a rumour for years was EA made the sports pad compatible with their version of Marble Madness, but wondered if it went further than that. But I got my copy of Astro Warrior in a double pack with Pit-Pot. I swear it was a standalone release later on too.
Astro Warrior. One of the first console games I've ever played. I can't fully remember if I played this or Hang On first since they were both on the same cart, and I was maybe 4 at the time. I just remember that the family competitions are what got me into shmups. I even remember our main strategy. Keep the first weapon upgrade until the third stage, then switch to the laser. For some reason, the second stage just seemed much easier with the first weapon upgrade rather than the laser.
10:15 always gives me a bit of whiplash seeing "WARNING: name of the boss" in shmups this early, especially before Darius. It's so engrained in the fabric of shmup DNA.
I have the Sega Sports Pad..my first trackball! Even though the games don't support it with true analog I like to play Global Defense with it. Also the master system port of centipede and others on that euro arcade collection
As someone who loves a good sidescrolling hockey game, idk... all that Great Ice Hockey really does is make me imagine playing that Nekketsu hockey game with a trackball controller, feel like that would be a more interesting experience. Still, I wish I could try this one on an emulator because I do like this as a conceit. But yeah, as someone mentioned the trackball isn't really supported in Master System emulators (at least that I've seen) and I do notice that a lot of peripherals for these early sega systems aren't well supported either. I'm sure there are solutions I don't know about, but it really makes one lament how a lot of Sega's early history probably isn't as extensively preserved as Nintendo's has been.
Were there nearly 40 year old skin-cell-crud-dust-bunnies inside the track ball when you received it? ... jeez, anybody remember ball mice? feel old yet?
Nice! I was hoping for a new Segaiden this morning. In the early 90s, I somehow ended up with a Master System and only three games: Hang On/Astro Warrior, My Hero, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Needless to say, I didn’t get much use out of it while I had a Super Nintendo sitting right next to it with way more enticing options. However these days I’ve got a Genesis with an Everdrive and it’s been great playing Master System games on it and discovering all I’d missed. I hope you keep this iteration of Segaiden going for a long time.
Astro Warrior was the game that made me buy a Master System. They had it playing in store at a Tandy in town. It looked on a level with arcade games at the time. It got a boring quickly. But I remember friends coming round and playing it and being blown away by the graphics.
Astro Warrior was a lot of fun for me even years after its original release simply because it was a Star Force / Star Soldier type shooter which was readily available in clearance bins. Considering the relative quality of a lot of non-Konami shooters in the 80s (Micronics developed Tiger Heli and 1942, for instance), this felt like it held up pretty well to its other 8 bit counterparts. It wasn’t Gradius or Life Force but few were touching Konami’s work at that time on shooters. Didn’t play Great Ice Hockey but, in general, that whole line should have been a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit for false advertising. Especially for Great Football.
In Europe, Astro Warrior was also bundled with Pit-Pot, an ugly but actually fun action puzzle game. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen the Astro Warrior/Hang On cart then, maybe because Hang On was bundled with every original Master System console here so who would buy it really ?
The great titles are great at not being great... Astro Warrior is a fun little shooter and would have been a good fit for the my card. I really enjoy the sports pad. It provides a nice change of pace and is interesting to use.
Looks like the Sports Pad was trying for a "Air hockey" feel. Interesting but they should have shipped with the controller. Edit: 0 days since Xevious being mentioned lol
The interesting thing is that Great Ice Hockey uses the "No-Touch Icing" rule, which wasn't used in the NHL until almost 30 years after the game's release.
I can't confirm either when the Astro Warrior/Hang-On combo came out but it was my first video game system and the first space shooter I ever played back in 1987. I also agree that both games probably go on forever because after the third loop of Astro Warrior there's so many randomally spawned bullets that it's utterly impossible to move. Hang-On I can beat so many times that I just get bored and turn it off after the 8th or 9th loop. But yeah it was so nice getting the system then only a few days later accidentally finding the hidden snail maze game in the BIOS. I wish Sega would consider doing a Master System Mini and/or SG1000 Mini as there's so many classic games on there that lots of people have never experienced or played. I'm one of the lucky ones to have the system in the US when hardly anyone had them.
I'm surprised that the sports pad still functions so well in its standard mode but is near-unusable garbage in the actually intended one. But hey, still better than the NES Power Pad, right?
I always enjoyed Astro Warrior. Really catchy music too. As much as Xevious comes up in the older shooter conversations I really can't get into it. The "music" puts me off.
As someone who is quite literally using a trackball right now, I just have to wonder what could go wrong with the sensors. Maybe an old detection system that was never that well made in the first place?
Mechanical trackballs could be a delicate nuisance, so it doesn't shock me all that much to learn that poorly made examples tend not to survive. Optical tech improved trackballs by leaps and bounds.
@@flailthroughs True. But there's in line replacements for (example) the Amiga mouse that replace the mechanical guts with optical sensors; would such a thing be impossible on these?
It feels strange that shmups moved from shooting airborne enemies with one button directly to shooting ground targets with another button, and only later changed/simplified it so that same weapon would hurt both types of targets. But maybe that's just a case of "first, innovate; then, improve".
Surely revive Zanoni. Excellent, as usual! I LOVE the music to AW. I also love the flying pretzels! I got this one as a combo cart when I got my second SMS since my first one died.
Watching the player move in Great Soccer and Great Hockey just felt unfortunate. Seeing those slick moves in Astro Warrior, though, shows the power of a good trackball. Too bad it has fewer levels than Solar Striker on the GB!
You tell me there’s a trackball sports pad, and my mind instantly goes to Atari X’s & O’s Football. Which, as far as I know, never had a home release. This was the opportunity! Bummer.
that track ball controller might have sold better if it was just sold by itself as a way to add more precision to your play and not as a pack-in with a meh sports title
Shmup fan here... never heard of anyone thinking a trackball was better for shmups. I'd prefer the DPAD over the trackball and an arcade joystick over a DPAD. I just use my my Genesis arcade stick with my Master System games, like Power Strike.
Description of the controller reminds me of Coleco’s Super Action Joystick for Super Action Baseball for Coleco. A neat but way overdone controller designed for a game or two. (I think Coleco was planning a whole series of games when the market collapsed.) The controller was just too complex, though I liked its standard joystick for general games better then Coleco’s standard controller.
I can't hate Astro Warrior, even though it plays like a pack-in game. It was even baked into some Master Systems, because Sega must have known it would leave kids hungry for more. Is the Sports Pad compatible with the dial that was released for the Master System in Japan? I kind of thought it was, but maybe that's incorrect.
I don't recall Great Ice Hockey so much, but I have played on that trackball... was a bit weird to me at the time having to move with my right hand, but it did feature autofire. which I DO remember using to play astro warrior! I remember it being fun, and had some pretty good music. also I'm pretty sure the system my aunt had had astro warrior/hang-on as the built in games!
I know I’ve wasted my life playing games when I watched that short clip of Rambo and thought man they just stole the Ikari Warriors animations lock stock and barrel
Hockey brain had me reading that as "Surely Revive Zamboni" at first.
3:03 Those players moving a lot more like bees with the worn-out trackball
The next phase of colony collapse disorder
Saying a bunch of stuff you already know here, but I think it's useful to look at Astro Warrior through the lens of Star Soldier's 1985 success. Star Force's design legacy (thanks to Hudson and later Naxat) was the caravan shooter. Caravan modes were usually only 2 or 5 minute long blasts of action and secrets, even Star Force itself only takes about 8-9 minutes to clear a loop. I'm tempted to think that's the sort of thing Sega was angling for here; the shooter-as-epic-journey thing was really only just beginning in 85-'86 via titles like Gradius & R-Type. In that sense Astro Warrior might be better understood as an ancestor to something like Recca, with one foot still in the old world of pre-'84 shmupping.
You mentioned the philosophical divide that was emerging between home & arcade design philosophies, something which would curse arcade ports throughout the 90s & early 00s as Western reviewers slammed them for only being 20 minutes long, when that's exactly what arcade players wanted (and still tyoically do). The brevity facilitates mastery, while length & variety can eventually become exhausting & repetitive if you're approaching with a scoring or 1cc mindset, a mindset which was clearly still cool with a significant set of Japanese gamers through the 90s. Unless it's something on the level of a Radiant Silvergun, Shmup fans still typically turn their noses up at 45 minute long campaigns as overlong and probably bloated and uneven and lacking in intensity for the early stretches. Even old standards like Blazing Lazers can be a hard sell.
Hopefully Master System emulation will get wider trackball support. I love hearing about trackball games and some NES games really could have used a trackball controller. Interesting how Great Ice Hockey was the only game in town for hockey for more than a year. And Rambo next? Cool.
Having used one myself…prepare to be profoundly disappointed.
Does the Sports Pad support Genesis games that supported the Mega Mouse? I know a rumour for years was EA made the sports pad compatible with their version of Marble Madness, but wondered if it went further than that.
But I got my copy of Astro Warrior in a double pack with Pit-Pot. I swear it was a standalone release later on too.
Astro Warrior. One of the first console games I've ever played. I can't fully remember if I played this or Hang On first since they were both on the same cart, and I was maybe 4 at the time. I just remember that the family competitions are what got me into shmups. I even remember our main strategy. Keep the first weapon upgrade until the third stage, then switch to the laser. For some reason, the second stage just seemed much easier with the first weapon upgrade rather than the laser.
10:15 always gives me a bit of whiplash seeing "WARNING: name of the boss" in shmups this early, especially before Darius. It's so engrained in the fabric of shmup DNA.
I have the Sega Sports Pad..my first trackball! Even though the games don't support it with true analog I like to play Global Defense with it. Also the master system port of centipede and others on that euro arcade collection
As someone who loves a good sidescrolling hockey game, idk... all that Great Ice Hockey really does is make me imagine playing that Nekketsu hockey game with a trackball controller, feel like that would be a more interesting experience. Still, I wish I could try this one on an emulator because I do like this as a conceit. But yeah, as someone mentioned the trackball isn't really supported in Master System emulators (at least that I've seen) and I do notice that a lot of peripherals for these early sega systems aren't well supported either. I'm sure there are solutions I don't know about, but it really makes one lament how a lot of Sega's early history probably isn't as extensively preserved as Nintendo's has been.
Were there nearly 40 year old skin-cell-crud-dust-bunnies inside the track ball when you received it?
... jeez, anybody remember ball mice? feel old yet?
Nice! I was hoping for a new Segaiden this morning. In the early 90s, I somehow ended up with a Master System and only three games: Hang On/Astro Warrior, My Hero, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Needless to say, I didn’t get much use out of it while I had a Super Nintendo sitting right next to it with way more enticing options. However these days I’ve got a Genesis with an Everdrive and it’s been great playing Master System games on it and discovering all I’d missed. I hope you keep this iteration of Segaiden going for a long time.
Astro Warrior was the game that made me buy a Master System.
They had it playing in store at a Tandy in town.
It looked on a level with arcade games at the time.
It got a boring quickly.
But I remember friends coming round and playing it and being blown away by the graphics.
I want to say I appreciate the improved video quality during your in-camera spots. Thank you!! ❤️
Astro Warrior was a lot of fun for me even years after its original release simply because it was a Star Force / Star Soldier type shooter which was readily available in clearance bins.
Considering the relative quality of a lot of non-Konami shooters in the 80s (Micronics developed Tiger Heli and 1942, for instance), this felt like it held up pretty well to its other 8 bit counterparts.
It wasn’t Gradius or Life Force but few were touching Konami’s work at that time on shooters.
Didn’t play Great Ice Hockey but, in general, that whole line should have been a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit for false advertising. Especially for Great Football.
"Respectable, if slight" is such a good description of the Master System overall.
It's kind of bold to put a review in a game's title.
0 Days without a Xevious reference. (I am still waiting for that t-shirt)
The Xevious rope-a-dope was masterfully executed.
In Europe, Astro Warrior was also bundled with Pit-Pot, an ugly but actually fun action puzzle game. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen the Astro Warrior/Hang On cart then, maybe because Hang On was bundled with every original Master System console here so who would buy it really ?
The great titles are great at not being great...
Astro Warrior is a fun little shooter and would have been a good fit for the my card.
I really enjoy the sports pad. It provides a nice change of pace and is interesting to use.
Looks like the Sports Pad was trying for a "Air hockey" feel. Interesting but they should have shipped with the controller.
Edit: 0 days since Xevious being mentioned lol
The interesting thing is that Great Ice Hockey uses the "No-Touch Icing" rule, which wasn't used in the NHL until almost 30 years after the game's release.
Low friction? Amazing ice hockey/track ball double-pun.
I can't confirm either when the Astro Warrior/Hang-On combo came out but it was my first video game system and the first space shooter I ever played back in 1987. I also agree that both games probably go on forever because after the third loop of Astro Warrior there's so many randomally spawned bullets that it's utterly impossible to move. Hang-On I can beat so many times that I just get bored and turn it off after the 8th or 9th loop. But yeah it was so nice getting the system then only a few days later accidentally finding the hidden snail maze game in the BIOS. I wish Sega would consider doing a Master System Mini and/or SG1000 Mini as there's so many classic games on there that lots of people have never experienced or played. I'm one of the lucky ones to have the system in the US when hardly anyone had them.
This and Generation 16 are the best series of this format. Just outstanding.
Astro Warrior is still my favorite Master System Title.
I'm surprised that the sports pad still functions so well in its standard mode but is near-unusable garbage in the actually intended one. But hey, still better than the NES Power Pad, right?
I was... very worried about where you were going to say Americans love shooting in that intro
I always enjoyed Astro Warrior. Really catchy music too. As much as Xevious comes up in the older shooter conversations I really can't get into it. The "music" puts me off.
As someone who is quite literally using a trackball right now, I just have to wonder what could go wrong with the sensors. Maybe an old detection system that was never that well made in the first place?
Mechanical trackballs could be a delicate nuisance, so it doesn't shock me all that much to learn that poorly made examples tend not to survive. Optical tech improved trackballs by leaps and bounds.
@@flailthroughs True. But there's in line replacements for (example) the Amiga mouse that replace the mechanical guts with optical sensors; would such a thing be impossible on these?
@@XanthinZarda I don't think it'd be impossible, no! Hopefully somebody will succeed in refurbishing and updating one of these.
It feels strange that shmups moved from shooting airborne enemies with one button directly to shooting ground targets with another button, and only later changed/simplified it so that same weapon would hurt both types of targets.
But maybe that's just a case of "first, innovate; then, improve".
Great!
*I'll grab my stuff!*
Your sword is all that's needed!
Surely revive Zanoni.
Excellent, as usual!
I LOVE the music to AW. I also love the flying pretzels! I got this one as a combo cart when I got my second SMS since my first one died.
Watching the player move in Great Soccer and Great Hockey just felt unfortunate. Seeing those slick moves in Astro Warrior, though, shows the power of a good trackball. Too bad it has fewer levels than Solar Striker on the GB!
Astro Warrior was the first Master System game I ever played. My cousins had that combo cart and I didn't care for Hang-On.
First impressions of Great Ice Hockey: It looks a bit better than Great Football.
ASTRO Warrior should have been the Sega Master System mascot as a mascot team with Wonder Boy and Alex Kidd in 86.
You tell me there’s a trackball sports pad, and my mind instantly goes to Atari X’s & O’s Football. Which, as far as I know, never had a home release. This was the opportunity! Bummer.
Ive never heard anyone else mention star force!
Astro Warrior: the Solar Striker of the Master System.
that track ball controller might have sold better if it was just sold by itself as a way to add more precision to your play and not as a pack-in with a meh sports title
It wasn't even a pack-in! You had to buy the danged things separately
10:04 since I was a kid, this particular enemy reminds me of an old Cheetos flavor lol
I'm struggling to understand how a trackball could possibly offer more precision than a d-pad in games that only read digital inputs.
Give it a try sometime.
I expect it's probably just able to input a direction for fewer minimum frames than a pad.
That, and it's super good at hitting diagonals.
Shmup fan here... never heard of anyone thinking a trackball was better for shmups. I'd prefer the DPAD over the trackball and an arcade joystick over a DPAD. I just use my my Genesis arcade stick with my Master System games, like Power Strike.
OK. You don’t have to use a trackball, then.
2:40 Or for Pittsburghers. Because Baseball just isn’t doin’ it there any more.
Nice one dude great video and did you know that astro Warrior that astro Warrior was used to produce produce the hit homebrew flight of pigarus🙌
Astro Warrior looks awesome. 😀👍🎮
Astro Warrior always reminded me of Galaga.
On a side note hope you review Global Defense that was super hard to play.
Description of the controller reminds me of Coleco’s Super Action Joystick for Super Action Baseball for Coleco. A neat but way overdone controller designed for a game or two. (I think Coleco was planning a whole series of games when the market collapsed.) The controller was just too complex, though I liked its standard joystick for general games better then Coleco’s standard controller.
That Space Harrier bit from that commercial is a lot less impressive than I remember it.
"Great" meaning large or immense. They used it in a pejorative sense.
"Great" as in "pregnant"... pregnant with disappointment
I can't hate Astro Warrior, even though it plays like a pack-in game. It was even baked into some Master Systems, because Sega must have known it would leave kids hungry for more.
Is the Sports Pad compatible with the dial that was released for the Master System in Japan? I kind of thought it was, but maybe that's incorrect.
No, the paddle is different and only works with racing and Breakout games.
Using a trackball on a shooter!? Be careful or you'll be declared a shmup heratic and condemned to Bullet Hell!
What is it with trackball controllers? They never seem to work. Maybe they age poorly? Dust gets into the mechanism?
Should have been Sensible Ice Hockey
I don't recall Great Ice Hockey so much, but I have played on that trackball... was a bit weird to me at the time having to move with my right hand, but it did feature autofire. which I DO remember using to play astro warrior! I remember it being fun, and had some pretty good music. also I'm pretty sure the system my aunt had had astro warrior/hang-on as the built in games!
Hoping you cover Wonderboy 3 some time
I know I’ve wasted my life playing games when I watched that short clip of Rambo and thought man they just stole the Ikari Warriors animations lock stock and barrel
I see the SMS grid, I click
Ah, Great Ice Hockey... a mediocre video game adaptation of Canada's national bloodsport.
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