Dangerous Seed

The player's ships can also combine into a new ship, the Moon Diver, featuring a stronger shield and additional weapons. The game was designed by Yuichiro Shinozaki, a character artist for Namco's own Babylonian Castle Saga franchise, with music composed by Yoshinori Nagumo. Early versions of the game were known as Kristallkern, which remains in-game during the end credits. A conversion for the Sega Mega Drive was released a year later in 1990, which included new features such as additional stages and an arranged soundtrack. Met with mixed reviews from critics — although the game was praised for its graphics, fast-paced gameplay and soundtrack, it was criticized for lacking originality and for being unable to stand out among other similar games.

• Title — Dangerous Seed • Developer — Namco • Publisher — Namco • Designer — Yuichiro Shinozaki • Composer — Yoshinori Nagumo • Platforms — Arcade, Sega Mega Drive • Genre — Scrolling shooter • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer • Arcade System — Namco System 1 • Released — December 1989Mega DriveDecember 18, 1990

• Illustration — Arcade version screenshot Dangerous Seed is a vertically scrolling shooter video game. The player controls a fleet of ships — Alpha, Beta and Gamma — as they must wipe out the alien race known as Danger Seed before they destroy all of mankind. Each ship features different attack types; Alpha has a standard shot, Beta has a V-shaped laser weapon, and Gamma has the ability to shoot forwards and backwards. All three also have a health meter that will deplete when they are inflicted with enemy fire, and having one of the ships destroyed will cause the player to take control of the next ship. If all three ships are destroyed, the game will be over. The three ships can also find power capsules by destroying large "Turtle" enemies that upgrade their abilities, such as homing missiles, "ring lasers" that track enemies, and a melt-missile that dissolves enemies when they are hit. The game spans twelve stages, known as "tubes" in-game, each taking place in planets found in the Solar System. The fifth tube combines the player's ships into a single craft named the Moon Diver, which features all of the weapons and abilities of the three ships and a large health bar. Each tube features a boss fight at the end, which must be destroyed in a certain amount of time before it flees and deducts points from the player's score. Bosses have weak points which must be destroyed before completely defeating it.

Dangerous Seed was released by Namco for arcades only in Japan in December 1989. It was designed by Yuichiro Shinozaki, who was a character designer for the Babylonian Castle Saga franchise. The game was originally known as Kristallkern in early prototypes, with the end credits still retaining this name — the credits also hint at a follow-up with a vague "To be continued" message, but a sequel was never released. The soundtrack was composed by Yoshinori Nagumo, which was re-released by Victor Entertainment in 1990. A Sega Mega Drive conversion was released exclusively in Japan on December 18, 1990, adding new features such as additional stages and an arranged soundtrack.