Ristar: The Joy of Movement
I would love to write about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 at some point. I say that mostly as a way of manifesting the energy to write about one of my favorite games period. I think it would be fun to write about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for my Joy of Movement series because, especially when I consider videogames that center the pleasure of playing a videogame in physical motion of the controllable avatar, the early Sonic games speak for themselves. There’s nothing like moving Sonic through the tubes of [NAME HERE] or watching him slide down the oil slicks of [NAME HERE], and the sense of pleasure of moving him through the seemingly endless loops of Green Hill Zone are not just pleasant because of nostalgia. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a videogame that still holds up today as one of the best examples of how to create a pleasurable sensation of motion in videogames.
So, I’ll say it again, I would love to write about Sonic the Hedgehog 2…but instead I’m going to write about Ristar.
Ristar’s pretty rad.
It feels disingenuous typing that however because, before this writing, I had never actually played the game. I had watched Norman Caruso, a.k.a. The Videogame Historian’s video on Youtube about Ristar. This video, apart from being yet another in a long line of excellent videos about the history of videogames and videogame technology, made me realize there were so many games I never played growing up. Fortunately I have the SEGA “emulator” app on Nintendo Switch and was finally able to play it.
Ristar is 2D scrolling, fantasy, action platformer game with side-view perspective. It was originally released on the SEGA Genesis console system in February 1995. For the historical record I didn’t own a SEGA Genesis I had a Super Nintendo Entertainment System(SNES), or, more accurately my parents had one. My aunt owned a Sega Genesis and I killed a lot of hours playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on that thing, so much so that when I discovered that she no longer had her Genesis I believe I may or may not have had a period of mourning for it.
It’s taken some time, but I think I’m okay now.
Or okay as I’ll ever be.
Are we ever “okay” though? I mean, honestly?
Moving on.
Ristar’s plot is pretty standard for most fantasy action platformers of the 90s. The evil space tyrant Greedy has assumed control over the minds and bodies of the leaders of the various planets in the universe. As such Greedy has assumed power over the entire populace, and has sent his minions in disguise to the various planets to monitor them and ensure his rule. The last planet, before it has been invaded, manages to send out a distress call to “The Great Hero,” only to discover that he too has been defeated by Greedy. However all is not lost for the sun of this “Great Hero”(get it?(it’s a play on the word son(...it was the 90s allright))) receives the distress beacon and begins his journey to save the universe.
So with the plot established, it’s time for the necessary question: Why is it so fun to move Ristar?
I’ll start with the most obvious reason which is: Ristar moves and fights unlike any playable character I’ve ever controlled.
Unlike Super Mario who would stomp his enemies, or Donkey Kong who would stomp or roll through his enemies, Ristar is unique because he cannot touch his enemies directly with his body. To clarify, throughout the levels Ristar will encounter various enemy non-playable characters(npcs) and these range from monsters, robots, birds, lizards, etc. Most of the small enemy npcs in the game are usually just colorful balls with eyes, and their physical presence typically represents the most threat. I learned the hard way as I was playing this game for the first time that Ristar isn’t equipped to stomp his enemies, in fact if he lands on top of them he will lose one of his stars which act as hit-points. The first time I played this game I kept trying to hop on top of enemies, completely ignoring everything I had learned in the VideoGame Historian’s video. This at first seems like an impossible barrier until the player learns Ristar’s fighting mechanics which are basically the physics of a rubber band.
Ristar doesn’t hop on top of his enemies, he slingshots into them.
By holding the [NAME] button and an angle on the directional pad(d-pad) Ristar’s arms will launch forward, and his white gloves will latch onto whatever enemy he’s grabbed. At this point the player has created a force of tension, and they can hold the enemy in place until they decide to release. If someone has never played Ristar the next sequence might be a bit shocking because once the player releases their grasp the Ristar sprite is propelled forward, slamming directly into the enemy npc. But it doesn’t stop there. The enemy, receiving the full brunt force of the released tension is sent flying in the opposite direction until they collide with the edge of the screen, at which point their body bounces back against the other side and again and again until the initial force has been released and they disappear completely.
Once this is done, Ristar can continue walking, until he meets another enemy npc and the process repeats itself.
I can’t begin to describe how much I adore this fighting system. This battle mechanic fascinates me in no small part because of its sheer visual wackiness. Ristar is, as I noted before, this playable rubber band with the face of a sun stretching his arms out and slamming his body again and again into enemies sending them flying every which direction, all while moving through a colorful world filled with the bright visual splendor that was the Sega Genesis System.
And I ain’t even discussed the sound yet.
Whenever Ristar reaches out the game plays a sound file that resembles a slide whistle. It’s a charming little noise that never becomes distracting or galling to my ear. Ristar relies on his arms to grab enemies, ledges, trees, barriers, or grappling rails, and this whistle punctuates the world alongside a soundtrack that only further encourages motion through the world while never becoming a propelling mechanism the way it would in a Sonic the Hedgehog game.
Along with the whistle however, there is the actual sound of Ristar’s collision into his enemies. Once the tension is released, and Ristar face-slams his opponent, another sound file plays, and this one is the most auditorily brilliant.
It sounds honestly like a sheet of metal wobbling back and forth.
It sounds like a slinky achieving orgasm.
It sounds like the cartoon wobble one of the Loony Tunes would make after slamming into a brick wall.
The noise is just flipping rad dude. And it plays over and over again. The non-stop build up and release of tension, coupled with a brilliantly executed sound design creates a loop where the player finds themselves almost drunk with all this energy.
Though it’s important to point out that Ristar does not exist in an empty vacuum. All of the motion controls work as well as they do because Ristar is exploring, jumping, and fighting through beautifully rendered fantasy environments. Each level of the game takes place on a planet that Ristar is fighting through in order to reach the brainwashed leader, and like any platformer from the 90s, each of these planets has an ecological theme to it. The first planet is a jungle zone complete with trees, vines, bushes that hide enemies, and a lush forest background all colored bombastically because…well, it was the 90s dude.
And it was SEGA in the 90s.
As a company, SEGA built and sold their brand around the idea that playing their games was about experiencing energy in the purest form. Advertisements for the SEGA Genesis system would emphasize it’s speed and color palettes, and one particular commercial comparing it to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System didn’t even try to be subtle about the fact that speed was their main selling point with a salesman trying desperately to get the customer to ignore the Genesis.
It’s unique then that Ristar is not a “fast” game by any means. Levels can be completed quickly if the player focuses exclusively on speedrunning to the end. But unlike Sonic the Hedgehog who’s levels were brilliantly colored and detailed but designed to be sped through in just a few seconds, Ristar’s levels encourage progression at whatever pace the player wants. There isn’t even a timer! And this allows the player to indulge in exploration. As fun as it is to move Ristar because of his stretching ability, part of the joy of the game is moving him through these levels to see all the lush color and detail that went into these level designs.
While a videogame like Pac-Man creates joy of movement in an abstract environment, Ristar creates a fantasy, science-fiction universe that inspires curiosity. I want to take my time and observe how the platforms are part of the ecology of this space, and the enemy npcs become extensions of this world, sometimes to the point I don’t want to destroy them…or at least not right away.
For example on the second planet [NAME] Ristar is exploring a world that’s primarily underwater. Naturally at this point most of the enemy npcs are going to be fish, and they are. But hopefully my reader will understand by now that these fish are gorgeously illustrated, their sprites being more than just a few hastily assembled pixels, and as they swim back and forth the world I move Ristar through is an aquatic wonderland complete with a magical score that communicates the fluidity of this planet. After fighting through this world Ristar will arrive at the planet[NAME] which is a fiery, lava world. Once again the platforms, backgrounds, enemy npcs, and musical score changes to fit the aesthetic, and once again I found myself taking my time to study the environment instead of just rushing through it for the sake of completing the game.
It’s easy to forget sometimes, if you play as many video games as I do, that the environments a character occupies plays just as much a role in creating the aesthetic effect of a game upon the player. When I’m playing DOOM I have a tendency to get so lost in physically moving DOOM-Guy that I don’t take as much time to observe the set-pieces of the Mars colony. Likewise whenever I’m playing Resident Evil 4 (Remake or Original), I get so preoccupied with moving Leon through the world that I often forget to stop and actually look at the world I’m occupying. These aren’t weaknesses of these games, it’s just that the environments are drafted so that they aren’t encouraging slow observation. When I’m playing DOOM I’m supposed to move fast. When I’m playing Resident Evil 4, I’m supposed to be trying to survive.
In Ristar, I’m trying to move, but never so that I lose sight of the world I’m occupying. Part of this is simple gameplay mechanics because if I don’t keep my eyes open I’ll miss ledges and structures I need to interact with. At the same time, the fact that the game removes the traditional timer clock, and doesn’t make Ristar’s character a fast moving blur, points to a design philosophy that encourages joy in exploration.
I want to see the worlds I’m trying to save.
All of these elements coalesce into a wonderful whole that leads me to the most obvious observation: Ristar is just rad dude. And, most importantly, he is fun to move.
I’ve written before about motion in videogames citing the examples of Pac-Man, Spartan: Total Warrior, and Wario Land 3[link]. Each of these games were unique for the way they created an enjoyable interface for moving the character sprite in and around the space of the world they occupied. Ristar fits alongside each of these games because of the careful design choices that went into making his character interface as smooth and entertaining as it is. It would be easy to dismiss Ristar as just another fantasy, sci-fi platformer videogame from the 90s, and unfortunately that seems to have been the case for the game when it was originally released. The SEGA Genesis was reaching the end of its console cycle and the market was ready for something new. As such, the game didn’t sell as well as it should have, and Ristar’s steady pace fell miles behind the Blue Blur that was Sonic the Hedgehog.
And, look, I get it.
I understand why players enjoyed playing Sonic.
As my opening paragraph explained, I loved Sonic, I still love Sonic, and I can’t wait to write something about Sonic. In the same breath, I will argue to the end that Ristar deserves just as much attention, if not more, because its design created a comparable motion interface that could compete with any platformer of its time.
Every part of Ristar is crafted to create joy down to the last pixel and sound byte. It’s a videogame that relishes in a fighting and motion dynamic built around player elasticity. It’s a videogame filled with lush and gorgeous set-pieces and environments that demonstrate a love for the fantasy, science fiction genre. It’s a videogame filled with sound designs that have been selected to make players laugh and enjoy the physiological absurdity of the protagonist. And it’s a cute story about a young character who’s trying to save the universe, all while stretching in every direction he can.
There’s not much else I can say, but what I’ve already said over and over again.
Ristar is a wonderful videogame because, above all else, it’s a joy of movement manifested in a little star sprite who wears white gloves and boots. How can you beat that?
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
4.7.2025
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