Burning Rangers

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Burning Rangers

Developer(s)	Sonic Team
Publisher(s)	Sega
Designer(s)	Naoto Ohshima
Release date(s)	February 26, 1998 May 1998 June 1998
Genre(s)	Action
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone (E) ELSPA: 11+
Platform(s)	Sega Saturn
Media	CD-ROM
Input	Control pad, 3D Control Pad

Burning Rangers is a video game developed by Sonic Team for the Sega Saturn. The player takes on the role of a new recruit to the futuristic firefighting organization of the title, and must explore locations where various emergencies have taken place, extinguishing fires and rescuing survivors.

The game is set in a futuristic society in which fire is one of the few major hazards remaining. The Burning Rangers are an elite group of firefighters who have been formed to help cope with such emergencies. The core members of the team are Chris Partn, Big Landman and Lead Phoenix (also known as Reed); as well as two new recruits, Shou Amabane and a woman called Tillis. The latter two are the only characters playable initially, although the others may be unlocked through the use of a password feature. Other major characters within the game include Iria Klein and Neal Belmondo, and there are many cameo appearances from Sonic Team staff including Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima.

The game is notable for its random level generation system, which is unlocked after completing the game once. To help the player find their way around these unfamilar stages, a navigation system was included - at any time, the player may radio back to Chris, who will provide helpful information about nearby hazards and objectives. In a technical sense, Burning Rangers is also notable as one of the few Saturn games to have transparency effects (the fire effects). The Saturn did have hardware support for transparency, but it was limited to 2D objects and was overly CPU intensive. Given the complex multi-cpu architecture of the console, true transparency was rarely used in commercial games, Burning Rangers being one of the few that used it.^{[citation needed]}

Released in early 1998 to mixed reviews and a dwindling number of Saturn owners, to date the title has not received a sequel. However, a downloadable mission making many references to Burning Rangers was created for Sonic Team's Phantasy Star Online.

The game's characters were designed by Hiroyuki Ochi. Sonic Team have stated in interviews that they intended the silhouette of a Burning Ranger wearing their "Burneer Unit" jet-pack to resemble that of an angel.^[1]

[edit] Trivia

The voice cast of the Japanese version is comprised entirely of big name seiyuu - pop stars who are usually adept at both singing and acting.
The game was possibly influenced by the popular Super Sentai genre.
One of the downloadable quests in Sonic Team's Phantasy Star Online is called "Central Dome Fire Swirl", a Burning Rangers-themed mission in which the Rangers' Chris Partn asks the player to extinguish fires and rescue victims. The background music to this mission is the Japanese language version of the Burning Rangers song "Angels With Burning Hearts". [2]
Two of the three vocal songs from Burning Rangers are included and remixed in Sonic Pinball Party, listed as: "(Angels with) Burning Hearts" and "We Are Burning Rangers".