Lost In Translation/Night Striker

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Out Run (Arcade version)
Out Run (Sinclair ZX Spectrum version)

This page is a stub for arcade games that are part of the Lost In Translation series using information based on MAME (version 0.113u2).
For an example of preferred content and layout please refer to Out Run or The Ninja Warriors.


Night Striker
Night Striker marquee.
No screen shot.
Night Striker control panel.
Manufacturer Taito America Corporation
Released 1989
Control
Method
8-way Joystick
Analog joystick
2 Button(s)
Main CPU (2x) 68000 (@ 12.000 MHz)
68000 (@ 12.000 MHz)
Sound CPU Stereo
YM2610 (@ 8.000 MHz)
Video
Details
Raster (Horizontal)
320 x 240 pixels
60.00 Hz
4,096 Palette colours
Screens 1
ROM Info 29 ROMs
8,400,384 bytes (8.01 MiB)
MAME ID nightstr

About The Game

Night Striker is a 3-D arcade video game shoot-em-up rendered with fast moving, sprite-scaled graphics.

Players must guide an armoured hover car through a number of scrolling levels - destroying waves of enemies in the process - in an attempt to rescue a scientist who has been kidnapped by a terrorist organization. A large guardian awaits players at the end of each level, with each one taking several hits to destroy.

Instead of having a set number of lives, the player's vehicle is equipped with a shield that depletes whenever the player is hit by enemy fire or has collisions with either enemies or scenery. The player's shields are recharged at the end of every level.

Night Striker takes its influences from many landmark games of the sprite scaling genre, all of which are Sega releases. The basic shoot-em-up gameplay is similar in style to both 1985's "Space Harrier" and 1987's "Thunder Blade". Some of the game's levels resemble those of 1988's "Galaxy Force II" as well as "Thunder Blade", while the game's level structure - a 'pyramid' of levels that allows players to chose their own route through the game with the use of end-of-level forked roads - is borrowed from the 1986 classic, "Out Run".

Trivia

Released in October 1989.

The eerie and ambient game soundtrack is by Zuntata, an internal team of composers within Taito responsible for other great soundtracks including Darius Gaiden, Gunlock, G-Darius.

Pony Canyon / Scitron released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Darius II : G.S.M. Taito 4 - PCCB-00010-12) on 21/11/1989.

A new version of the soundtrack was released in 1998 and is sprinkled with anecdotes (spoken in Japanese) about the game (Z-Replica Vol. 2 - Urban Trail Night Striker - ZTTL-0025).

Zuntata Records released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Zuntata History L'ab-normal 1st - ZTTL-0038) on 01/04/1999.

Updates

The US version is slightly different, it has the 'Winners Don't Use Drugs' screen.

Staff

Producer
Tohru Sugawara
Director
Kenshi Kaito
Software
Tohru Sugawara
Hideki Hashimoto
Toshiaki Tsukano
Tmr-Win
Iromust
Takashi Kitabayashi
Character Designers
Kohzoh Igarashi
Minori Ishino
Takako Kojima
Kenshi Kaito
Hardware
Toshiyuki Sanada
Electric
Tomio Takeda
Mechanic
Tohru Yamamoto
Tohru Hirata
Tomio Suzuki
Nobuyuki Iwasaki
Designers
Shinobu Sekiguchi
Akio Nomura
Sound & Music Composed By
Masahiko Takaki (Zuntata)
Executive Producer
Keisuke Hasegawa

Cabinet and Artwork

Ports

Consoles
Sega Mega CD (1993)
Sony PlayStation (1995)
Sega Saturn (1996, "Night Striker S")
Sony PlayStation 2 (2007, "Taito Memories II Vol. 2")

Soundtrack Releases

Album Name Catalogue No. Released Publisher Comments
Darius II -G.S.M. TAITO 4- PCCB-00010[1] 1989-11-21 Pony Canyon, Inc. 2 CD version.
Zuntata Live '90 -G.S.M. Taito- PCCB-00045[2] 1990-10-21 Pony Canyon/Scitron CD version.
Zuntata Live 1997 -Cineteque Rave- (Visual File) ZTTV-0001[3] 1997-11-21 Zuntata Records Released on VHS.
Z-REPLICA Vol.2 URBAN TRAIL NIGHT STRIKER ZTTL-0025[4] 1998-07-23 Zuntata Records CD version.
ZUNTATA LIVE 1998 "güten Talk" from the earth ~AUDIO FILE~ ZTTL-0031[5] 1998-10-21 Zuntata Records 2 CD version.
ZUNTATA LIVE 1998 "güten Talk" from the earth ~VISUAL FILE~ N/A[6] 1998-11-10 Zuntata Records Released on VHS.
ZUNTATA HISTORY L'ab-normal 1st ZTTL-0038[7] 1999-04-01 Zuntata Records CD version.
Zuntata Night ZTTL-0047[8] 1999-10-21 Zuntata Records CD version.
THE VERY BEST OF Mar. GAME MUSIC II ~Dawn Chronicle~ ZTTL-0053[9] 2000-06-21 Zuntata Records CD version.
Night Striker Complete Album PCCB-00119[10] 1993-05-21 Pony Canyon/Scitron CD version.
Night Striker PCCB-00140[11] 1993-11-19 Pony Canyon Inc. CD version.
Game Sound Legend Arrange Series - Speed & Wind SCDC-00375[12] 2004-11-17 Scitron Digital Content CD version.
Night Striker & Syvalion Perfect Box SRIN-1031~5[13] 2007-12-29 Super Sweep Records 2 CD version.
Game Music Festival Live, Summer '93 ~OFFICIAL BOOTLEG CASSETTE~ N/A[14] 1993-01-01 Pony Canyon/Scitron Cassette version.
Gaesen Oh - Scitron Game Music Mega Mix Vol.1 KGCD-0001[15] 1994-01-01 Pony Canyon/Scitron CD version.
Super Mega Drive Fan - Mega-CD Super Music Collection Volume 1 TIM-SMD01[16] 1993-05-01 Tokuma Shoten Publishing CD version.
NIGHT STRIKER -ARCADE SOUND TRACKS- ZTTL-9010[17] 2008-07-02 Zuntata Records Digital download only.
TAITO GAME MUSIC ZTTL-1003[18] 2004-09-24 Zuntata Records CD version.
Violin de Hiitemita ep2 ~ Maou no Gyakushuu / Scream no Hito SRIN-1063[19] 2009-09-02 SuperSweep CD version.

References

The contents of this page are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The sources used include MAME (version 0.113u2) and history.dat (revision 1.28 - 2008-10-18).
Please see http://www.arcade-history.com for credits.