Sorcer Striker

1993 · Vertical Shooter · Arcade

About Sorcer Striker

Sorcer Striker (1993), Mahō Daisakusen in Japan, is Raizing's debut, a steampunk fantasy arcade shooter in which four bounty hunters hunt the goblin king, made in an apartment bedroom by former Aleste developers.

Sorcer Striker in Depth

The goblins have built an empire of their own, and King Codwenna of the Violent Kingdom, after a disastrous attack by his knights, learns that they are ruled by a human and are mass-producing mana-powered magical weapons that nobody else can reproduce. Foreseeing his kingdom's doom, he puts a bounty on the head of King Gobligan. Players choose one of four bounty hunters, Gain, Chitta, Miyamoto or Bonum, through six increasingly difficult stages.

Borrowing from earlier Compile shooters such as Seirei Senshi Spriggan, each ship has a main gun powered up with coins from "P" bags and a sub-weapon swapped or upgraded with one of three magic books from destroyed carriers, giving homing, spread or straight shots that differ by character, plus screen-clearing bombs. As in MUSHA, some stages have mini-bosses. Losing a life respawns the player on the spot with their firepower reset, and finishing the first loop returns to the first stage, with the true ending reserved for completing the second.

Making Sorcer Striker

Raizing, now Eighting, was founded by former Naxat Soft and Compile staff from the Aleste series, and Sorcer Striker was its first project, made by about four people: designer Kazuyuki Nakashima, Spriggan programmer Yuichi Toyama, artist Yokoo and 27-year-old freelance composer Atsuhiro Motoyama. Through the company president's former ties to Toaplan, Toaplan advised the team, supplied development tools and licensed its arcade board. Work began in March 1992 in an apartment bedroom, and the game was reworked into an accessible fantasy shooter to attract console RPG players, with mecha touches and a steampunk look to make shots and explosions flashier. Able released it in Japan and Europe in May 1993, and Game Machine listed it as the seventh most popular arcade game in its 1 August 1993 issue. X68000 and FM Towns ports followed, and M2 released it on PlayStation 4 in 2017. Hardcore Gaming 101 called it "an excellent game" often forgotten next to Raizing's later work. Kingdom Grand Prix and Dimahoo followed, and its heroes reappeared in Battle Garegga and Armed Police Batrider.

Sorcer Striker Trivia

Its working title was Haougekiden Saifuaa, a Chinese martial arts theme abandoned on Toaplan's advice that shooters need worldwide appeal.
Its power-up system was modelled on MUSHA because artist Kenichi Yokoo was a fan.
Ships were given hand-like extremities to give them personality.
Chitta is named after the Cinechitta cinema in Kawasaki near Raizing's offices, and Bonum after Bornnam in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Its Japanese title was chosen from more than a hundred suggestions after Irem's In the Hunt made the first choice unusable.