Covering the news on April 1st can be a fraught prospect, but PlatinumGames insists that its latest announcement – the development of a shooter game called Sol Cresta – is the real deal. In fact, Sol Cresta was part of the company’s previous round of April Fools’ Day jokes in 2020.
Check out a trailer for Sol Cresta:
Sol Cresta is a follow-up to two classic arcade shooting games: 1980’s Moon Cresta and 1985’s Terra Cresta. Like many shooters, they involved players piloting a ship on a fixed, scrolling screen, filling the screen with fire to down baddies. The Cresta games’ main gimmick was a “docking” functionality. Players could earn power-up items as they fought, which resulted in pieces being added to their ship. These pieces functioned in a multitude of ways, from working like extra lives to adding extra weapons. Most importantly, they also added a movement challenge to the mid-combat proceedings. Players had to align their ship with the power-ups, risking damage. Further, docking up meant increasing the size of one’s ship and thus the potential attack surface, which is a key concern in shooting games.
Sol Cresta was originally “announced” on April 1, 2020 as a joke collaboration between PlatinumGames and Arcade Archives publisher Hamster Corporation. There the two companies produced this teaser, at the time thought to be fake:
As it turns out, the only fake thing about Sol Cresta was the implication that it would be included in a large arcade cabinet. The real game is headed to contemporary platforms and is expected to be available sometime in 2021. It is said to be the first in a “Neo Classic Arcade” series, which may imply future attempts to create “sequels” to old arcade classics may be in the works.
Sol Cresta is coming to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC in 2021. You can also try the original games, Moon Cresta and Terra Cresta as part of the Arcade Archives line on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.
