Obscure mid-1990’s PC games. How much more obscure can we get than Starfire, released in 1994, for the NEC PC-98 in Japan? While I am sure I could come up with something more obscure, there are not many as interesting. The engine powering Starfire is the Might and Magic engine, with a few minor tweaks to the combat.

Starfire saved by fans

Set in the future, space travel the norm, you are a member of a squad of mercenaries contracted to the government. Operating a Motor Shell you are stationed on the battleship Dragonet. Your job is to do cleanup on various jobs such as squelching colony uprisings and cleaning up biomechanical invasions of satellites among other nasty jobs.

Ultimately there is a mysterious force trying to take over the galaxy. Your job is to stop it.

Powered by Might and Magic

Developed by StarCraft, Inc, Starfire makes use of the Might and Magic engine with modified battle mechanic. Battles now take place in real time with a cursor shooting mechanism. Moving around the game world is in 3D just like Might and Magic. Starfire being set in the future means metal corridors and control panels instead of rocks and fountains.

Starfire is still a role-playing game (RPG). Instead of experience points and gold, you work with engineers and doctors to upgrade and heal. Killing enemies gives you credits that you can spend on the ship for upgrades and modifications to your Motor Shell.

Interestingly, this is one of StarCraft’s few original releases. This makes Starfire a somewhat interesting entry.

Fans of futuristic RPG’s will do well to play Starfire. Setup like Silent Debuggers on the TurboGrafx-16, you travel in a 3D world. The level of depth here is much more than the average futuristic release.

Head over to ROMHacking.net and grab the patch file. We cannot link directly to the ROM file.

Carl Williams

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