Steam-Heart's
| Steam-Heart's | |
|---|---|
 Cover art (NEC PC-9801) | |
| Developer(s) | GIGA |
| Publisher(s) | TGL |
| Designer(s) | Takahiro Kimura |
| Platform(s) |
NEC PC-9801 Turbo CD Sega Saturn |
| Release |
NEC PC-9801
PC Engine
Sega Saturn
|
| Genre(s) | Vertical scrolling shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, two player |
Steam-Heart's (スチーム・ハーツ) is an erotic vertical shooter game developed by GIGA and initially released by TGL for the PC98 platform in 1994. It later made its way to the PC Engine Super CD-ROM² and then the Sega Saturn. The game features action mixed with adult content, as well as a two-player mode.
Gameplay
Steam-Heart's is an adult game in which the player must battle their way through a stage before battling the stage's boss. Once the boss is defeated, the player character will then engage in sex with her in order to return the character to normal. The player is treated to an array of scenes of foreplay, molestation and even BDSM fetishes practiced within the scenes that go on between the heroes and the boss-guardians.
Unlike most vertical shooter games, Steam-Heart's uses a different system of locomotion for the players to take advantage of. For instance, both players' ships have jet boosts which quickly increases the player's ship so as to avoid tough situations and eliminates the need for speed pick-ups. Also unlike most shooters, the player's ship has a damage meter with six bars total which helps in laser- and bullet-littered screens and is a break from the standard one-hit-kills that is featured in most games of this genre. A player's health can be replenished throughout the course of the game either by retrieving engine shaped pick-ups or full-health power-ups.
One unusual (at the time) aspect to the gameplay was the addition of dialogue before and during battle between characters. When the main characters wanted to talk amongst themselves or to the bosses a picture of the interior of the characters' cockpit would show up on screen either all together or one character at a time and the characters conversed with each other either to brief each other on their current location or to advance the plot.
Players have a large arsenal of weaponry to choose from in the game, most of which was both common and unique to the vertical-shoot-em up. Standard firing weapons include the typical autocannon which can be fired in either full auto or semi-auto and with the right upgrades can pelt the screen in a wide spray of bullets, and the laser weapon which starts out as a long thin beam of light that can be fired at the same speed as the vulcan, but with appropriate upgrades it increases in width and strength. Along with standard firing are bombs which serve as defense against ground forces, all of which are automatically dropped once the standard weapon is fired.
Players can also pick up shields which would take a certain amount of damage before being diminished by enemy fire. Side-arms can be selected which also served as ultra-bombs that changed depending on which side arm had been picked up. These include a large laser sword that can rotate the perimeter of the ship when the player ceases firing and can also guard the player's ship against enemy fire. Others include Homing Lasers, a pack of deadly bots that hunt down enemies and fire automatic lasers at them, missile launchers that fire streams of miniature missiles, and a bomb upgrade that acts as napalm fire against streams of ground forces. These side-arms can be used as ultra-bombs depending on how many the player had collected and each one is different. For instance, the laser sword enlarges so much that the blade encompasses the entire screen and the hunter bots can act as a quick rotating shield that encircles the player's ship and allows them to safely dive into enemy vehicles and cause great damage to the enemy.
Plot
The events take place in the Earth-like world of Westina, a fictional planet that is inhabited by elflike and animalistic people. The Westinans had advanced greatly in technology and had already worked their way up to space travel, so much that they were able to create impressive mechs and even battle ships. There are five main parts to Westina, each of which are ruled by a young and beautiful female guardian. Each guardian treated their part of Westina with a diplomatic peace, but each of them also controlled their own fleet of fighters and had their own custom mechs so if they ever needed to defend their area, they had the power to do so.
One day, each of these five guardians alongside their fleets began to ravage their own areas in a flurry of violent assaults; as they were the leading authority of their areas, there was little to no opposition to stop them. Leaving the chaos, two fighter pilots eventually learned of the center of the guardian's madness: each guardian had contracted a space-born virus that made them go crazy. The two also learned that there was an antidote to the guardian's virus which by an odd twist of fate happened to reside within the semen of the male pilot, Blondia Varandy. So now Blondia and his (apparently) adopted catgirl sister Fallandia set out to save their planet by destroying each guardian's fleet and bringing the guardians back to normal, as well as eradicating the source of the virus.
Release
As Steam-Heart's is an adult-oriented game, various changes were made to different versions as various parts of the sex scenes were cut out, particularly in the Saturn version. For instance, in the PC-98 version of the game, many body parts were exposed including nipples, yet in the Sega Saturn version, none of the aforementioned parts were shown, even in a few instances where nipples would normally be visible. Other system changes include a few obvious notes: particularly of gameplay and graphics as the PC Engine version only allowed one player mode and the graphical value (and ultimately the flow of the game) increased in the Saturn version.
Steam Heart's Perfect Collection is a hybrid (Windows 3.1/Mac OS) version includes illustrations not used in PC-9801 and PC-Engine version of the game, unused music and voice in PC-Engine version in CD.[1][2][3]
See also
References
External links
- Giga page (with STEAM-HEART'S Perfect Collection)
- Steam-Heart's overview
- Hardcore Gaming 101: Steam Hearts
- Steam-Heart's (sic) at MobyGames
- Steam Hearts at ErogameScape (in Japanese)