Mega Man-style action platformer x dating sim Radiant Starlets announced for PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC
Kickstarter campaign seeking $100,000 CAD in funding.
Buster X Buster, a Toronto-based studio made up of games industry veterans, has announced Radiant Starlets, a Mega Man-style side-scrolling action platformer with dating simulation elements. It is planned for release across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC via Steam. A Kickstarter campaign seeking $100,000 CAD in funding is currently live.
Here is an overview of the game, via Buster X Buster:
About
A Mega Man-style action platformer with a dating sim twist.
Power up and hook up.
Story
Welcome to the futuristic world of Radiant Starlets, an HD-2D-style action platformer in the vein of classic Mega Man games but you can date all the bosses!
Jump, dash, and dodge your way through eight action-packed stages and escape the clutches of those who would possess you for themselves. Your skills, timing, and agility are the key to your success!
Radiant Starlets is designed with replayability in mind. Each playthrough with a different romantic partner will have you unlock new minigames armor sets, and a unique ending.
Narrative
Radiant Starlets is set in a world facing challenges that develop from its advanced technological progress.
In a bleak future where the world’s population is on the brink of collapse, you play as Dream, the only Perfect Companion Robot ever built; designed to be the ideal partner. You must avoid the grip of the Starlets who seek to claim you as their own.
Your permanent power supply has been broken and split into eight pieces that you need to retrieve or else you will run out of power within the year. Each piece that you gather will bring you closer to understanding what you really are.
Explore the stages and find your armor sets and upgrades for your health and power-ups. Uncover secret routes and collect your parts so that you can continue to survive and escape your would-be captors, as well as learn a bit more about your potential partner!
Gameplay
In Radiant Starlets, you are equipped with two phase cannons. These excel at ranged combat and will be necessary to neutralize your enemies. These cannons can expel different kinds of energy and be modified for even greater capabilities.
- Traverse Challenging Environments – Play eight main stages and face against Starlet Overdrive, a world-famous S-Pop group bent on obtaining Dream for themselves.
- Per-Relationship Speed-Runs – Each partner provides a separate speed run and endings. With Radiant Starlets, you’re encouraged to try every boss order. Replay to experience each partner’s armor set, minigame, and story.
- Partner Specific Mini Games – Each partner has a custom mini game, designed to unlock partner-specific power-ups and narrative.
- Armor Designed by your Partner – Each partner playthrough will have a custom armor set with unique properties, creating variances in gameplay between runs.
- Custom Partner Charge Shot – Each partner provides you with a custom charge shot that you blast!
- Get Power Ups From Each Boss – The Starlets have all modified Dream’s power source to power their equipment. When he retrieves them he will get a part of their powers.
- Endings for Each Romantic Partner – Each Romantic partner provides narrative changes and their own distinct ending.
World
The world of Radiant Starlets is different than our own. Dense populations exist in city clusters but the birthrates all over the planet are staggeringly low. An increasingly aging population puts pressure on social programs sending the world into disarray.
Cities are full of people distracting themselves, growing more self-centered. You’ll get to explore locations from all over this world, learn its lore, and interact with and learn about the immensely popular Starlets.
Locations include:
- Revorit – Once the vehicle manufacturing capital of the world. Now it’s in complete disarray. Highways are fragmented shells of what they once were. Once populous, now completely barren. Daneka used her racing winnings to buy the now abandoned desolate city, both for its history, but also to build the world’s largest and most dangerous race track. Now it’s only populated by her and her vehicle robot hybrids. Look out for pitfalls, patrolling vehicles and hazardous chasms while you approach Daneka.
- Neon Flowronto – A non-stop party, Flowronto never sleeps. It’s streets are dominated by restaurants, events, arts, and nightlife. Nyannaly bought up a city block and turned it into her studio as well as endless party flats. People relentlessly dance, coming night after night to the sleepless city. A city populated with lights and streams of automated vehicles filling the sky going from event to event. Jump, climb, and evade the challenges and obstacles Nyannaly laid out as you ascend to her studio and challenge her for her piece of your core.
- More to come!
Boss Order
Select your boss order! The order in which you challenge bosses will change who you can date.
As this is also an action platformer, we’ll endeavor to make it so that the actual dating does not mean a sea of text to drown in. Instead, it means minigames in between missions to unlock boosts, brief but tantalizing story elements, and armor sets as your relationship progresses.
Players will need to get a scope of different stages to find things to power up and unlock partners. You may find some Starlets more daunting than others as your first challenge, so you may find it easier to change up the order in which you play until you’ve mastered their moveset.
Games like this are played to be enjoyed but also to be mastered, encouraging you to play it again and again to find everything and shave off every second you can.
Each Partner represents a different playtime for speedruns. My history with Mega Man games is one where, ultimately, you end up playing the fastest route over and over after figuring out your best route. One of the goals of Radiant Starlets is to break open the map based on your choice of partner and their associated powers, encouraging you to try every path and date every partner to speed up each route as best as you can.
Radiant Starlets mixes action platformer games like Mega Man with romantic hybrid games like Persona and Fire Emblem (though Radiant Starlets acknowledges that some people just want to go fast, and the dating dialogue is skippable) and amounts to fast, fun stage incentives and short, snappy minigames which reward you with armors and attacks. All in all, it creates a wide variety of experiences for each time you play the game.
Each Armor Set will have some changes to movement and attacks, providing a movement change (ex. Double Jump, Up Dash, Hover), as well as providing a unique charge shot that may open up sections of levels or make some challenges and encounters easier.
Dates are short minigames and your performance on them will provide level buffs, as well as increase your relationship progress, which is necessary to unlock your charge shot and armor set.
Characters
- Dream
- Role – ???
- Power – ?????
- Speed – ?????
- Description – Dream was designed to be a Companion Helper Robot. His design was based on aggregated preferences for S-pop stars and drama actors in order to be ideally attractive in the North Eastern and Eastern Regions of the planet. Due to declining birth rates and political dissent, he was the only model ever designed. He was put away in storage in an undisclosed location; however, after being so thoroughly covered in all forms of media, his location was leaked to the most elite bidders for an exorbitant price. Little is known about him, and he knows less about himself. He has little time to discover himself, though, as he must obtain his power core parts or he won’t last long enough to find out.
- Rika
- Role – Mechanical Engineer
- Power – ?????
- Speed – ?????
- Description – Having lost her arm when it was crushed in a work accident, Rika built herself a robotic arm to continue her work. She immediately took an interest in Dream but felt terrible for his fate. She found Dream’s location first and made modifications to him so he would be able to defend himself from his pursuers.
- Daneka
- Role – Racer
- Power – 6,000
- Speed – 100
- Description – Daneka is a world-renowned racer, having won the last 7 Moto-XP competitions. She used her massive earnings to buy up the abandoned City of Revorit, which was known for its history of automobile manufacturing. Daneka has turned the city into her personal racetrack, and now she is looking for someone who can keep up with her but isn’t after her for personal gain.
- Dating Mini Game – For Daneka’s date mini game, you’ll need to beat her in motorcycle races to maximize your relationship and unlock your armor and charge shot.
- Nyannaly
- Role – World-renowned DJ
- Power – 12,000
- Speed – 40
- Description – Nyannaly is the most energetic and talented DJ in the world, constantly traveling from place to place playing electrifying gigs. She’s built a reputation as an unstoppable force of the nightlife at every party she graces with her presence; however, beneath her vibrant exterior lies a deep emotional void. She’s never met anyone who can match her intensity; no one with enough energy to keep up, and so when she hears about Dream, she becomes fixated. As a (Perfect Robotic Companion), Dream doesn’t tire, so to he,r he represents an ideal partner; someone who can finally match her pace.
- Dating Mini Game – For Nyannaly’s date mini-game, you need to prove your rhythm to her to increase your relationship, unlock new dialogue, and get your armor set.
Watch the announcement trailer below.