Typically, when I check out an old game that I’ve never played before, I’ll just kinda start playing and figure it out as I go. This probably should not have been one of those.
Star Voyager is a pretty early NES release, coming out in Japan in late 1986 (where it had the much cooler title Cosmo Genesis) and in the U.S. in 1987. It’s a first-person space shooter, and a surprisingly complex one at that. Nonetheless, I unwisely assumed I could figure it out as I went along.
Upon starting the game, I made my way to a docking station that refilled my shields and ammo and stuff (not that I’d really depleted them much at this point). I flew around the station a bit looking for anything else noteworthy, or perhaps an indication of what else I should be doing. No luck.
Unsure of what to do next, I did what any reasonable person would do and tried to blow up the space station.
Well that didn’t work…hmm. Without a clear objective or a full understand of how to accomplish anything, I just sort of flew around. I did this for…a long time. Eventually, I did encounter a fleet of enemy ships!
They damaged my radar! Oh, and they killed me.
At one point I also made everything green. Not sure what that was about.
After giving up on figuring it out on my own, I looked into the basics and discovered that there are five enemy fleets (at the start, at least) that need to be located and stopped, and that the game’s world is randomly generated for each game. That’s pretty cool! There are also numerous other things you can encounter, including a black hole. I really wish I’d stumbled upon the black hole before knowing about it.
Even with a little extra knowledge, I still struggled to find enemies or other notable locations. Despite that, I came to better appreciate Star Voyager for being a surprisingly ambitious and complex game for its time. This isn’t to say that it’s good, exactly, but it’s an interesting experience. It seems like a game that would take quite a while to really get used to, but I’d imagine it’s a better experience.
Next week, I’ll be diving into one of my absolute least favorite games of my childhood. I seriously can’t wait.