Satazius Next (Dreamcast)

Horizontal
Checkpoints ON
4 Difficulty levels
6 Stages
Ship speed by icons
- - - - - - -
Developed by Astro Port
Published by Pixelheart/JoshProd in 2022

A very competent developer for the PC scene, Astro Port branched out into different territories a while ago. In the case of the Sega Dreamcast, Astro Port Collector was the result, a compilation of four of their titles that sometimes gets confused with a similar release that came out for the Nintendo Switch at around the same time. The Dreamcast package includes Satazius Next, Wolflame and Zangeki Warp, as well as the mecha platformer Gigantic Army, and is by all means a great way to get to know the works of this neat developer.

I decided to start with this collection by playing Satazius Next, a game I had already known in its incarnation for the Steam digital distribution service as Satazius. A straightforward, colorful and well designed horizontal shooter whose inspiration from Gradius goes beyond the obvious phonetic association, the Dreamcast port is actually comprised of two game variants: the regular Satazius and Satazius Next, an arrange mode that plays just like the vanilla version but comes with a few differences to justify the maketing decision for the game's new name.

Straight shot + missiles in the first stage

So what's different beetween Satazius and Satazius Next? In order of importance, I'd say it's the soundtrack that veers more into electronic territory (the only theme that was preserved is the boss music), the ship sprites (which has turned into a more generic vessel instead of the "spiky" design reminiscent of Rayforce) and some visual differences (of which the most striking is the blue wasteland of the first stage replacing that greenish landscape). The game is otherwise exactly the same, down to item positioning and enemy behavior. Besides several chapters from Gradius, seasoned players will also spot influences from Darius and, to a lesser extent, R-Type and Thunder Force.

Inputs work with shot on button A, sub weapon selection on button B and special/charge weapon on button X. Prior to each level players must choose which weapons will be used from an array that gets increased as bosses are beaten and the game progresses. Button A fires both the main weapon and the sub weapon, but two sub weapons must be chosen at the selection screen, which will then be switched between each other with button B. These are also upgraded individually with the correspondent power-up, which will be applied to the current sub weapon choice. As for the charge weapon, it will recover automatically after each blast (faster if you refrain from shooting).

The power-up roster includes red P (main weapon), green P (sub weapon), yellow P (special/charge weapon), speed-up (blue pod), speed-down (gray pod), 1-hit shield (purple S) and stars for bonus points. All weapons have 8 power levels indicated at the selection screen and in the lower HUD. The 8th power level gives you a remakable boost, but it's only temporary and degrades back to level 7 if you take too long to take another power-up. There are four possible speeds, but even max speed (4) is manageable for most of the situations.

What makes Satazius Next an accessible game in terms of challenge is the fact that there's always a nice assortment of power-ups to get back up once you die and get respawned in a previous checkpoint. On top of that, each death only takes away one speed and two weapon levels, so the punishment for dying will never be that severe (unless you die multiple times in a row for stupid reasons, of course). You do get stuck with the same weapons until the stage ends though, which means wise choices are half the strategy for winning. And once you get used to stage layouts, higher scoring will naturally come to the forefront for those who enjoy perfecting routes and performance.

Trailer for Astro Port Collector
(courtesy of YouTube user and publisher PixelHeart)

For each surplus speed-up and shield taken you get extra 5.000 and 20.000 points respectively. Each star collected since the last time you died within the level is worth 10.000 points after you beat the boss, but if you manage to pick up all 10 stars the stage bonus is then doubled, meaning you'll get 200.000 instead of 100.000 points. Upon completing the game, each life in reserve is then worth 100.000 points. So the secret to higher scores is simple: never take any speed-downs, avoid dying and taking any damage and memorize the location of stars for maximum stage-end bonuses. Extends are granted at every 300.000 points.

While serviceable and competent overall due to the ingenious and creative level design, Satazius Next on the Dreamcast is kinda blurry and muddy due to the awkward resolution of the porting job. If you come straight from the PC original the downgrade perception is even more critical. In addition, I also had the impression of a very slight lag, fortunately not that severe. The game is rather bare bones with the functional options: Practice mode is great for direct access to specific stages you've already reached, but it's not possible to remap controller buttons. At least all difficulties are unlocked from the start.

I beat the game a few times when practicing but I didn't try to improve my performance, since I was let down by the game's resolution and the stupid arrangements I needed to make in order to at least be able to see the final score. The 1CC result below for Satazius Next was achieved in the Normal difficulty (2.857.100 points).