Old forgotten game
I'm trying to identify a game I played around 1998–2000 on a Famicom/NES clone in India. It came on a black 3-in-1 or 4-in-1 cartridge.
Here's everything I remember:
It was entirely in Japanese.
Graphics were very good compared to most NES/Famicom games.
It was a 2D side-scrolling action shooter.
The playable characters hovered/glided instead of walking.
There were more than two playable characters, each with different abilities and weapons.
One character was pink.
Another character was green with very long hair.
The characters weren't completely human-looking and wore what I remember as futuristic armor or space suits.
If my current character died (for example, by falling into a pit), I had to manually choose another character to continue. The characters became available again after restarting.
One common enemy looked like a bubble that required repeated shots to destroy.
The first stage was outdoors, but not a forest—more like rocky or alien terrain.
The opening/introduction reminded me a lot of Saint Seiya with an anime-style presentation.
Bosses were large humanoids wearing gold armor.
Boss fights switched to a completely different screen:
My character was shown from behind at the bottom-left.
The command menu (Attack, etc., in Japanese) was at the bottom-right.
The boss appeared as a large animated sprite in the upper-right.
The game had music during both the stages and the boss fights.
I also remember at least one boss seeming impossible to beat, although that could have been because I didn't understand Japanese.
Games that it is NOT:
Bucky O'Hare
Layla
Xexyz
Moon Crystal
Metal Storm
Cocoron
Ginga no Sannin
Captain Commando
Cosmo Police Galivan
Saint Seiya games
Getsu Fūma Den
At this point I suspect it may have been a Japan-only game, a pirate multicart exclusive, or a port from another Japanese computer system (MSX/PC-88/PC-98).
Does this sound familiar to anyone?