Hey Arcaders!
It’s time to close out Dragon’s Lair Month(s) with one more of the games the lair forgot… let’s hop into the starship Ferald Runner- and defeat the Delta UFO- in Interstellar!
Interstellar Laser Fantasy is an forward scrolling sci fi shooter, developed and published by Funai, which was released in 1983. Your mission is to fly to distant worlds battling alien spaceships and destroying alien bases. Armed with lasers, bombs, and a battle droid, you travel across alien deserts, through space caverns, and into bizarre wire framed cities- strafing, and shooting down fighters from every part of the screen- to find and destroy the Delta UFO. The amazing background images were created by Japan-based company, Gakken. The opening sequence of the Ferald Runner fly through always reminded me of Epcot Center! Check it out!
We got this beauty at Dream Machine in early 1984. Now this is a laserdisc arcade shooter done right! All the enemies are generated by the machine- not on the disk! So it plays great, and the backgrounds look out of this world!
Interstellar only had one home port- on the Pioneer Palcom PX-7. It was a MSX computer with a laserdisc attachment! And it does a great port of the arcade game at home!
Like all of the games we have discussed in this series- It can be played on modern computers today via the Daphne emulator- so check out this great game if you can!
What did you think of Interstellar?
I love it’s unique take on space shooters- having the enemies come at you (ala Buck Rodgers- Planet Of Zoom) with some of the best background footage I’ve ever seen in a laserdisc game! And great atmospheric music to boot! Give this one a go!
Well Arcaders, time to end Dragon’s Lair Month. I hope I have given this genre of arcade games their due justice. It was an amazing time as an Arcader! And I have such fond memories of this game- even playing Dragon’s Lair today- it takes me back to that summer of 83′ when life was truly a lot simpler then. And just because the month is over- don’t fret adventurers- we will continue to go into the Lair for more surprises and fun!
Until then-
Keep Playin’ Like It’s 1981!
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