''Bio-ship Paladin'', known in Japan as , is a 1990 horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...

released by UPL and distributed by

Sammy Corporation is a Japanese developer and retailer of video game and gambling products and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its South Korean office, Sammy Amusement Service, is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Sammy ...

for North American manufacture. It was later ported to the

Sega Mega Drive The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Sys ...

. While the game is essentially a standard horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up, it has an innovation that makes it unique in the genre. The player flies a spaceship (specifically, a

bioship A bioship is a type of spacecraft or starship described in science fiction as either predominantly or totally composed of biological components, rather than being constructed from manufactured materials. Because of this, they nearly always have a ...

) which has the standard forward guns to be found in all horizontal scrollers, but it also possesses a weapon that can be manually targeted with a crosshair, in the same manner as in the game ''

Missile Command ''Missile Command'' is a 1980 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Atari for arcades. Sega released the game outside North America. It was designed by Dave Theurer, who also designed Atari's vector graphics game '' Tempest'' from ...

''. This allows the player to fire in any direction with pinpoint accuracy, and adds an extra level of strategy to the game. The game saw an almost arcade perfect port on the Mega Drive, albeit with a few changes that actually enhanced the look of the game, such as added parallax scrolling backgrounds in the second level. It would eventually see a worldwide re-release as part of the ''

Arcade Archives is a series of emulated arcade games from the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s developed and published by Hamster Corporation. A sub-series called focuses on re-releasing Neo Geo titles in their original arcade format, unlike many s ...

'' series for

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

and

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on August 5, 2021.

Story

Taking place on the planet Atlantal, a huge battleship and space fleet suddenly appears and attacks Atlantal's largest city, Delila, leaving the city in ruins. The fleet, known only as The Aggressors, continue to spread throughout the planet and further into the galaxy, past the Galegino Path, the sea of flames. To drive out and stop The Aggressors, the best twin-seat space fighter on the planet, the Paladin, is sent out; a powerful bioship that can grow larger in strength and size. The Aggressors are suggested to have come from Earth as the enemies, bosses all have vehicle names of different languages, and many of the bosses are actually named after

alcoholic drink Drinks containing alcohol (drug), alcohol are typically divided into three classes—beers, wines, and Distilled beverage, spirits—with alcohol content typically between 3% and 50%. Drinks with less than 0.5% are sometimes considered Non-al ...

Gameplay

The player controls the Paladin that had a variety of offenses. Unlike most

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a Video game genre, subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain typ ...

s, the Paladin had an armor gauge which meant that the ship would not be destroyed with one hit or after brushing up against a foreground object. The ship had a semi-automatic Laser weapon that, when held down, would charge up and unleash a stronger laser blast. The ship also had the Beam weapon. Once selected, players could use a manual aiming crosshair that could be placed anywhere on the screen, allowing the player to shoot any visible enemy fighter. The player must fight their way through nine levels filled with clever foreground obstacles and waves of enemies. Many of the bosses had to be destroyed by first shooting off their guns, missile launchers and jets before destroying the whole ship. However, there were no Extend bonuses.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Bio-ship Paladin'' on their December 15, 1990 issue as being the eleventh most-successful table arcade unit of the month.

References

External links

* * {{MobyGames , id= /45829/bio-ship-paladin/ , name= ''Bio-Ship Paladin'' 1990 video games Arcade Archives games Arcade video games Hamster Corporation games Horizontally scrolling shooters Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games Science fiction video games Sega Genesis games UPL Co., Ltd games Video games developed in Japan Video games set on fictional planets