Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi

Poor Doraemon, he didn't deserve this, and he just didn't deserve a game that is this bad and being the Sonic '06 of his franchise.

### Protagonist(s)

Doraemon
Nobita
Gian
Shizuka
Suneo

### Platform(s)

PlayStation
Sega Saturn

### Release

February 16, 1996 (PS1)
March 15, 1996 (Sega Saturn)

### Successor

Doraemon 2: SOS! Otogi no Kuni

Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi is a video game developed by SAS Sakata and published by Epoch on February 16, 1996 for the PlayStation, followed by a reprint on December 3, 1998, and for the Sega Saturn on March 15, 1996 only in Japan.

## Gameplay

Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi is a platformer with action game elements, and it's play similary to the SNES games, despite being a bit different than them.

## Plot

During winter vacation, Nobita and his friends agree to Gian's proposal to "adventure an unknown planet" and go on a space trip. However, during the flight, the spaceship collides with something and breaks down. Nobita and his friends crash-land on a nearby star, but when they go to look around, they are attacked by mysterious robots on that planet. At that moment, a robot named Pretan appears.

## Why It Doesn't Deserve Dorayaki

1. Ugly and absolutely terrible graphics for a PS1 and Sega Saturn game released in 1996, to the point of even being a massive downgrade from the SNES Doraemon games, even Sonic 3D Blast, a game for the Sega Saturn and Sega Genesis, looks better than this.
	* Not to mention, some of the bosses look unfinished in the PS1 or Saturn version; for example, the first boss in the first level had better modeling than the Saturn version.
	* Some of the 3D models, mainly the bosses, disappear randomly, making the kids even more scared, this show how rushed this game probably was.
	* Also, making a combinaison of both 2D and 3D if the graphics are ugly and horrible is an extremely bad idea even for a PS1 game, some games like Klonoa: Door to Phantomile or even Mario Party on N64 had this style of graphics, in these games howewer it's was much better executed and the graphics in both games are beautiful.
	* Also the 3D is even worst than the terrible 2D graphics of this game since they are extremely polygonal and horrendous to look at, in fact it so bad that it's almost comparable to Bubsy 3D, which say a lot.
	* Games such as Tekken along with it sequel, Bomberman World, Rayman, Ridge Racer, Crash Bandicoot, Rapid Reload and Twisted Metal all look better and these we're released beetwen 1994-1996.
	* Even games such as Asterix on Master System, Bomberman '94, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 along with it sequel, Kirby Super Star, Pac-Mania, Mega Man 2 and Mega Man: The Wily Wars and the Doraemon SNES games all look better and ***these we're released beetwen 8 and 16-bits, and some of these games we're in the 80s***.
2. Awful 2D sprites for all the characters; they feel like they were either ripped from a Mode 7 SNES intro, or either being ripped from Mortal Kombat but it's doesn't fit the Doraemon characters.
	* Doraemon sprite, much like the other characters, is a massive downgrade from his SNES games counterpart, since here you can barely see his face and he more blurry than the SNES games, as in these games, he along with his friends look like they we're drawn with hands.
	* Nobita sprite, while a bit better than that of Doraemon, is still poor since he look arkward and very blurry again, not to mention that again you can barely see his face.
	* Suneo sprite is even worst than both Doraemon and Nobita sprites, since his colors sheme is very washed out and downright creepy, and again you can barely see his face but this problem here is much worst than both Nobita and Doraemon sprites.
	* Shizuka sprite is quite poor since much like every other characters, and her colors sheme is washed out, not to mention that you can barely see her face but this problem was cranked to eleven for her, compared to most of the other characters.
	* Gian sprite is definitely one of the worst one, since you barely see his face (even more than Suneo, Nobita and Doraemon), and his colors sheme is very washed out, since it's almost look like he wear a red shirt, rather than a orange shirt.
3. There's too many enemies on screen, much like Fantasia on the Genesis (although in this case, that game was even worst than this Doraemon game), which can make the game pretty difficult for no reasons at all, especially if you would struggle killing them if there are many enemies on the screen.
	* In fact, the Saturn version has fewer enemies than the PS1 version, meaning that the PS1 version has artificial difficulty, which is one of the worst type of difficulty to ever doing.
	* This also cause many difficulty spike in a lot of levels, especially the level 7 where it extremely terrible and make this level way too difficult, especially in the PS1 version, making this version almost worse than the Sega Saturn port (which is even worst due to the abysmal framerate, see more info about that below).
4. The intro is absolutely terrible and the absolute worst you can ever seen in a Doraemon game, since all you see is Doraemon fly with an extremely poor animation that is almost comparable to the horrible intro and animation of The 3D Adventures of Sailor Moon which also had an extremely terrible intro that is even worse than this Doraemon game intro, with horrible animation, in fact no words can describe how awful the intro is, especially compared to the awesome SNES games that had great intro.
	* Not to mention that Doraemon model is quite creepy and can be nightmare fuel for some childrens, and in some cases, the adults, since he barely had any face expression and he does a creepy smile (it would never had been if it wasn't for his awful character model in this intro).
	* The only thing that isn't bad about the intro is that there's the Doraemon theme song, which is even more faithful than the SNES games, since the PS1 had CD quality speakers. Although it's doesn't say much.
	* The colors palette is again off, just like the rest of the game, since it's almost washed out and downright hideous with horrendous lightning and with the awful animation given to Doraemon, it's make this even worst to look at.
5. If you jump from the back, you will most likely fall instead of landing on another platform. Even if you use the camera, it's useless. So it's based on luck if you land on the platform, this is a perfect exemple of how not to do good controls for making an awesome game.
	* This is also likely because of the awful controls of this game that are extremely broken compared to most Doraemon games, since in other Doraemon platformer, it was both stiff and was quite tight compared to this game, see the pointer below that say why the controls are poor.
	* It's also doesn't helped by the terrible level design and gameplay mechanics that are extremely bad and the jumps is so clunky that you may accidently get hit by ennemies sometime or in the level 6, you will probably had a hard time to jump on the jelly not only because of the awful jumps controls but also the poor collision detection and hit-detection.
6. Altrough they are okay and not the worst, the controls are still pretty poor and are a massive downgrade from the SNES games, especially from Doraemon 2: Nobita no Toys Land Daibouken and Doraemon 3: Nobita to Toki no Hougyoku and to a lesser extand, Doraemon 4: Nobita to Toki no Okoku and last one, Doraemon: Nobita to Yousei no Kuni. Doraemon and his friends are very slippery to control, and when they run, they are so fast that it can make you get a cheap death.
	* This is especially true with the jump, since this game was so badly made compared to the SNES games that it's even goes as far as making the jumps really stiff and clunky.
	* Even the mouvements is slippery since you may accidently fall in a pit due to how terrible they are, especially if you playing with Suneo or Shizuka, as they are the fastest characters and they can have this problem being bigger for them due to this reason.
	* The controls also feel and possibly are unresponsive sometime since they are so massively downgraded from the SNES games, this will especially be a problem for levels 6, 7 and possibly the level 8.
7. The Sega Saturn version has way too much slowdown and had an absolutely abysmal framerate, much like Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis (which is somehow even worst than this game), Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Sega Saturn) and Mortal Kombat on Game Boy (although that port wasn't as bad as this game and was just flawed to say the least) compared to the PS1 version. In fact it's so bad that it's one of the main reason why this game was considered to be one of the worst games on the Sega Saturn and even one of the worst Doraemon games (this also count for the PS1 version).
	* This is especially noticeable when you are in the level 1, where it's feel like there's only 20 or even 15 fps, almost as bad as Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis!
8. The credits sequence is extremely long, and ***last 7 minutes***, not even the 16-bits Doraemon games had a credits sequence this long, not to mention that at the times it was one of the longest credits sequence due to how bad the sequence really is.
9. All you do in each level is get to the goal ring. That's it. No sections where you fly with the Take-Copter, no minigames, nothing; just get to the goal ring and the level is finished, even the SNES games had some of these gameplay phases, showing how low efforts this game is.
10. Weapons other than the "Atar Gun" are really poor and underpowered.
	* The "Atar Gun" is a weapon that fires bullets that automatically track the enemy, but since the attack power is the same for all weapons, there is no reason to use other weapons that are difficult to hit. Especially since "Atar Gun" has the fastest rate of fire.
	* For the time being, the ``shock gun*, which stops the enemy's movement, is the only countermeasure against obstacles that cannot be defeated, and the ``air cannon*, which allows bullets to penetrate the enemy in a straight line, has many bullets lined up. If there is, it can be wiped out and there are uses.
	* However, even with that in mind, the "Atar Gun", which can home even enemies off-screen or on a different line, is overwhelmingly too convenient. In addition, "Small Light" has a fairly short firing range and cannot be fired continuously, so there is no way to follow up.
	* It was thought that this was the case, but in fact, a later verification with the PS reprint revealed that it was possible to defeat enemies in the underground ruins, which normally cannot be defeated, if they were in a stationary state. In this case, using the ``Atar Gun *will only increase the damage, and if the enemy moves, you will have to use the ``Shock Gun* to deal with it, but before you make any moves, you can use the ``Small Light *to deal with it easily. It is also highly effective against trash that falls from orbital elevators, and can deal 5 damage where other weapons would do 1 damage and special weapons would have no effect. However, there are no hints, so if you don't know about it, you won't notice it.*
11. Horrible compressed images in the PS1 version, much like Ojamajo Doremi Dokkan: Nijiiro Paradise on the same console (even though that game came out in 2002 and the image quality was not as bad as this game).
12. Playing as Doraemon's friends is useless, just like in Doraemon 2: Nobita and the Toy Kingdom (despite being an awesome game). Gian, Shizuka, Nobita, and Suneo are just reskins of Doraemon, so why can't each character have their own abilities?
	* Gian cannot punch enemies and use his singing as an on-screen kill or pick-up and throw things, even though he's the strongest (in the manga).
	* Shizuka cannot slap enemies with a melee or stun attack, even though she is the fastest of all characters.
	* Suneo cannot have a double jump or have the ability to use the invisible cloth for a short time.
	* Nobita, since he's the slowest character in the series, can't outrun Gian and can't defend himself at all, and yet he cannot use the air pistol or the toy troops to defend himself.
13. Most characters have no weight to them, as they fall like rocks. Much like Bubsy in Bubsy 3D.
14. The loading times are long, and they are on par with Sonic '06 or Mega Man X7's loading times, meaning players can be a bit bored while looking at the loading screens, thanks to how long they are.
	* On top of that, most, if not all, of the characters on the loading screen look like plush, especially Doraemon himself (though at least he looks really funny).
	* Not to mention that it's even more boring to look at than these both games since they are very bland with only a blue background and a character. That it, nothing else.
15. The perspective is quite poor for most levels and you can't see the next foothold to jump to and end up falling.
	* There is a viewpoint change button, which allows you to check the line in front of you, but it cannot be used unless you stop and it only temporarily widens your field of view, so it is not very useful.
	* In some stages, it is necessary to climb onto the roof of a glass scaffolding, but the hole in the roof is difficult to see, so you have to jump many times to figure out where the hole is.
16. The Saturn version's voice clips are of noticeably worse quality than the PS1 version, due to heavy compression, due to obiously being in less good quality when it's came for the audio.
17. Terrible hit-detection that is much worst than the SNES games and to a lesser extand, the Sega Genesis game, since here it's will sometime not hit an ennemy or you will normaly land on a platform but fall off due to how bad it can be, this is possibly because of how bad the jump is.
18. The gameplay is like a poor man version of Mega Man, mostly due to the weapons, while the SNES games have some weapons that are like Mega Man, it was still original and doesn't feel like a rip-off, unlike this game.
19. There's many levels with terrible level design, especially on the PS1 version. These include:
	* The level 1 is pretty much a maze and it's very tedious to playtrough, since it's very easy to get lost and the awful camera doesn't help either, it's also had tedious gimmicks and mechanics that is extremely awful, although this is not even the worst level of the game.
	* The level 3 where you get runned by a gigantic dangerous creature, but you will lose a few of the characters because it's impossible to not die in that level, and also the first part of the level is not any better.
	* The level 4: in that level you can choose your own level. The water level is the worst one because it's so easy to get lost and you can easily kill your playtrough with it. It's also very maze-like, and it's quite frustrating due to how bad it is.
		+ The train level is no better as there's a lot of enemies that come at you, especially in the PS1 version due to having more enemies than the Sega Saturn version, and if you fall into the pits, then you have to restart the entire level, not to mention that it's had a horrible boss fight at the end.
	* The level 5 is filled with awful boss fights that are extremely hard and extremely easy at the same time, which make the game unbalanced difficulty, especially if you stop moving, then you will probably fall to your death, so it's based on luck for not screwing up.
	* The level 6 is one of the absolute worst levels of the entire game. You have to go up and destroy the jelly things, and if you fail to jump on them, then you ***jump on the tower and you can easily die***, making absolutely no sence, even by Doraemon standards and it's causing a lot of damage to you. There's also enemies all over the place, and they can kill you very easily due to how badly placed they are, and if you lose all of the characters, you have to restart the entire level. It's also far too long and tedious.
	* The level 7 is even worse than the level 6; it's one of, if not the worst level of the entire game, as you have to destroy some blocks at the right time and you can easily get killed by nothing. The level is also filled with a lot of traps, kind of like Mega Man X6.
	* The level 8 is pretty bad too, though not as bad as stage 7. You need to desactivate the bomb, and there's 12 of them. The problem is that it's again poorly designed, and the game doesn't give you enough time to make it easily without losing a character.
20. In this game, all ***your remaining lives is a character.***
	* What this means is that if you make a mistake while operating Doraemon, you will be replaced by Nobita, who is next in line, and if you make a mistake with Nobita, Gian will be next...
	* In other words, the number of aircraft remaining is always fixed at 5 aircraft. It is useful if you consider that you can recover to 5 aircraft each stage, but it also has a big disadvantage that you cannot increase it to more than 5 aircraft.
	* If you want to play as a specific character, you will need to make repeated mistakes until that character appears . What's more, you can't even choose the order or characters to replace.
	* Perhaps because of this system, the only difference between characters is their special tools, and there are no differences in performance such as jumping power or movement speed.
	* In the Doraemon SNES games, character selection, performance differences, and remaining life systems were common, so it can be said that this is a pure deterioration.
	* Actually, there is a slight difference in the hit detection. Doraemon and Gian are at a disadvantage as their judgment is large as it looks. In the boss battle in the underground ruins, if you don't move at all after the battle starts, your opponent's attacks won't hit you, but these two characters occasionally take damage. Even in the forest boss fight, you can avoid the opponent's charge by jumping at the right time, but these two are the only ones who can't avoid it and take damage, making it even more of a problem considering how difficult the boss fights are.
21. The cutscenes are very boring to watch as it's just dialogue for at least 3 to 5 minutes at best and 10 to 13 minutes at worst. Why not make 2D animated cutscenes instead, like the show? It would have been a lot more fun to watch considering how good the show was. Fortunately, the sequel got real animated cutscenes; sadly, it wouldn't be in 2D.
	* It's wasn't until Kid Station: Doraemon where it's finally got traditional animated cutscenes (although unfortunately it's only an intro).
22. To skip the cutscenes on the PS1 version, you need to press the start and select buttons at the same times that the game doesn't indicate that, and for some, they would consider that the cutscenes are unskipable.
23. There's not any final boss, which is underwhelming for a game like this. To add insult to injury, the Quatrilogy on SNES has a proper final boss compared to this game, which again show how much low efforts put into this game, not to mention that it's already look like it's the Sonic '06 of the Doraemon franchise, speaking of that...
24. Due to how bad and looking like it was rushed, this game is possibly the closest to the Sonic '06 of the franchise, even more than Doraemon Kart 2, not to mention the bad story, the terrible gameplay mechanics and the list goes on to describe how rushed this game seem to be.
25. Shizuka's exclusive secret tool, Hirari Cloak,' is extremely overpowered in this game.
	* The power of each weapon is finely adjusted depending on the type of weapon, how much gauge is filled, and the difficulty level, but Shizuka's Hirari Mantle has exactly the same power at all difficulties when the gauge is 1, and when the gauge is 2 The strongest except for the special secret tools mentioned above. Especially on the "difficult" difficulty level, it is 2.5 to 5 times more powerful than common secret tools, 1.666 times more powerful than gauge 1 of other characters' exclusive secret tools, and even more powerful than gauge 2. It is especially effective during boss battles due to the enemy's invincibility time.
	* For this reason, if you are choosing based on performance, Shizuka will be your better choice, especially since the other characters aren't that overpowered, not even Doraemon himself.
		+ Gauge 2's performance is exactly the same as Gauge 1's power, only the motion is longer, and if anything, it is weakened. However, in practical terms, this poses almost no problem.
26. Extremely short lenght, and the game is even shorter than the SNES games if you skip the cutscenes, as there's only 8 levels (9 if you count level 0) and you can complete the game in 1h30m or 2 hours (at least when you leave the cutscenes playing)
27. Compared to most Doraemon games, the story is bad and not that great, though not as bad as Doraemon Kart 2. Basically, Gian's proposing an adventure to an unknown planet, and his friends accept it, but the spaceship collides with something and breaks down. Then they crash-land on a nearby star, and they are attacked by mysterious robots. This is a major downgrade compared to the SNES quatrilogy, which had all a great story (especially 2 and 3), and it's more developed than this game. This shows that the game was probably rushed to be released in 1996 due to Doraemon 4 on SNES coming out on December 14, 1995, and this game came out on February 16, 1996, and in 3 months, this game was made.
	* And off course, you can't get a bad story in a Doraemon game without even having a plot hole, since this game story is full of plot hole and is all over the placed.
		+ How can the misterious robots think that Doraemon and his friends are bad guys? Did they even tried to take them off? No since there are no final boss and the ennemies in the levels 7 barely ressemble them.
		+ How did they get back to their planet in the end? Does it was off screen?
	* Speaking of plot holes, sometime you doesn't even know how Doraemon and his friends go to another place after you beat a level, making the story even more confusing, while some Doraemon medias have confusing moments, this game take them in a whole next level.
28. Unlike Doraemon 4 on SNES, there are no level select screen, which is a really bad choice considering that you had to replay the entire game just to play another levels.
29. You can choose a level before going to the level 4 but the problem is that all the levels that it's offer are downright awful, especially the water ones, you better had to choose the train level instead for having less trouble to beat the game.
30. Due to mostly being cutscenes other than actual gameplay, the game can be extremely short and absolutely lacking in contents to the point of making this game even more terrible than it's already is.
31. The new character, Pretan that join Doraemon and friends in their adventure is quite bland, since it's does not that much impact to the story for the most parts, at least until the end of this game, and again much like new characters from a Doraemon game, it's never appear in any other games and even less in the manga and the anime.
32. Despite having some decent bosses, most of them are poor or extremely atrocious at worst since some of them are really challenging but in a horrible way, this include but not limited to:
	* The boss fight from the level 0 is extremely bland and there's no words about how awful this boss is, since all you do is killing ennemies that it's throw, this is probably the easiest boss fight of the entire game.
	* The boss fight from the level 1 is absolutely terrible and one of,if not, the hardest boss fight of the entire game since you must jump on his hand but the problem is that he take them away and gave you a lot of trouble to beat it, not to mention that he make some rock falling off.
	* The boss fight from the level 3 is extremely terrible and there's almost no way to lose someone because of how bad the boss really is, basically it's a dinosaur and it's run extremely fun to the point that you can barely escape, you can still trying to shoot at it but it's better to trying running away for most of the time, at least if you hasn't lost a character in the level before.
	* The boss fight from the level 4 is one of the absolute worst of the game since you had to shut down two train (which doesn't really make any sense by the way) and they throw rocks litteraly everywhere that you almost can't dodge them, if you lost all your characters and you only get Doraemon or someone else, then it's be a nightmare to beat it.
	* The boss from the level 5 is also very terrible and it's one of the most excellent exemple to describe about how bad an artificial difficulty can be for a boss fight, since here you had to run and had perfect timing to not fall off the platforms since they shut down and considering that the controls can be unresponsive sometime, it's make this even worst, you also need to dodge it's punchs that it's give to you to not falling off, howewer this is not the end since there are another one in the middle of the stage.
		+ The other boss fight from the middle of the stage is ***11 times worst***, since you need to shot it but it's run fast and can hit you very easily, not to mention that it's make the level longer, which is considered to be a padding.

## Redeeming Qualities

1. Nice voice acting; every character's voice actor sounds decent. Well, at least on the PS1 version due to being less compressed.
2. The story could possibly have been better if it's wasn't for the plot holes and the absolutely bland execution.
3. The game had potential but was very badly executed due to how glitchy and rushed this game seem to be.
4. The reason why this game seem to be extremely rushed can possibly be explained since it was released only 3 months after Doraemon 4: Nobita in the Moon Kingdom which was released in December 1995 and this game was released in February 1996, this could also explain why this game is bad.
5. The screen we're you save is pretty cute, as you see Doraemon playing one of his games (possibly this game) with a cute happy face, this would later be used for a loading screen in Boku Doraemon for the Dreamcast (although it was more different due to having a different art style from this game and having the exact same style of the 1979 series).
6. The fact that you can choose the level for the level 2, 3 and 4 can give replay values to the game, and not in a bad way.
7. Great soundtrack, it's also the best part of the game considering how bad this game is.
8. The sequel was a massive improvement over this game, with better graphics, better gameplay, better story, a proper length that isn't about mostly the cutscenes and the game was better in almost every way. However, the sequel would have one hit kill, which kill the game a bit but not to the point of making that game being bad or mediocre, since it was still good.
9. The ending is the only cutscene of the game that isn't so bad, only if you know Japanese; otherwise, that drags on for too long.
10. Doraemon in the loading screen look very funny with his face and his model rendition, he also the funniest looking characters out of the 5 one in the loading screen, and one of the cutest.
11. The logo is quite nice along with the title screen that look cool, and these are probably some of the only parts of the game where it look alright.

## Reception

Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi was panned by Japanese critics and websites for its terrible graphics, bad story, and terrible gameplay mechanics. The Sega Saturn version in particular receives overwelmingly negative reviews from critics due to the massive slowdown that makes the game almost unplayable and even more awful. Sega-Mag, a French website, gave the game a 2/10 and concluded: There is nothing to do; even if it has some good ideas, full voice acting, and a nice OST, its mediocre production and catastrophic game/level design make it one of the most dispensable platform games on the Saturn. There is so much better on 32-bit that it would be a shame to waste your time on it.

In fact, the game was so badly received that it's sometime considered along with Doraemon Kart 2 one of the worst game of the entire franchise and the worst platformer of Doraemon, especially the Sega Saturn version due to how much slowdown it's had in comparison to the PlayStation version.

It was also a commercial success in Japan and is well know there, but it's off course obscure in the states.

## Trivia

* This is the only Doraemon game to be released on the Sega Saturn, and the second last (not counting the huge number of Sega Pico games) Doraemon game to be released on a Sega console, the last being Boku Doraemon on Dreamcast.
* This was the last Doraemon game that use the style of gameplay from the SNES games, although in this game the gameplay is a bit different.
	+ Despite that, it's not the last platformer of the franchise, the last would been a 3DS game based on the Doraemon movies.

## References

Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi on MobyGames

Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi on Doraemon Fandom

Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi on SegaRetro

Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi for PS1 on Gamefaq

Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi for Sega Saturn on Gamefaq