Sol Cresta is a NEO-CLASSIC shooter in which you pilot the cutting-edge docking fighter Yamato and initiate Operation: Sol Cresta to take back the solar system from the evil Mega Zohar army.

The 2D shooting genre has a long history, and the challenges and choices made by pioneers have refined the genre. Sol Cresta includes not just tried and true gameplay, but also goes beyond the mainstream with the intent of raising the classic to the Neo-Classic, creating fun that is both nostalgic and innovative.

Pilot 3 ships and free the solar system from the clutches of evil in this free-form shooting game!

The Yamato is made up of 3 smaller ships; Unit 01 “Amaterasu,” Unit 02 “Tsukuyomi,” and Unit 03 “Susano.” By docking and splitting these three ships in a variety of ways, you can adapt to a variety of enemies and situations!

The three ships that make up the Yamato dock in lead, center, and rear order, and can split and re-dock at any time! By splitting, re-ordering, and re-docking, you can change the Yamato’s weaponry and choose the best shot for the job!

• Unit 01: Amaterasu
  • This ship represents the sun and has lasers as its main weapon.
  • Dock it in the lead to use the Tri Laser! While not very powerful, it fires lasers in 3 directions!
  • Dock it in the center to use the Wide Laser! You can shoot a giant laser that eradicates enemies!
• Unit 02: Tsukuyomi
  • This ship represents the moon and has missiles as its main weapon.
  • Dock it in the lead to use the Electro Missile! This missile homes in on enemies and delivers a jolt on impact!
  • Dock it in the center to use the Full Burst Missile! This fires a barrage of missiles with enhanced homing, leaving the enemy with nowhere to run!
• Unit 03: Susano
  • This ship represents Earth and has drills as its main weapon.
  • Dock it in the lead to use the Drill Shot! This fires a multi-hit drill that pierces enemies and can crack stone!
  • Dock it in the center to use the Gigaton Drill! This activates a giant drill that pulverizes approaching enemies! Mash the button to make it spin faster!
  • The ship docked in the rear offers support fire! Use your arsenal wisely to lead Sol Cresta to victory!

When the 3 ships are split, they can get into special Formations and gain access to extremely powerful Formation Shots for a limited time. However, Formation Shots require energy to activate, so don’t just blaze away!

• Delta Formation: This formation fires a huge volley of shots over a wide range to wipe out enemies! Single shots aren’t very powerful, so don’t waste them on strong enemies!
• Moon Formation: This formation fires large, crescent-shaped shots to the left and right! With this shot you can deal heavy damage to the enemy’s flank!
• Afterburner Formation: This formation fires three deadly lasers to the rear! They’re difficult to aim, but their power is unmatched!

There are other formations to find as well! Use Formations wisely to get out of a jam!

There are a lot of other gameplay features to enjoy in Sol Cresta, like Command Shots that are activated with special controller commands, Sol Medals and Sol Gauge system to power up your ship, and more.

To explain a bit for those who may not know, Moon Cresta and Terra Cresta were released in the 80s by a game company called Nihon Bussan, better known as Nichibutsu. Both games were vertically scrolling shooters that included a play mechanic where you docked with friendly ships.

At a time when shooting games where you fought alone were the norm, aggressive gameplay that made your ship more powerful as you docked with allies had gamer kids burning with excitement back then, and both games took a place in gaming history. Of course, I was one of those gamer kids and experienced the fever in real time.

But just how did this miraculous project come to be? Well, I’d like to tell you the secret of the birth of Sol Cresta.

Starting with Bayonetta and continuing with titles like Anarchy Reigns, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, The Wonderful 101, Nier: Automata, and Astral Chain, PlatinumGames has been fortunate to have the titles we’ve released receive acclaim for the “action feel,” and we’ve come to be known as “the studio that makes action games.”

However, as a studio we want to make all kinds of fun games, not just action games.

Since I was a kid, I played and had fond memories of a lot of games; shooting games (although these days this tends to mean FPS), adventure games, RPGs, and more. Eventually I thought, “I want to make games too,” and that dream came true when I became a game designer.

But as times changed, technology advanced, and the player base grew, the very nature of games and the corresponding trends changed a lot and having become a creator myself, I was involved with large-scale projects centered around 3D visuals and gameplay. Before I knew it, the kind of games I knew as a kid—the simple, almost primitive yet packed with fun “classic games”—had disappeared from the mainstream market.

This is getting into production talk, but it is no simple task to launch a game project in a genre that’s not mainstream. Furthermore, in my position it’s also my duty to develop the company’s flagship titles. But even while buried by my workload day in and day out, I never forgot the way I felt when I first dreamed of making games, and if only on paper I still hatched plans in secret for games that can recapture that nostalgic feeling and keep them warm inside.

Time passed, and about three years ago, I called our studio head Atsushi Inaba into a meeting room and revealed my idea for a certain game. I said, “I have an idea for a vertically shooting game where you play while combining and reconfiguring three fighter jets.”

Most shooting games are simple games where you pilot jets, fire bullets, and shoot down the enemy. However, there have also been a few unique games with standout gameplay features like a variety of powerups that you can choose from, or support craft that can be used for offense and defense.

If we were going to take on a genre that is itself considered a “classic,” the game would need to have the kind of unique gameplay like the titles created by industry pioneers, or there would be no meaning in the attempt. With the firm belief that the three-fighter “dock-and-split” system I’d envisioned would help realize a new game experience on par with the historical titles that had come before, I shared my idea with Inaba.

Inaba quickly became interested as I explained, and since he also had the desire to make a game like the ones he was crazy for as a kid, he may have been waiting for an opportunity like this.

Hideki Kamiya

Chief Game Designer at PlatinumGames

Sol Cresta is coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC in 2021.