A game about presenting the news could perhaps only have come out of Japan. That it uses rhythm-based mechanics as its core gameplay could only have come from a developer so loopy that I can't fathom how it got off the ground in the first place. Clearly, I'm no good at this 'knowing a good game when I see one' thing, but am I good at groovy news reporting in Space Channel 5?
Ulala's got a call about an alien invasion, and the only thing that can save the day is the delusions of a news reporter thinking she can save the day by dancing into the thick of it. Bonus points for originality, I suppose...
Fun Times
Space Channel 5 is borderline bonkers. I'd hesitate to say it's full on crazy because it's coherent. Aliens have descended onto the planet and are capturing everyone they see - an event worthy of a news report about it, and Ulala from Space Channel 5 heads to the scene for her swingin' report show.
Strutting with more confidence than a war reporter embedded amongst highly trained marines, Ulala makes her way through the spaceport under siege to tell the world what's happening, and as expected, she encounters aliens...
...who want her to dance?...
...which I'm no good at...
What the hell has just gone on?
Frustrations
Rhythm games are a funny genre because to be good at the game you generally have to watch a target and wait for some shape to hit that target so that you know what button to press and when. Your view is of this on-screen graphic rather than the characters or the background as a whole. You're often taken out of the situation and are really just bopping buttons along with some music.
Space Channel 5 recognises that not looking at the game would be silly and instead has its rhythm game mechanics completely hidden. You are to follow little aliens saying 'Up, Up, Shoot, shoot, shoot' (or whatever their regional dialect equivalent is) and input those buttons with the same timing when it comes to your turn to act.
I'll let you see for yourselves how long it took for me to get the hang of this, and then how soon I completely lost the hang of it.
I was emulating this on both Redream and DEmul, and while I really don't want to say that the garbage Xbox 360 d-pad was to blame again, I'm going to say that it played at least some part.
If you don't get an input right, Ulala flops around like a wally, making it obvious that you done goofed. But that goof often results in more goofs as you either try to correct and input the right button or more likely as you completely lose your rhythm and get the timing of the rest of the sequence wrong.
There was a lovely moment where everything just clicked, and I saw Space Channel 5 as it was meant to be - I even upped my score by a single percent, if memory serves (it's on the video, I should just watch it). This bliss was not to last, however, as the performances got worse and worse and my experience with the game turned miserable.
To its credit, I suppose, the game kept progressing. Maybe I hadn't hit the end of the stage for a proper game over, but Ulala kept dragging herself into more reporting and fumbling her way through more dance routines until I just called it a day.
Final Word
Once I knew what I was doing, I could play Space Channel 5 even with DEmul's garbled audio, but even by changing the button layout around and using two fingers to really make sure I was pressing a cardinal and not a diagonal, I was still having a hard time getting things right, and getting things right is where the fun is.
If you're not a fan of rhythm games because they're just pressing buttons to music, then you miiiight want to try this because of the plot. Having said that, it didn't grab my attention when playing and I have no interest in seeing where it goes, so maybe you don't want to try this.
And yet it's one of the must-play titles. Probably, as I said way back when, because of its originality. It is different from anything you've likely played before, I have to give it that. Will I play it again? Maybe when I finally get around to switching out this Xbox controller.
Fun Facts
Speaking of originality, Space Channel 5 is controversial for allegedly copying the image of singer Lady Miss Kier for lead character Ulala. Sega ended up winning the resulting lawsuit, and a decade later licensed one of her songs for use in Samba de Amigo - in a stage featuring Ulala...
Space Channel 5, developed by United Game Artists, first released in 1999.
Version played: Dreamcast, 2000, via emulaion.