Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth Playthrough (Actual N64 Capture)

This is a capture of me playing through the Normal mode of Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth on the Nintendo 64. This is not an emulator. This footage was captured directly from my Nintendo 64 using a real Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth cartridge. I’m playing on master difficulty.

I picked up a copy of this game in early 2020 but I didn’t get around to playing it until this year. I’m a huge fan of vertical-scrolling shooters and I have a bunch of the other Star Soldier games (including on the Wii’s Virtual Console), so it made sense for me to pick up the only vertical shooter on the N64.

Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth is utterly shocking based on the fact that it even exists. The game was released in late 1998, during the time when the arcade scene was starting to die down and numerous legacy franchises/genres were adopting 3D gameplay on home consoles, sometimes with mixed or poor results, such as Mega Man Legends, Paperboy 64, Earthworm Jim 3D and Fighting Force. Also, the fact that this game was released on the N64 and not the Sega Saturn is remarkable.

So how does Vanishing Earth play? Well, it’s neat, but nothing special. It’s a typical shmup with six main levels and three secret stages that can be accessed by destroying and not destroying specific enemies in a particular fashion. The game’s only defining feature seems to be its roll mechanic, which allows you reflect enemy shots for approximately one second at a time.

While that might seem overpowered, the game is actually quite challenging on master difficulty, even with the roll mechanic. So at least the game isn’t a pushover. It’ll give you a decent amount of replayability if you’re up for the challenge. Even though I would prefer to record a no-death run of this game, it’s just too difficult for me, especially the final boss. The best I can do is no continues. However, I did complete all three secret stages.

Unlike a bunch of other shmups, Vanishing Earth doesn’t let you change your weapon type through collectible power-ups. Instead, you select one of three available ships to determine the shot type you want, and you upgrade your main weapon during the stages, though it will get downgraded if you die. There are also two types of secondary weapons (bombs, basically), but they both use the same “Ex” ammo, and you can only carry three at a time.

For this playthrough I used the blue ship (F98-Lathyrus), which does the most damage but has the narrowest shot. On master difficulty, the other two ships simply don’t do enough damage (especially the green ship), which can leave you battling the bosses for way too long. However, on normal difficulty all three ships are easily viable.

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR and the official N64 S-video cable. I used a Toshiba model D-R550 DVD Recorder to upconvert the N64's native 240p signal to 480i so that the Hauppauge could capture the console's audio/video signal.

I'm using a standard Nintendo 64 controller.