Keio Flying Squadron

Keio Flying Squadron is a scrolling shooter video game for the Sega/Mega CD. It was developed by Victor Entertainment and first published in Japan in 1993, and later in Europe in 1994, and North America in 1995. Two sequels, Keio Flying Squadron 2 and Rami-chan no Ōedo Sugoroku: Keiō Yūgekitai Gaiden, were released in 1996 and 1998, respectively.

The game refers to Japanese culture, both ancient and modern simultaneously.

Plot
The game is set in the Keiō era during the Edo Shogunate period of Japanese history (1865–1868). Rami Nanahikari, a naughty girl in her prime, has been raised from a young age and brought up by her grandparents to be the next Guardian of the Key to the Secret Treasure, known as "Ark", and is really a descendant of aliens who came to Earth in ancient times. She does not know the importance of the Treasure, and her overbearing grandmother does not remember what secret the Key unlocks. The Key has been stolen (while Rami was at the local convenience store), and now she must get the Key back.

Wearing her bunny girl costume, Rami rides into battle on her trusty dragon, Spot, as she encounters various enemies such as tanuki, dogs, cats, monkeys, the Seven Lucky Gods, the U.S. military forces, the Russian Army, and a serpentine dragon, until she arrives at the ship of Dr. Pon Eho, a tanuki billed as the most intelligent creature on Earth with an IQ of 1400, his appearance being appropriate for the thief that he is.

Gameplay
The game consists of Rami riding on top of Spot, who can shoot fireballs at enemies. By earning "Power-Up Items", the player increases the power of the flames to six different levels. The player can also pick up Sub-Weapons and use either the Ground Bombs, the Explosive Throwing Stars or Homing Spot Jrs. (companion fighters) depending on the type of Sub-Weapon Items available. Normally, Spot Jrs. are for covering Spot; however by pressing the "C" Button, they become powerful bullets projected forward. If surrounded by the enemy, the player can use the Kamikaze Attack, sacrificing the Spot Jrs. to do larger damage, only for them to reappear when Spot ceases to shoot.

Characters
Japanese names are given in the Western order, given name first.


 * Rami Nanahikari - An alien descendant of Noah and the grandchild of an ancient family with the mission of guarding the Key to the Secret Treasure. Rami wears a traditional kimono at the beginning of the game, and later changes into her bunny suit, the formal attire of a Key Guardian. In the Japanese version of the game she is 12 years old, while in the English versions she is 20 years old. Voiced by Miho Kanno (Japanese); Samantha Paris (English).
 * Spot Nanahikari - A dragon who has been serving the Key Guardian Clan and the Nanahikari family as a pet for many generations. Although a bit weak-minded and lazy, he is a fun guy and is always loyal to his owner Rami, having no problems with flying and shooting fireballs. He is called Pochi in the Japanese release of the game. Voiced by Akiko Hiramatsu (Japanese); Samantha Paris (English).
 * "Grandma" and "Grandpa" Nanahikari - Rami's biological grandparents who have raised her from a young age and brought her up to be the next Key Guardian. They were former Guardians themselves, continuing a long line of ancestors in the Key Guardian Clan that have kept the Treasure safe for many generations. Though they know their duty, they no longer remember the meaning of the Key. Voiced by Keiko Yamamoto (Japanese; Grandma), Yusaku Yara (Japanese; Grandpa); Roger L. Jackson (English; both).
 * Dr. Pon Eho - A super intelligent tanuki who stole the Key to the Secret Treasure and knows of its significance. His IQ is 1400. In the Japanese version, he has a speech quirk where he ends most of his sentences with "~tsupe" (～っぺ). This is not present in the English versions. Voiced by Jōji Yanami (Japanese); Roger L. Jackson (English).
 * Seven Lucky Gods - Obedient servants of Dr. Pon, consisting of Fukurokuju, Ebisu, Bishamon, Shōjō, Hotei, Benten and Daikoku.
 * Narrator - Voiced by Yusaku Yara (Japanese); Roger L. Jackson (English).

Development
Keio Flying Squadron was made by a small team of developers; director Yasushi Endo, game designer Satoru Honda, programmer Teruhito Yamaki, and composer Tsukasa Tawada, with art and graphics by Hiroshi Ogawa and Hitoshi Kakumu, and character designs by Hiromasa Ota and Takeshi Honda. Since Victor Entertainment was originally a music company named Victor Musical Industries before its merge with Nihon AVC, they had been developing products that brought out the potential of CD-ROMs. Their Research & Development department had been around for a while, but they had not done much original work, since a lot of their previous games were outsourced. Around the time of the SNES version of Dungeon Master's release, Endo, Honda, Yamaki, Tawada, Ogawa, Kakumu, technical director Yoshiaki Iwasawa, and animation technicians Yoshikatsu Matsuki and Toshimi Yokota all came together. That was when the desire to create their first original game arose.

Instead of planning the game first, the developers started coming up with ideas. According to Honda, the story was inspired by Kachi-kachi Yama, a Japanese folktale about a rabbit and a villainous tanuki. However, he believed that just because a rabbit was the main character did not mean that it had to be an actual rabbit. When he thought about rabbits, he thought about bunny girls, so he chose a bunny girl as the protagonist of the game, naming her Rami Nanahikari. When Honda thought of bunny girls, he still saw them as big-breasted older sisters, which was not the image that he wanted. He decided to have Rami as a young bunny girl without breasts, which was the cute bunny girl image that he was aiming for. He additionally stated that he thought that it would be good for Rami to wear distinctive attire that would make it easier to identify her as bisexual, and could easily be seen onscreen by players during gameplay, in a similar vein to Nintendo's Mario's nose, moustache, shirt and overalls. Rami was also going to have a slightly mature look with longer hair and fishnet stockings (later changed to tights) for her bunny suit, but those ideas were dropped, with her hairstyle changed to twintails (when wearing her kimono) and a tomboy cut (for her bunny suit). Endo did not like violent games, trying not to get involved with them, since they were seen differently in Japan. In the United Kingdom and United States, games had strict age restrictions if they included violent scenes. Japanese games with violence, on the other hand, did not, so there would be more of an outcry if a game like Mortal Kombat appeared on the shelves. The developers wanted to appeal to a wide audience, so they decided to make the game more comedic than serious, focusing more on fun than violence. Due to this, Honda had to create a worldview that made sense. He decided to have the game take place in an alternate version of the Edo Shogunate period where the Keiō era continued for a while, as he felt that it would be interesting if were set in the past rather than the future. The Keiō era was just before the Meiji Restoration, and he wanted to create a worldview that had a sense of unity, where cute and strange characters could coexist, and was, in his words, "like the eve of a festival, where people are cheering for a great cause". While the first three stages were set in the Edo Shugonate period, the other stages were, according to Endo, "like fictional parallel worlds". Endo handled the graphics and animation for the game. He came up with the basic concept on paper in the first place, then converted it onto the console. He took his inspiration for its strange creatures from his love for animation, wanting them to look as realistic as possible, although the game itself was set in the Edo Shogunate period, so in some ways it was based on a samurai warrior adventure, but the actual story was made up by Honda and takes place in the era. At the time, a lot of young Japanese preferred American or English games. In the rest of the world, people seemed to go wild over Japanese animation, especially manga and anime. Spot originally had a longer tail and larger wings. He was colored blue in the cutscenes, but due to palette limitations and to contrast some of the backgrounds' dark colors during gameplay, he was given a green color scheme instead. A robot rabbit named Usagimaru was going to be included as a Sub-Weapon, but was cut and replaced with the Explosive Throwing Stars.

For the soundtrack, Tawada wanted to make it more luxurious, so setting aside whether it would suit the game or not, the music was interwoven with classical melodies, and there were also parts that he made so that the music alone could be enjoyed by players. There was also a strong focus on Japanese sounds, with Tawada trying to direct the parts that foreigners could not create. Keio Flying Squadron used a Japanese drum-like sound, but that one had a floor tom sound that was processed to create the effect of two drumsticks being struck with a time lag trigger. The musical instruments used in the game's soundtrack were recorded using two Yamaha SY99 FM+PCM tone generation hybrid synthesizers, rather than using an Akai sampler. This gave the soundtrack a catchier atmosphere, contrary to Tawada's expectations. Endo chose to release the game on the Sega CD because it would have been difficult to fit it on a cartridge, due to the sophisticated sound. Technically, the developers would have been able to produce the game on a cartridge, but Victor was more interested in producing games on CD formats at the time. CD was still an emerging format, so developers were willing to experiment with it.

The game features animated cutscenes produced by Studio Pierrot. The voices were recorded at Magic Capsule in April 1993, provided by Miho Kanno, Akiko Hiramatsu, Jōji Yanami, Keiko Yamamoto and Yusaku Yara. While Hiramatsu, Yanami, Yamamoto and Yara were all veteran anime voice actors, Kanno was an up-and-coming idol who had made her debut as a member of the group Sakurakko Club on the variety show of the same name in 1992. She was gradually increasing her level of work outside the show while remaining in it as a regular, appearing in television dramas, commercials and gravure magazines, before she applied for the role of Rami out of curiosity. Kanno was nervous about working with the other actors, since Keio Flying Squadron was her first time voice acting, but with her natural cheerfulness, she quickly got along with everyone and had a fun time recording for the game.

When Keio Flying Squadron was released in Europe and North America, some changes were made:
 * A splash screen for the game appears after the Victor/JVC logo in the Japanese and European versions, but was removed from the North American version.
 * In the Japanese version, contact with solid terrain is fatal outside of boss fights, and most enemies flash different colors when hit. In the English versions, touching the ground does nothing, and the flashing-colors-when-hit behavior is mostly limited to bosses.
 * An animation and title card at the beginning of each stage wherein a tanuki unravels a scroll containing the title was removed.
 * Two "tutorials" by Dr. Pon explaining some mechanics and his minions from the first two stages (Tekkannon, a heavy armored chahakobi ningyō machine, and Victor's dog mascot Nipper, who rides on a tamati) were removed.
 * A few extensive monologues from Rami, Spot, Dr. Pon and Grandma before certain stages were cut, with only Rami saying the chapters' names and saying, "Push to start!" being translated.
 * The game's title logo was removed from the splash screens for the North American version.
 * A cutscene in which Rami and Spot learn about the Secret Treasure's whereabouts from the Old Testament in Edo Castle's library was removed.
 * Rami's age was changed from 12 years old to 20 years old.
 * Spot's gender was changed from male to female.
 * The U.S. military forces were renamed the "U.S. Navy".

The translation and voice recording was done at Watanabe-Robins & Associates, with the voices provided by Samantha Paris and Roger L. Jackson. Paris got the audition for Rami from her agent. She went to their office to record the audition, and was hired for the job. Jackson first trained with Paris at her school Voicetrax before he became a professional voice actor.

Release
Keio Flying Squadron was released in Japan on August 6, 1993, in Europe in December 1994, and in North America on February 5, 1995. In the United Kingdom, a playable demo disc for Keio Flying Squadron containing the first stage was provided by the Sega Pro CD magazine in its December 1994 issue. While the demo ends after the first stage, it is identical to the full version, and the whole game is accessible in the demo disc by using a level select cheat code.

In July 2020, Limited Run Games CEO Josh Fairhurst stated that he tried to get a rerelease of Keio Flying Squadron going, but JVC would not do it without official blessing from Sega.

Reception
Upon its release, the game was not commercially successful in Japan, but received critical acclaim, being praised for its visual flair, delightful soundtrack, and engaging gameplay. It received mixed-to-positive reviews in the West. However, due to the Sega CD's limited success and the game's scarce distribution, it did not reach a wide audience initially. Over time, it has attained a cult following, with collectors and retro enthusiasts seeking it out for its charm and quality.

M! Games reviewed the game, giving it a score of 71 out of 100.

Next Generation reviewed the game, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "The game received an extra star because a few bits actually made us laugh, but that's it."

The game has appeared on multiple top lists of Mega CD games. Retro Gamer included among top ten Mega CD games, calling it "a perfectly acceptable substitute" of Konami's Parodius that features "similar style of horizontally scrolling wackiness and puts the Mega-CD hardware to good use to produce some excellent cut-scenes and a brilliant CD-quality soundtrack."

Emily Rodriguez of Retro Replay stated, "Revisiting Keio Flying Squadron is like rediscovering a piece of my childhood. The game's blend of shoot 'em up action, anime aesthetics, and a wonderfully eclectic soundtrack makes it a timeless classic. It's a shame that more people didn't get to experience it during its initial release."