Burning Rangers
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| above = Burning Rangers
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| caption = {{#if:Burning Rangers cover.jpg|European cover art|European cover art}}
| label2 = Developer(s) | data2 = Sonic Team
| label3 = Publisher(s) | data3 = Sega
| label4 = Director(s) | data4 = Naoto Ohshima
| label5 = Producer(s) | data5 = Yuji Naka
| label6 = Designer(s) | data6 = Takao Miyoshi
| label7 = Programmer(s) | data7 = Takuya Matsumoto
| label8 = Artist(s)
| data8 = Naoto Ohshima
Hideaki Moriya
Kosei Kitamura
| label9 = Writer(s) | data9 = Template:If first display both
| label10 = Composer(s)
| data10 = Naofumi Hataya
Fumie Kumatani
Masaru Setsumaru
| label11 = Series | data11 = Template:If first display both
| label12 = Engine | data12 = Template:If first display both
| label13 = Platform(s) | data13 = Sega Saturn
| label14 = Release | data14 = Template:Vgrelease
| label15 = Genre(s) | data15 = Action, third-person shooter
| label16 = Mode(s) | data16 = Single-player
| label17 = Arcade system | data17 = Template:If first display both
| data30 =
| below = Template:EditOnWikidata
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Template:Nihongo foot is a 1998 action game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Sega Saturn. Players control one of an elite group of firefighters, the Burning Rangers, who extinguish fires and rescue civilians in burning buildings in a futuristic society. Most of the tasks involved collecting energy crystals to transport civilians to safety. In lieu of an in-game map, Burning Rangers features a voice navigation system which directs players through corridors.
Development began shortly after the release of Christmas Nights in November 1996. Producer Yuji Naka wanted to create a game which involved saving people rather than killing them. Sonic Team used firefighting as they thought it was an effective way of having players identify with heroism.
Burning Rangers received mostly positive reviews. Critics praised the soundtrack and audio, particularly the voice navigation system. Some critics felt the graphics were among the best on the Saturn, but the collision detection and glitches were criticised. Burning Rangers was among the final five Saturn games released in America.
StoryEdit
Burning Rangers is set in a futuristic society where the only threat to human life is fire. A team of firefighters called Burning Rangers are dispatched to emergency incidents to fight fires and rescue people in danger.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The player is given the choice of two playable characters, Shou Amabane and Tillis.<ref name=SSM26>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The selected character is introduced to the other members of the team, Chris Parton, Reed Phoenix, Big Landman and the non-selected playable character, before being taken on missions. The missions take place in a power plant, underwater habitat, space station and spaceship in zero gravity, respectively.<ref name=IGN /><ref name=GSpot />Template:Sfn During the final mission, the Rangers are introduced to Iria Klein, a girl placed in suspended animation and sent into space after contracting an incurable disease. Iria informs the Rangers her ship is set to crash into Earth, causing complete devastation, so the Rangers devise a plan to stop the ship and rescue Iria. Shou and Tillis become fully fledged Rangers, and Iria is cured of her disease and settles into her new life on Earth as a member of the Burning Rangers.
GameplayEdit
Burning Rangers is a third-person shooter game in which players complete missions involving extinguishing fires and rescuing civilians.<ref name=IGN />Template:Sfn The player completes tasks across four levels.Template:Sfn The primary objective is to transport stranded civilians from burning buildings, by collecting energy crystals dropped from extinguished fires.<ref name=allgame /> A minimum of five crystals are needed to transport a civilian to safety; the player receives an energy shield if they use ten.Template:Sfn The crystals function similarly to rings in Sonic the Hedgehog games: possessing at least one crystal allows a player to survive damage from an enemy or fire. Being hit once scatters the player's crystals and renders them vulnerable to death.<ref name=allgame /><ref name=GSpot />Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Every level is an interior space, and consists of multi-storied rooms and corridors divided by interlocking lifts and doors.Template:Sfn The player is equipped with a jet pack to reach higher areas and perform acrobatic maneuvers such as backflips and rolls.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name="NGen36">Template:Cite magazine</ref> They can also swim and dive underwater.<ref name=IGN /><ref name=GSpot /> RobotsTemplate:Sfn attack the player with shooting flames should they come into contact. Each stage ends with a boss battle, ranging from fire-breathing flowers to robotic fish.<ref name=GSpot />Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn As in many Sonic Team games, upon completion of a stage players are graded on their performance.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Since there is no in-game map, the player character relies on a voice navigation system to find their way. The mission controller gives the player directions depending on their location, which can be repeated at any time.<ref name=allgame />Template:Sfn At the end of each stage, the player receives a rank based on their score and success at putting out fires, with "S" the highest and "D" the lowest.Template:Sfn Once the game is completed, a random generator mode is unlocked which mixes up the order of corridors,Template:Sfn with a potential total of 3,125 unique routes.<ref name=IGN />Template:Sfn
DevelopmentEdit
Concept and planningEdit
Development of Burning Rangers started around November 1996, after the release of Sonic Team's previous game Christmas Nights (a Christmas-themed demo for Nights into Dreams).<ref name="Edge Preview" /> The development team of 31 (out of Sonic Team's staff of about 50) was directed by Naoto Ohshima and lead designer Takao Miyoshi. The rest of the team consisted of three game planners, six programmers, eighteen designers, and two sound producers, most of whom had worked on Nights into Dreams.Template:Sfn<ref name="Edge Preview">Template:Cite magazine</ref> In addition to the Sonic Team staff, Sega allotted a full consumer software team to the project.<ref name="SSM24">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
The concept originated with the idea of rescuing people as opposed to killing them, which was an element that producer Yuji Naka felt was too common in contemporary video games.Template:Sfn The team chose firefighters as they felt that fire was the most appropriate way to create fear and tension. In a retrospective interview, Ohshima said that many of the things done by firefighters—along with rescuing people—were "the very essence of a Sonic Team game", and that they recognised that a firefighter was a hero with whom people could identify.Template:Sfn The team wanted to make a game with a rescue theme as Naka thought there were few games based on that concept.<ref name="Edge Preview" /> According to Takeo Miyoshi, "Our first inspiration came from the explosion and building destruction scenes of Hollywood movies. We just wanted to describe the heroism of lifesaving in that loud, explosive type of setting."Template:Sfn The developers wanted to design a future that was "clean and beautiful", with sustainable energy, but where disasters still could occur, and only heroes could protect people from them. The designers envisioned that a futuristic firefighter would be acrobatic and dexterous to reach places where people were trapped.Template:Sfn
According to Miyoshi, Burning Rangers was conceived as an online game for four players, but became a single-player game when the team faced network problems; Sonic Team revisited the concept with the Dreamcast game Phantasy Star Online (2000).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Although the target audience of Burning Rangers was people who enjoyed action games, the developers also wanted to attract fans of other Sonic Team games.Template:Sfn Ohshima stressed that he was aiming at a wider audience and not the type of person who only played Sonic the Hedgehog, adding that "players should recognise the Sonic Team touch immediately" with Burning Rangers.<ref name="Edge Preview" /> The working title was Firefighter, but it was dropped as the team wanted a "cooler" sounding name. Naka felt that "burning" had a "go for it!" connotation in Japanese, and fit with the disaster-rescue theme. He was initially unsure about having "ranger" in the title as he felt that a ranger referred to park rangers in western culture. The team thought that the image of a "ranger" also brought to mind the Power Rangers franchise, and after consulting speakers of other languages, the name Burning Rangers was chosen.Template:Sfn
DesignEdit
During the early stages of development, some members of Sonic Team visited Hong Kong shortly before the transfer of British sovereignty, in hopes of finding inspiration for the stages.Template:Sfn Some staff also travelled to Universal Studios in California to experience the Backdraft attraction to learn how to generate a similar sensation.Template:Sfn The team also visited a special firefighting event in Tokyo where they witnessed robots putting out fires, and were surprised to see how it compared to their image of the futuristic setting. Naka recalled that the robot had special infrared sensors and a camera which could see through fires, and was impressed by their techniques.Template:Sfn According to Naka, the team did not ask for advice from professional firefighters during development, partly due to the concern that their game would not be well received, as Naka thought they would have said that real firefighting "wasn't that simple". At the Tokyo Games Show, a real firefighter, however, did comment that the character's costumes were too thin. Naka reflected that if they had made any of game elements highly realistic, the contrast between those elements and the clearly fictional elements would have been exaggerated.Template:Sfn
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Burning Rangers uses the same engine as Nights into Dreams.<ref name=IGN />Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name="NGen36" /> When Sonic Team developed Nights into Dreams, they were new to programming for the Sega Saturn, and when the engine was re-used for Burning Rangers they were able to make it faster and more capable.Template:Sfn To design the stages and environments, Miyoshi outlined the corridors first, then placed fires in them before adding light effects to simulate the appearance of fire. Miyoshi thought that the team had over-reached in designing the detailed stages, saying, "Everyone in the team wanted to put so much into the game that we only completed about half of what we wanted to do."Template:Sfn Naka said that although they designed only four stages, they ensured that the player's experience would increase progressively because each stage was large.<ref name="Edge Preview" /> The developers initially used motion capture technology to capture data for poses and animation, but Naka soon discovered that it was impossible to get the results the team wanted, as it was unfeasible for people to perform the special motions they needed.Template:Sfn The developers resorted to creating the animation by hand, and only used the motion capture data for the player characters' walking animations.Template:Sfn
There were many difficulties in developing the voice navigation system, as no verbal dialogue had featured in a Sonic Team game before.<ref name="Edge Preview" /> Naka asserted the team had rethought all ideas of what should be included during development, and the idea of not including any on-screen maps but rather relying on a voice navigation system was "there from the start".Template:Sfn The team tested different forms of navigation systems and picked the best. Although previous Saturn games which used voice navigation systems (e.g. Solar Eclipse) did so in conjunction with background music, they felt that background music would detract from the sensation of being present in the game.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Miyoshi thought that the only audio accompaniment being the sound effects of fire and walls creaking would produce immersion.
The team originally wanted to record the dialog in six languages, but found the volume of work too difficult, reverting to English and Japanese instead. Before selecting voice actors, Miyoshi designed the characters and built up a mental image of what they would sound like.Template:Sfn The Japanese voices were provided by Hikaru Midorikawa (Shou Amabane), Yūko Miyamura (Tillis), Hiroko Kasahara (Chris Parton), Tomokazu Seki (Lead Phoenix), Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (Big Landman), Toshihiko Nakajima, Takehiro Murozono, Yukiko Iwai (additional voices), and Aya Hisakawa (Ilia Klein).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> For the English version, Sonic Team hired several voice actors who had appeared in American television programs, including Benny Grant (Shou Amabane), Janna Levenstein (Tillis), Yvette Lowenthal (Chris Parton), Michael McGaharn (Lead Phoenix), Roger Rose (Big Landman), Carolyn Lawrence (Ilia Klein), Michael Reisz (Commander and Victims), Jeannie Elias (Victims), and Kimberly Brooks (Victims).Template:Sfn<ref name="Edge Preview" /><ref name="English Voices">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Because the professional voice actor work was not recorded in time for the Tokyo Games Show, the Sonic Team staff did the voice acting themselves for the version demonstrated at the show.<ref name=SSM26/> According to Miyoshi, all audio work was re-written several times throughout development; he considered it to have "evolved" alongside the production of the game itself.Template:Sfn
Designing the fire effects proved difficult due to the Saturn's rendering limitations. Miyoshi explained that during testing stages, the team spent time checking how well they would be able to create fires, a pivotal aspect.Template:Sfn In the first test ROM they produced, Miyoshi discovered that they were able to achieve "some quite beautiful" fire effects by disguising blocky sprites with various degrees of transparency and lighting effects. At the time, few games used polygons in 3D spaces for acrobatic and exploration-orientated gameplay.Template:Sfn
The animated cutscenes were produced by TMS Entertainment and its subsidiary, Seoul Movie, who had also produced the Virtua Fighter anime and the Man of the Year short on Sonic Jam for Sega, as well as cinematic feature films such as Akira and Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. TMS has produced content for Sega since it was subsidised as TMS-Kyokuchi. The cutscenes were made with a digital process rather than traditional ink and paint, as this made them easier to compress onto a CD-ROM.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
According to Miyoshi, the entire development spanned around a year and a half, although the programming took less than a year.Template:Sfn Each of the main developers reflected on what they were proudest of: Naka expressed relief that Sonic Team were able to "get a good overall balance", whereas Miyoshi thought that the voice navigation system was the strongest aspect. Main programmer Takuya Matsumoto was delighted to see it released before the Saturn's discontinuation, saying "the fact that we've been able to push the Saturn this far is enough for me to die happy".Template:Sfn
Sega of Japan planned Burning Rangers to be the headliner of their 1997 Christmas season releases,<ref name="SSM24" /> but a series of technical struggles led Sonic Team to delay the Japanese release until January 13, 1998 so that they could make changes to the visuals and gameplay.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It was released exactly nine months before the Japanese release of Sega's next console, the Dreamcast.Template:Sfn Burning Rangers was among the final five Saturn games released in America.Template:Sfn IGNTemplate:'s Levi Buchanan characterized the release as an example of the Saturn's "ignominious send-off", writing that "sunset Saturn games like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Burning Rangers demanded far better launches. The way these games were slipped into retail with zero fanfare and low circulation was insulting to both hard-working developers and Sega fans."<ref name=IGN />
ReceptionEdit
Burning Rangers received favourable reviews. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 32 out of 40.<ref name="Fam" />
Reviewers praised Burning Rangers' colourful lighting effects, but criticised its collision detection and occasional graphical glitching.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name=allgame /> Lee Nutter of the British Sega Saturn Magazine enjoyed the detailed characters and described the lighting effects as excellent, although he, along with IGNTemplate:'s Levi Buchanan, noticed that the visuals had minor problems.Template:Sfn<ref name=IGN /> Sonia Herranz of HobbyConsolas and Ed Lomas of Computer and Video Games commended the character's designs, colourful lighting and detailed visuals, though Lomas declared that the graphics "[did] often look a mess".Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The collision detection was unanimously criticised. Colin Williamson of AllGame felt that the prominent polygon errors were a problem, though he appreciated the attractive lighting effects.<ref name="allgame" /> Some critics compared the visuals to those of Nights into Dreams.<ref name="GSpot" />Template:Sfn Ryan MacDonald of GameSpot commented that the Japanese import had a similar look and feel to that game's 3D environment, and that Burning RangersTemplate:' polygonal graphics were "some of the best [he had] ever seen".<ref name="GSpot" /> Mike Weigand of GamePro felt most of the stage designs were "drab",Template:SfnTemplate:Efn and in a retrospective review GMRTemplate:'s Dave Smith thought that it "looks like hell" and had not aged as well as Nights into Dreams, and that its engine could not handle a free-roaming environment without harming its visuals.Template:Sfn Weigand felt the 3D environment was a mix of both Tomb Raider and Nights into Dreams.Template:Sfn
The soundtrack and sound effects received praise, though reviewers recognised that the game lacked music to create tension.Template:Sfn<ref name="IGN" /><ref name="allgame" /> Buchanan appreciated that it contained a few tracks of "excellent" Sega-style music, with his favourite being the theme song.<ref name="IGN" /> Although Williamson, Weigand, and Nutter noted the lack of in-game music, they lauded the vocal tracks, voice samples, and sound clues.<ref name="allgame" />Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Most reviewers questioned the quality of the dialogue.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name="allgame" /> Weigand felt it was "lame",Template:Sfn and Smith said it was "some of the worst voice acting ever produced by human lungs".Template:Sfn Herranz had difficulty understanding crucial dialogue since the audio was only recorded in English, although she admitted that the voice guidance system was an innovative element.Template:Sfn Williamson praised Sega's decision to produce full voiced dialogue as opposed to subtitling original Japanese dialogue, and also praised its "good-to-excellent" English voice acting, though it was "no Shakespeare".<ref name="allgame" />
Reviewers had mixed opinions on the control scheme and use of the Saturn 3D controller.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name="allgame" /> Nutter noted that the controls were a mix of those featured in Tomb Raider and Nights into Dreams, praising the use of the analogue stick to perform complex manoeuvres.Template:Sfn A reviewer from the Japanese Sega Saturn Magazine felt it was more comfortable with an analogue pad as opposed to the default Saturn controller,Template:Sfn and Williamson similarly thought the control scheme was "great" when used with an analogue pad.<ref name=allgame /> In contrast, Weigand criticised the lack of a custom configuration and described the controls as "squirrelly", even with the analogue controller.Template:Sfn Two reviewers criticised the short length and lack of difficulty.Template:Sfn<ref name="IGN" /> Nutter suggested that accomplished players would have it "clocked" in a couple of days and felt it did not take much effort to complete the four levels,Template:Sfn whilst Buchanan said it was "too short for its own good", a problem made worse by its enjoyable gameplay.<ref name="IGN" />
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
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External linksEdit
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