Gley Lancer

Gley Lancer[b] is a 1992 scrolling shooter video game originally developed by NCS Corporation, published in Japan by Masaya and in South Korea by Samsung for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis.

It follows Lucia Cabrock, daughter of Earth Federation Navy admiral Ken, who disappeared while fighting in a war between humans and an unknown alien race that possess the ability to teleport, joined by her friend Teim on a journey to save her father by stealing a starfighter.

Gley Lancer was produced by Toshiro Tsuchida, who left Masaya in 1993 to found G-Craft, a company known for creating the Front Mission and Arc the Lad franchises.

The plot revolves around Lucia Cabrock, daughter of Earth Federation Navy admiral Ken, who disappeared while fighting in a war between humans and an unknown alien race that possess the ability to teleport.

[1][2][3] The player takes control of the Gley Lancer space fighter craft through nine stages over a constantly scrolling background, populated with an assortment of enemies and obstacles, and the scenery never stops moving until a boss is reached, which must be fought in order to progress further.

[1][3] A key gameplay mechanic to Gley Lancer are satellite options called "Gunners", which are activated by shooting silver and blue pods in order to pick up various types of weapons.

[16] In 2019, the original Mega Drive version was re-released by Columbus Circle on June 6 as a limited run of 2500 copies, featuring a new cover art illustrated by Hiroshi Aizawa.

[12] Sega Pro's James Scullion lauded the game's visuals for its fast scrolling and introduction sequence, soundtrack, voice samples, gameplay options, controls, and difficulty, but criticized the bosses for being easy.

[33] In contrast to the other reviewers, Mean Machines Sega's Julian Rignall and Radion Automatic commended the presentation and controls, but were critical of the "poor" sprites and graphical effects as well as backgrounds for their inconsistent quality.

[32] Readers of the Japanese Sega Saturn Magazine voted to give Gley Lancer a 7.4341 out of 10 score, ranking among Mega Drive games at the number 215 spot in a 1995 public poll.

Nintendo Life's Damien McFerran found the game to be graphically impressive due to its anime-style introduction reminiscent of a Sega Mega-CD title, detailed sprites and parallax scrolling, while noting the wide array of gameplay options for the player.

[22] Kerry Brunskill of Nintendo Life lauded the number of options for flexibility but saw the inability to play the original version without the English translation to be a negative aspect of the port.

Gameplay screenshot of the original Sega Mega Drive version