Bio-Hazard Battle, released in Japan as Crying: Aseimei Sensou (クライング 亜生命戦争), is a 1992 scrolling shooter released for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and for the Sega Mega Play arcade platform. On February 26, 2007, it was made available on the Wii‘s Virtual Console.^[3] The game was also re-released on the Steam platform on October 26, 2010.^[4] An unreleased X68000 version exists currently under ownership of M2 CEO Naoki Horii.^[5]

Gameplay

The game is a 2D horizontally scrolling shooter. The character chosen by the player can be moved in 8 directions by the D-Pad. The player can move, shoot, dodge, and block. To block an enemy projectile, the player must place the Power Star in the path of the projectile. There is also an array of different weapons at the ships’ disposal. Four different craft are available and each has different weapons.^[3] Their flight speeds also vary.^[6]

The player begins with a pre-set number of lives, from 1 to 5, 3 being the default. When a player is hit by a hostile creature or environment, their ship is destroyed and will reappear with one less life. Extra lives are attainable by absorbing 1-UP icons in the various stages, or reaching milestones for accumulating points without getting Game Over. 20,000, 50,000 and 100,000 points are the first three.

The game also features strong usage of deep, bass-heavy music tracks, creative and colorful artwork and foreground and background elements. Despite the many obstacles in the scenery and landscape, the player cannot be harmed or die by bumping into anything other than an enemy or enemy fire. Players can, however, die by being crushed between the screen’s edge and a wall. Scrolling and enemy movement is extremely fast in comparison to other games of its time. The player travels through eight levels, each one increasing in difficulty, with the last three only being available on the higher difficulties.^[7]