Space Channel 5 Review by Coxster

Around my neck of the woods, Tetsuya Mizuguchi is a gaming hero, a god of code if you will, as I cannot remember ever seeing a bad game with his name on it. Lumines? Every Extend Extra? Rez? Sega Rally Championship? The guy possesses a pedigree most people in the industry only dream of having. As it so happens, one of my favourite games of all time is one of the most disgustingly optimistic games ever created, Space Channel 5. Space Channel 5 first appeared on the Dreamcast way back at the end of 1999, it later showed up on the PlayStation 2 console in 2002, which is a smart move, as outside of Japan, people were no longer buying and playing the Dreamcast console. It was released in limited numbers for the PS2, and finding a PAL version is getting harder and more expensive to do everyday. So let’s take a trip down memory lane and see if this game has held up to the test of time. (SPOILER: THE ANSWER IS YES!)

Dreamcast Review

In an industry where most stories are absurd to begin with, Space Channel 5 pushes the envelope into ridiculousness. The story centres around Ulala - a sassy bombshell with hot pink hair and the disposition of a teenager from the 1960’s. She’s a top reporter for Space Channel 5 which is an intergalactic broadcasting network in the future. The (not-so) evil aliens, the Morolians, have been kidnapping everyone and forcing them to do silly dances. Ulala takes it upon herself to undo the evil deeds of the Morolians - the only way she knows how - with some super duper funk and a whole crap-load of rhythm. See told you it was ridiculous.

If you’ve never had the good fortune to play Space Channel 5 in the past, think of a game like Parappa the Rappa and you’ve got it sussed. It’s a basic concept of Simon says and as long as you keep in time with the excellent music you’ll have many happy lucky successful time. Mind you, some of the bosses can present quite a challenge so make sure your memory is up to scratch before you play.

The dance commands are given out by the person/alien you’re going up against, which will likely be a Morolian, and you will have to push the corresponding button to go in time with that command. In most of the encounters you’ll also have to use your space pistol by pressing A in time with the music with the B button being used to rescue the hostages. The best thing about this is that whenever Ulala has to shoot her pistol she will say something that sounds like “Chu” but is actually meant to be “Shoot”, so hearing “Chu Chu Chu down up down Chu Chu Chu” is just plain hilarious. You have a heart meter and if you get these wrong your number of hearts will decrease and you will fail when you have lost them all.

Graphically Space Channel 5 is amazing. The backgrounds were MPEG videos which were a huge deal back in the day, and the whole essence of a retro-future is perfectly captured. Even looking at it today, this game still holds up well and one can’t help but be dazzled by the excellent use of colour and style.

Moving on to some of the funnier little facts and rumours surrounding Space Channel 5 was that it guest starred the world’s biggest pop singer at the time, Michael Jackson. When asked how this bizarre occurrence happened in the first place, Mizuguchi-san stated, “We were in the middle of production of Space Channel 5, in 1998 or 1999. I got a call from the U.S. from my partner - the executive producer of Space Channel 5 - and he said, 'Oh, Michael wants to act in Space Channel 5.' I said, 'Who's Michael?' 'Who is Michael Jackson?' he said, 'The Michael Jackson - the real Michael Jackson. My partner had shown him the 60-to-70 percent complete version, when it was almost at the end of the game. We had one month to finalize. But Michael wanted to do something, so we suggested that if he was OK with it, we could program the people in the game to do the Michael Jackson dance when taken over by aliens, he said 'yeah.' We initially had five aliens who danced. One of them became Michael Jackson."

Another related topic was the lawsuit that was brought against SEGA for allegedly stealing the persona of Lady Miss Kier, the lead singer of one hit wonder band Deee-Lite for the character of Ulala.

Lady Miss Kier made the claim that SEGA offered to pay her $16,000 to license her name, image and songs for Space Channel 5 and she apparently knocked them back. She then stated that SEGA went ahead and used her likeness anyway. To cut a long story short, she lost the lawsuit and a later appeal and then was ordered to pay SEGA’s legal fees which amounted to the small sum $608,000.00 (US). Apparently SEGA was able to show that they had created the character of Ulala before Deee-lite even came on the scene. I think it’s quite obvious that they saw a similarity between their character and Lady Miss Kier and maybe thought it would be good to use her popularity at the time to promote their game for the US market. Why she knocked back SEGA is a mystery and quite frankly not the smartest career move, I mean who wouldn’t want their legacy to remain in a digital form for all time? Craziness I tell you.

The game offered multiple paths for you to take which depended on how well you controlled Ulala. Most of these paths offered an easier route if you were struggling or provided a harder way if you were doing particularly well. The funniest thing has to be having all the hostages you rescue follow you and singing along as you fight the aliens. Before you know you have a crowd of zany characters all with their own chants and design and it’s so charming that you can’t help but fall in love with this game.

As with any dancing game, good music is essential. Space Channel 5 in my opinion still has one of the best soundtracks of any game ever developed and the only other game that comes to mind that could contend for its quirkiness and originality is Katamari Damacy. If you can find a rare copy of this album anywhere, pick it up as its enjoyable retro theme 1960’s style music will capture your heart and put you in a good mood no matter what.

It was important to Mizuguchi for Space Channel 5 to have a real soul and wanted to create a desire in the player to keep on playing. According to IGN these are the steps he took to fulfilling that desire:

Step 1: Increase number of followers and get the highest rating.

Step 2: Play an active part, be unique, save people, and be helpful.

Step 3: Feel the rhythm, stay in the groove, beat the aliens with dance steps, and don’t forget to be sexy.

I love step 2, for me that sums up what is so good about Space Channel 5, it’s innocence and cheerful outlook is infectious, the perfect partner to a rainy day.

Some more rumors floating around the interwebz is that Space Channel 5 may return for the current generation of consoles, particularly the Wii. According to Eurogamer.net, producer Takashi Yuda revealed that certain people in SEGA would like to see a return of Ulala. There doesn’t seem to be anymore information given at this point, but with the prospect of some prominent members of SEGA being very keen on the idea Yuda-san went on to say “But nothing has been decided.” Lets keep our fingers crossed we hear something soon, as the prospect of having a new Space Channel 5 game is almost too much to bear!

I think the perfect way to end this piece is to quote Tetsuya Mizuguchi "I have poured the message of love and peace and happiness in Space Channel 5. These were the emotions and desires of this game.” Nothing could be truer. It’s a game that I will always have fond memories of, as my girlfriend and I would play this game for hours together cuddled up on a bed on those long winter nights so many moons ago. If there is one game I would recommend in tracking down, Space Channel 5 would be it.