Sol Feace

Story

In the year 3300, human technology advances drastically when a super computer known as GCS-WT is created after an AI circuit is developed and utilized. GCS-WT's purpose was to ultimately unify every human society using the power of diplomacy, but GCS-WT has other plans: rather than unify mankind, GCS-WT turns societies into a dystopia after becoming an all-powerful dictator who controls all military action as it sees fit and oppresses mankind of various liberties; anyone who spoke against GCS-WT's will did not live very long.

Only one man was the most successful in running a campaign against GCS-WT: a scientist known as Edwin Feace. Feace had fled SOL completely and stationed himself near a recently discovered planet dubbed Cilius that awaited colonization. It was there that Feace secretly established a resistance group against GCS-WT and developed a multi-directional, dual-occupant space fighter called the Sol-Feace. The Sol-Feace was Edwin's plan to use against the GCS-WT and any who fell under its militaristic order in hopes of releasing human suppression. However, Edwin was assassinated along with thousands of colonists under GCS-WT's command before the ship could be mass-produced in a violent manhunt near the yet to be colonized planet Cilius.

Now, only the two crew members of the Sol-Feace – the pilot Eric Williams and his gunner Misao Hatanaka – stand in the way of GCS-WT's grasp over mankind.

Gameplay

Players pilot the Sol-Feace in a fight against strategic enemy fighters. Players use a dual cannon pick-up weapon that can fire shots in diagonal angles. The cannons can be positioned to fire straight or diagonally only when the ship is not firing its weapons and can fire different shots depending on the weapon.The gameplay is typical of a standard shoot 'em up, with the player advancing through the level before fighting a boss at the end of the level.

Ports and related releases

Sol-Feace was first released for the Sharp X68000. It was later ported in to the Sega CD, appearing in Japan on December 12, 1991, in North America on October 15, 1992, and in Europe on April 19, 1993. This version features rearranged Redbook background music and exclusive animated cut-scenes, as well as voice acting. The opening narration in the English release was provided by an uncredited Steven Blum, making it one of his earliest video game roles. It was included as a pack-in game with the Sega CD when it was first released in North America. In Europe the game was also bundled with Cobra Command. In 1992, the Sega CD version of Sol-Feace was ported to cartridge and released for the Sega Genesis exclusively in North America by Renovation Products as Sol-Deace (with every use of "Feace" changed to "Deace" accordingly).

The background music of all versions was later uploaded Amusement-Center's EGG Music website for purchase.

Reception

In a review of the Sega CD version for Wizard, Glenn Rubenstein described Sol-Feace as "a standard shooter with some intermissions." Remarking that the game plays decently but offers nothing new, he gave it a C+.