Street Writer: The Word Warrior: burning rangers

Do you have a favorite Sonic Team game? Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Friday, March 20, 2026

A rare Sonic Team item pops up, plus showing my favorite game character some love

Heya friends, I hope that you are having a great week. I managed to find a rare Burning Rangers item on a Japanese bidding site. There wasn’t much tangible goods from Sega when the game came out. I did pick up magazines featuring interviews with Sonic Team, and some rare screenshots from early builds of the game. Yet past that I didn’t really have any sort of merch. That was why I was surprised to see a mousepad pop up. The art was fantastic, so I had to pick it up.

As long as I was on a Sonic Team kick I was inspired to do some art featuring my favorite game character NiGHTS.

At the end of 2025 I was also inspired to do a piece for Christmas.

It had been a long time since I drew Reala, the rival to NiGHTS. I had to rectify it before the end of the year.

NiGHTS heard you wanted a bike for Christmas. Good luck getting it back!

Turned the best illustration I did this year into a holiday celebration. I'm wishing you, and yours the very merriest of holidays!

At the end of 2025 I was also inspired to do a piece for Christmas.

Of course 2025 was the 29th Anniversary of NiGHTS into dreams... this meant that I had to create a new illustration in 2026 to celebrate its 30th Anniversary. I'll be posting that at the end of the year. Were there any rare games, or favorite characters that you loved to draw? Let me know in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Friday, April 11, 2025

Making a Sonic Team fan, part 3...

In the previous blogs I talked about how much I loved the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and in particular the games made by Sonic Team, rather than the other developers. I also talked about the rare characters that I adored like Ray the Flying Squirrel, and Mighty the Armadillo. As much as I loved those characters I didn’t do too much art featuring them over the past few decades. Cartoon characters had always been difficult for me to draw. I try make realistic illustrations, to draw people, and vehicles in correct scale, and proportion. So going in an a loose animated style was very much out of my comfort zone. That’s not to say it’s impossible for me to do, I’m just not happy with the results when I try to draw the classic Sonic characters. I will on occasion challenge myself, and draw my absolute favorite game character instead NiGHTS from the game NiGHTS into dreams…

The problem with drawing NiGHTS was that I held the character in such high regards that I didn’t want to make a bad illustration. I worked very hard to make sure that they remained proportional to the game model. Even though this was a shape-shifting dream character without actual bones, and organs. I still wanted to make sure that my 2D illustrations gave viewers a sense of a 3D figure. Over the past few years I’ve drawn a few pieces featuring the character, and even the arch-rival named Reala.

NiGHTS and Reala were fun designs literally cut from the same cloth. You could tell that based on their early, and final designs that they were similar in form, and function. Realia had the same moves as the star of the game, and made for a difficult battle if you didn’t know how to approach the “Nightmaren.” The heroes, villains, and minor characters in the game were created by Naoto Ohshima. He of course created most of the original Sonic game cast. The designs in NiGHTS were much more humanoid, and surreal than the cartoon mascots he created for the Sonic franchise. The Nightmaren minions, which looked like dream versions of Pokemon characters were also unlike the robotic monsters that Sonic faced.

When Sonic Team shared some concept art we could see that NiGHTS, and Reala were based on a similar template. The jester-like character had very animated expressions, and a lot of these things were indeed captured in the 3D models created for the game. There was a third, larger Nightmaren boss that also took his cues from the older art. Jackle was more than twice the size of either NiGHTS or Reala. What made him eerie, aside from his laugh was the fact that he had no body. He was a floating head with hands, and feet. He could also fly, and hid his attacks behind a cape. This character was my little brother’s favorite from the game so I had to draw him as well.

The great thing about NiGHTS was how the characters changed shape as they flew around the screens. They were some of the most dynamic early 3D models in console gaming history. For example NiGHTS could dash through the skies with a burst of speed. While doing so their twin-tailed hat would get swept back, and their legs would twist to a point.

This wasn’t the only instant change that the character model had. The character could also turn into a bouncing ball, a bobsled, or even mermaid depending on where they were flying, or swimming through. Illustrating these different versions of the character were certainly an artistic challenge. It was already hard enough drawing the characters standing still, imagine trying to do an illustration of the figure that only appeared for a few moments in a perpetually shifting scene. These were the sorts of details that you could expect in a cartoon, but seeing three-dimensional models do this was truly cutting edge game animation. One of these days I’d like to get around to drawing the other shapes that NiGHTS could turn into during the adventure.

The game also featured tiny cherub-like characters called Nightopians. These were A-Life characters in the game, think of them as the predecessors to the Chao in Sonic Adventure. They had dozens of different animations, and performed many different activities. Things like fishing, building snowmen, sledding, directing traffic, jackhammering the dream world and much more. You could actually help hatch their eggs in game with the main characters. I had always wished that you could pick them up, and play with them in the original NiGHTS into dreams… This was something that you could actually do in the sequel NiGHTS Journey of Dreams. I could imagine how much fun the little guys would have if NiGHTS could zip with them through the air.

The A-life system in the game was actually very deep. You could combine the friendly Nightopians, with the evil Nightmaren and create all sorts of unique combinations. They would each hatch from their own multicolored eggs. Like I said, this predated the similar mechanics feature with the Chao in Sonic Adventure. The absolute rarest Nightopian you could unlock was called the Super Pian aka the King of the Nightopians. 17 years ago I created a video on how to unlock him. While recording my video I managed to do something that I had never been able to repeat. Not only that but I had yet to find another NiGHTS player that managed to get two Super Pains show up in one stage at the same time. Thankfully I had video to prove it, but I digress.

There was a bonus sampler disk of NiGHTS into dreams… released shortly after the title was published. I mentioned it when I did my deep dive on the blog. This sampler contained all sorts of goodies that were meant to be on the original release, if only Sonic Team were given more development time. On that disk several “presents” were available to be unlocked, including the ability to play the demo using Reala instead of NiGHTS. You could only unlock this character if you played the game on April 1, aka April fools day. The studio didn’t get a chance to finish programming Reala’s spin dash animation in the game, however the model files were located in the game files. In fact all sorts of gems were discovered when NiGHTS was datamined.

The original Sega Saturn version was notoriously difficult to crack for people looking to mine assets off of the disks. The same went for a lot of Sega’s hardware. For years, or rather decades people had been trying to find out what secrets Sonic Team had left on the game files. I too felt that the game was very densely packed, although it was a brief game I could tell that the studio put everything they had into it. The first chance to look into the code came when the game was redone, and ported to the PS2. This was easier for the modding community to get into the files, and bring them over to emulators. A number of unused models, and assets were made available to the fan community including unused animations left in the game.

One of the things that blew up in the fan community was the discovery of something fans dubbed Mecha NiGHTS. One of the unused animations featured a Nightopian playing with a remote control NiGHTS toy. Sonic Team made both a sprite model for this figure, and a 3D model as well. They were able to be reassembled, and put into the game by modders. When I found out about this unused asset I had to celebrate the discovery in art form. It was easily one of the coolest looking flying models I’d ever seen. If there was a reason for me to buy a 3D printer, and make an actual physical copy for myself then this was it. There were a few other assets left in the game files. Some of which were minor things, however there was a huge discovery that rocked the fan community to its core. I’ll talk more about this on the next blog, and share the art that came out of this discovery. Did you ever play NiGHTS into dreams… or other rare Sonic Team games like Billy Hatcher, and Burning Rangers? Tell me in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Monday, April 7, 2025

Making a Sonic Team fan, part 1...

Hello friends, and visitors! I hope the year is going well for you. I’ve been hard at work at my actual job. I’ve also been trying to make time for art. I’ve been stuck thinking about what to write about on the blog. Then it came to me. I could write a little bit about one of my favorite game series, and share some art at the same time! The thing about the games I want to talk about is that it also launched one of my favorite film franchises.

The Sonic the Hedgehog movies by Paramount have been great fun. I’m not going to lie however, I had zero faith in them when the trailer for the first movie dropped in 2019. Like many people the reaction to Ugly Sonic was harsh. Thankfully the studio listened to the outcry, pushed the release date back, and made drastic changes to the design of Sonic. It was one of the rare cases where the most vocal fans helped make sure that Hollywood would be kinder to the source material. By taking on writers, and animators familiar with the character the producers managed to create box office hits back-to-back-to-back. Each film in the trilogy had taken elements from the actual games by Sega, and managed to capture the emotional beats of all the main players. I really appreciated the attention to detail in each film. I know a purist might wish that the movies were entirely animated, and not set on Earth, but will all things considered the studios did very well making the characters accessible to the public.

The other thing that I loved about the films was that I was able to bond with my kid over them. We were both big fans of the Sonic series. We must have owned just about every release across every platform, including many LCD games. My love for the character, and the franchise came with the debut of the very first game on the Sega Genesis way back in 1991. My kid’s first game was Sonic Adventure DX on the Nintendo GameCube in 2003. It seemed surreal that I had been a fan for 35 years, and my kid for more than 20. Being able to share a common love of a character had really brought us closer together. It made me appreciate that of all the movies we’d seen as a family, it was a video game movie that meant the most to us. It also made me think about how much I really enjoyed the games by the developers at Sonic Team working at Sega.

Like many of you I’ve had the conversation of favorite games with my family, and friends over the years. My brothers, and I grew up with the major consoles, going all the way back to the Atari 2600 circa 1980. We loved every console, and cherished every game we played. Long ago I had a thought experiment. If I were stuck on a deserted island, and could only bring one video game with me to play forever then which one would it be? Was it possible to rank them in order? I leaned to a very specific company, and very specific team. I published my list in 2006 on the old 1UP site. Sega was responsible for six of my top 20 favorite games of all-time. Of those games three of them were produced by Sonic Team. When I revised that list in 2023 the number of games from Sega went up to eight out of 20.

I ranked many Sega games high on the list my favorite game of all time was NiGHTS into dreams… which was from Sonic Team. I took my gaming seriously. I bought the original Xbox back in 2002 for the second title on my list Jet Set Radio Future. The Jet Set Radio series was by the Smilebit, and Hitmaker teams at Sega. The original Sonic the Hedgehog was revolutionary, and the even better Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ended up as #3 on my list. The third Sonic Team game that I ranked was Burning Rangers in the sixth spot.

NiGHTS, Sonic, and the Burning Rangers were all radically different ideas that were each executed perfectly. The thing about the Sonic Team was that they were fantastic at creating experiences in different genres. It seemed that there was nothing that the senior members couldn’t do. The initial team was formed in 1990 from members of Sega's Consumer Development division aka the console people. This was opposed to people like Yu Suzuki and the AM groups working on arcade games. Sonic Team included programmer Yuji Naka, artist Naoto Ohshima, and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara.

Music for the first two Sonic games came from composer Masato “Masa” Nakamura from the Japanese pop group Dreams Come True. Aside from the game play it was the music that really appealed to me in the early games. In fact after I beat the very first title I made it my mission to try and track down more music from his band. Thankfully the Los Angeles Metro Blue Line had also opened in 1990. It gave people from Long Beach a chance to travel to downtown LA for just over a dollar. When we were in high school my brothers, and friends would go at least once a month as a group to check out the sights. We discovered Little Tokyo, and made many repeat visits. We would rent Dragon Ball tapes just as they were released in Japan, collected toys, CD’s, and import games. All of the things that current generations take for granted used to be a series of adventures for us. One of the great things of the old Yaohan Plaza shopping complex in Downtown LA were the arcades. The building was multiple stories. There was an arcade featuring the latest games from Japan, and even a bowling alley with its own arcade as well. Sadly the majority of the shops closed down, and it was sold to a Korean conglomerate about a decade after we started visiting it.

It was the “Arcade Japan” where I saw, and got a chance to play one of the rarest Sonic the Hedgehog games ever made. Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car was a kiddie ride released in 1991, the same year that the console game debuted. I managed to cram my 6’ 7”, 320 lbs frame into the cabinet so I could play it. My brothers couldn’t believe that I managed to squeeze myself into the cabinet, but at the same time they knew how passionate I was about the series. While going into the various bookstores in Little Tokyo I finally found the music from Dreams Come True. I would buy at least one CD each trip, and ended up collecting every album, and almost every single from the group as well. It was also where I picked up a number of Capcom, and Sega games CDs which I still have in my collection.

Each Zone in the Sonic titles had their own unique song. They were all catchy tunes. Little did I know that the best melodies would be featured in an album. The Star Light Zone song to me was the best. It framed the chill vibe of the stage, the groundbreaking parallax-scrolling stars in the background, and its unique fight against Dr. Eggman. I had just graduated high school, and was attending college when I finally heard the song it was based on. I remember I was walking to the bus stop, listening to my portable CD player when the familiar melody popped up. I lost my mind hearing the song with lyrics! 薬指の決心 = Kusuriyubi no kesshin = Determination of the ring finger from the album Million Kisses was the melody that Masa had composed for Sonic Team months before it appeared on the album.

I would also find out that the song Sweet, Sweet, Sweet aka Sweet Dreams from the album The Swinging Star was the inspiration for the ending song from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. For decades after I held the space-inspired stage from the original game, and the song in the highest of regards. While I enjoyed Sonic Adventure, and many other 2D and 3D games in the series, I felt that none of the releases ever captured the wonder of the Star Light Zone. That was at least until 2010 when Sonic Colors was released. The game took place on different planets all over the cosmos, but there was one section in particular that recaptured the magic for me.

The Starlight Carnival, specifically Act 1 was arguably the greatest Sonic zone set in space. It was a parade, and fireworks show set in deep space. It was made up of hundreds of gigantic spaceships covered in lights, lasers, and glowing floats. It was like a cosmic version of the Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade or Walt Disney World’s SpectroMagic for the people on the East Coast. Except that this parade went on for miles, and featured ships the size of skyscrapers. It was a spectacle as Sonic ran on a track made of energy, with countless ships as far as the eye could see, and even hundreds more popping in out of hyperspace. As a space nerd I was absolutely living for it.

The game play, and music featured in the Sonic Team games made me a lifelong fan. It wasn’t the only thing that kept me coming back. As an artist I couldn’t get enough of the world building that the studio was doing. It greatly influenced my work. I’m going to talk about that in the next blog. Did you have a favorite Sonic Team game? Did you like the movies, or music associated with the Sonic franchise? I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Monday, May 8, 2023

If I updated my favorite games of all-time for 2023 what would be different?

Thank you for stopping by my humble blog. If you’ve been keeping up with my recent series it was a repost from an earlier run that I had on 1UP. I certainly miss that community of gamers, and the many stories, reviews, and articles that they shared. Many of the staffers went on to get jobs in the gaming industry, and a good number of mutuals kept in touch thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I enjoyed posting every weekday, and had well over a thousand blogs written before the site closed down. I saved a good portion of them, and have been sharing them on, and off here for the past few years. The favorite games series got a lot of feedback from the community. I think it worked best to figure out what type of player that I am. If you went through the list you would notice there were no MMOs, no RTS, no games from LucasArts, and no games from Nintendo. This doesn’t mean that I do not think they have developed a top-20 game. Far from it. The list I created was specific to a certain question. If I was stuck on a deserted island which game would keep me entertained longer than any other one. Which one hit the notes of the game play experience that I enjoyed best. Some people might read into it which were the games that took me longer to get bored of than any other. If I were to create a list of 20 essential games that everyone must play, or 20 games that changed the market then it might be entirely different.

Below is my favorite games of all-time list as of 2006.

1. NiGHTS into dreams…

2. Jet Set Radio Future

3. Sonic the Hedgehog 2

4. Street Fighter Alpha 2

5. Carmageddon

6. Burning Rangers

7. Hydro Thunder

8. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2

9. The Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction

10. Dragon Ball Z 2

11. War of the Monsters

12. Resident Evil

13. Top Skater

14. Chrono Trigger

15. Samurai Showdown II

20. State of Emergency

I went back to the list after the series, and thought about all the games that’ve played since the days of 1UP. It’s hard to believe it’s been 17 years since I originally posted it. So I decided to update it, and see how much would really change. I’m sure it might be different in a couple of years, or even next month if I think about it long enough.

As of May 2023 here is how my new list stands.

1. NiGHTS into dreams…

2. Jet Set Radio Future

3. Sonic Mania Plus.

This was actually a gift from my kid to me. I was absolutely blown away by the experience. I told my family if I went back in time to 1992, and told myself that there would be a Sonic game made by an independent studio that was as good as the best work from Sonic Team then I would have never believed it. On top of that this game would bring back Mighty, and Ray from what EGM called the greatest arcade game ever made; SegaSonic the Hedgehog, then I would have called myself a liar. And yet here I am, happy to admit that as a Sonic fan, all of the things I wished had happened with the franchise eventually did. It just took 26 years to get there. This is a credit to Christian Whitehead, PagodaWest Games, and Headcannon. I just hope the team is secretly working on a worthy follow-up.

4. Street Fighter Alpha 2

5. Carmageddon Max Damage

To be fair I think that Carmageddon Max Damage, and the original Carmageddon with the Splat Pack are just about even. I could find a hundred things that I enjoyed in one over the other, and yet never decide on which was the better game. I appreciate that Stainless Software got the rights back to the franchise they created, and were able to bring it up to modern platforms. I only wish their team, and budget were three times larger. I hope that in another decade the studio, or at least former members might get one more crack at the title.

6. Burning Rangers

7. Hydro Thunder

8. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2

9. The Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction

10. Hot Rod

As wonderful as DragonBall Z 2 is, and as passionate as I am about it there were other fighters that I enjoyed more than it in the past two decades. Plus that game came with a lot of negative baggage, so I think it's better to replace it on my list. The game now taking up this spot is Hot Rod. Not just any version of this Sega gem, but the 4-player cabinet with the dip switches set to default. That was a racing game that I could literally play forever. In fact one summer I played this game on one quarter for more than six hours. If I ever win the lottery this is definitely one that I’m putting in my game room.

11. War of the Monsters

12. Shadow of the Colossus

As much as I loved Resident Evil, I think I enjoyed the experience created by Fumito Ueda even more. Shadow of the Colossus should be in every Sony player’s library. I’m still partial to the original Playstation 2 version. There is something to be said about how much performance Team Ico was able to squeeze out of the hardware. You can’t look at modern Zelda games, and not see the influence it had on the industry. I pray that The Last Guardian wasn’t really his final goodbye. I want to return to his world at least one more time.

13. God of War Ghost of Sparta

It takes a very special game to push Top Skater down one spot, and take Chrono Trigger off the list. When I originally put together my list God of War II had yet to come out. That might have been on the list instead of Chrono Trigger. In fact every subsequent GoW game raised the bar higher, and higher. To me the peak was actually in the Ghost of Sparta. You can go back to the series I wrote to see how amazing this game was over every other title in the library.

14. Top Skater

15. Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha

Samurai Showdown II is easily a top-5 fighting game in my book, however I think I got more miles out of Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha. The game, balance, animation, and of course character design from ARIKA will always be the best generation for the series.

16. The Ocean Hunter

17. Spider-Man Miles Morales

For a moment I thought about replacing the Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction with Insomniac’s Spider-Man game. The Sony title does owe a lot of the locomotion, and wall running mechanics to the Hulk. The sense of power it much different. I really enjoyed the Miles Morales version more than the Peter Parker story. It was almost neck-and-neck to be fair. These are the only pick up, and play games that recreate the magic of Bionic Commando.

18. Panzer Dragoon Saga

Final Fantasy VI may be the best game in the series, but in the end I thought of the game that I enjoyed a little bit more. This was Panzer Dragoon Saga. The rare, and now highly collectable game for the Sega Saturn. The mix of action, storytelling, and adventure made it unlike any other RPG I have ever played. I only wish more people got a chance to play it too. Perhaps someday Disney will buy out Sega, and start cranking out sequels to their amazing library.

19. NBA Street

20. State of Emergency

I would like to know how your gaming tastes have changed over the years, and if you were stuck on an island which would be the only game you couldn’t live without. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Monday, April 24, 2023

My favorite Games of All-Time #6: Burning Rangers - Originally published on 1UP - July 14, 2006

Most people know that I'm a Sega fan. Always have been, always will. Sonic Team used to be the best development team over there. I say used to only because Yuji Naka burned out shortly after the release of this game. For a while I held him in high regards. Easily the best at Sega and one of the best designers ever. In fact, I have yet to find any Japanese game designer whose library of work I enjoy more. For reference I think David Jaffe has the best USA lineup ever.

Burning Rangers is proof that gameplay, and game design are king. The game is short, very, very short. Other adventure games like Tomb Raider and God of War are credited for longer experiences. Longer games don't always mean better experiences though. In that span of Burning Rangers we get two things, a play through a fantastic world and a glimpse into the genius of Naka.

Burning Rangers crosses genres, despite its brevity the game touches many bases. It combines anime with science fiction and high adventure. The Burning Rangers are an elite group of firefighters. They rescue people from collapsed structures where other firefighters cannot reach. Their skin-tight suits are fire proof, water proof. They can even fly and float with the aid of rocket packs fashioned to look like wings. The subtext is that they are high-tech angels sent to rescue people in their greatest time of need.

Naka helped craft a world that was believable and also perfect for a game. The Burning Rangers fought fires with blasts of energy, these energy blasts absorbed heat and converted fire into energy crystals. These crystals became important because they could be used to power a teleporter and send rescue victims out of harms way. The faster the fires were put out, the lower the chance that explosions would follow the player. The number of people saved, time spent and crystals left over helped set the points for the game. Players that wasted too much time not only received poor scores, they also had to deal with violent fireballs that chased them through the level.

Naka pioneered a few important things in this game. The levels could be randomly generated after a first play-through. The rooms themselves wouldn't change, only certain doors and tunnels not previously accessible would open up. The possibilities kept the game new and fresh for multiple play-throughs. Random level generators are nothing new to RPG fans but a whole new experience to adventure gamers.

Naka also wanted to emphasize the use of our senses in the game. Rather than just running and gunning between floors players had to listen for backdrafts. A rush of wind was a cue to jump back and prepare for an explosion. If not the player would be injured by the resulting fireball. The controls were simple and became intuitive with little time. We could scour every floor quickly for survivors, put out fires quickly and even listen for cues as to the next hot spot or survivor while in the middle of a fire fight.

The characters all fit the template of classic anime. There is the level-headed leader Chris, the strong guy "Big," the aloof member Lead and the two playable rookies Tillis and Shou. The original design was for multiple players to be able to choose members of the team and help find victims in massive levels. There were plans to have network co-operative play. Given the development cycle and limitations with the hardware much of that was scrapped. From time to time we still get to see team members appear on a level, sometimes through the glass a floor below. The AI still helps us with a portion of the game and one can only imagine how much fun it would have been with two players or more.

The game itself is memorable for many reasons. The action and exploration elements were important. What helped cement the game was the impeccable level design. Each level was self-contained and fully realized. Details abounded on each level. Doors with working lights and locks, an environment that was visible through windows. The illusion of depth and dimension maintained through the whole game. While clunky by todays standards, the graphics and lighting effects were far ahead of their time.

Always thinking of the future the levels are not designed with either an Eastern or Western influence but rather something in between. The look was clean and high-tech but not dated. Each of the levels had a theme which helped make them unique. Unfortunately there were only four levels in the game. A fuel factory, an underwater lab, a space station and a massive space barge. Each level came with obstacles aside from mini puzzles, victims and fires. They also included crazed robots, security droids and massive bosses.

Each person scattered on these levels in need of rescue had something to say. Whether is was a simple thank you, a cry for help or even a plot point Sonic Team made sure that these people all had names and all reacted in a different way when they saw you. The idea of making a player give an emotive reaction to a game has been the talk in the industry for the past few years. Sonic Team was way ahead of the curve. When rescuing a child the first thing a character does is tell them everything is going to be okay. If you find a victim that is unresponsive he or she is knocked out, Chris gives you statistics on some of the rescues and tells you which ones are in bad shape. The thought of making sure every floor, every room, every corner is clear of survivors pushes you against the clock. Some times you even get e-mail updates from those that you rescue. Whether it's a note of thanks or important information related to the story, every little bit becomes appreciated. The survivors help add dimension to the gameplay. In the end it's an emotive reaction makes me appreciate real firefighters and paramedics each and every day.

A signal from space is causing the electronics to go haywire on Earth. The fuel factory and underwater lab, for example, suffered from explosions shortly after the signal was received. The underwater lab was my favorite level. Portions of the stage had you swimming underwater and even rescuing a dolphin and killer whale. Tillis has a latent psychic ability and could communicate with the sea life. This comes in handy when you need to use a dolphin to take you to levels unaccessible by swimming under your own power.

I had a blast controlling the characters underwater and certainly wish I had a dolphin pull me along on some levels in, oh let's say God of War... Not to mention that this was also the same underwater lab where school kids were at during a field trip. So not only do you end up fighting fires and trying to find your way through sealed off underwater tunnels, you also have children to worry about. No level in God of War ever pulled that much emotion from me.

The bosses in the game were as impressive as the levels themselves. Massive in scale and reminiscent of the designs used in Sega's Virtua On or Taito's Darius, the bosses in Burning Rangers were nothing short of awe-inspiring. The machinations that you fought were created by the signal from space. Each boss was unique to it's environment. The boss at the fuel factory shot fire, the one at the underwater lab was a robotic fish with a pulse bomb and torpedoes.

Each of the bosses was directly tied into the plot of the game. These bosses are the result of a haywire sentry program that was designed to protect a girl with an incurable disease. She was in suspended animation inside an unmanned space barge. When word of a cure was sent from Earth, the space barge responded by sending back a defensive program and causing havoc. Sonic Team used a variation of this story in Sonic Adventure 2.

The Burning Rangers are led from one encounter to the next and eventually find the source of the signal. The space barge has become massive by collecting space debris over the years. An unfortunate side effect due to its defense programming. Now more a small moon than a satellite it would lead to disaster if it re-entered Earth's atmosphere. The Burning Rangers are placed in their most dangerous assignment ever. Get past the defenses of the barge, rescue the girl and prevent the barge from colliding with the Earth. Hey, not a problem at all for the world famous Burning Rangers!

Did I mention that in one level you actually get to pilot the Burning Ship into space and use it to breach the defenses of the space barge? This game really does have it all!

Few videogames accomplish anything of such magnitude within a few levels. That is the genius of Naka. We get to see everything that he wanted to put into the game, albeit a shorter version than he envisioned but also things that would have been completely cut out if done by another designer or team. We get a taste of what could have been if only Sonic Team were given more time and resources and yet find no faults with the game we are left with. That is what drives me crazy about Naka and the state of game design today.

With a high to moderate budget, using an engine he designed, on the final cycle of releases for the aging Saturn, Yuji Naka and Sonic Team completely knock one out of the park. No other designer, to this day (save for Miyamoto) has accomplished more with less. It almost seems as if Naka and co. are capable of greatness only when they are left with few resources. I believe the more they had the worse their games were. Epic games can be short and sweet, no studio could ever lay claim to something remotely close to Burning Rangers.

As a bonus Naka always played up to the fans. Those that bothered to play through the game multiple times were rewarded with codes and secrets. Allowing players to choose different Burning Rangers for the levels and even unlock a mini game with the Burning Ship. If you put the game disk into a computer you could even get several wallpapers and system sounds for your e-mail featuring the voice actors from the game.

The curse with this game is its brevity. At double the size, with all of the features that Naka envisioned it might have been a contender for the number 1 spot. As with some of Naka's great games I am left wanting more. I would love to see a sequel worthy of the name. I would love to see an anime series based on it. But instead I will settle with what has been, an experience that will remain with me all my days.

You should play it if you haven't already and see how great adventures could be made.

I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Bookmark This Page; Becoming a Sonic Team fan, and playing some rare Sonic games