Alien Soldier is an unfinished game. As the story goes, developer Treasure was way behind schedule, and with the release of the Sega Saturn in Japan at the end of 1994, usually-patient Sega said time was up. Treasure quickly polished up what work had already been done on the game, and Sega released it on the Mega Drive in Japan on February 24, 1995. You can read more about this in my book on the history of Treasure, available here:
https://rasterscroll.com/product/legends/
First, let me give a brief introduction to Alien Soldier, which I consider to be one of the most unique games released in the 16-bit era. This is a game made for hardcore gamers by hardcore gamers—the kind of people who grew up 1cc’ing shmups in arcades. If you do not fully understand the controls and actions of Alien Soldier, you almost certainly will not make it past the first boss (who appears just 30 seconds into the game). While initially relegated to obscurity and known by only the most diehard fans, it has gained a lot of positive attention recently. It is even featured in the manga and anime series Uncle from Another World, which has exposed it to an even greater audience than ever before. Alien Soldier might not appeal to all gamers, but it is certainly worth experiencing at least once. Despite all of that, it is a clearly unfinished game.
Alien Soldier was created from the ideas of one man: Hideyuki “NAMI” Suganami. Suganami was an artist-turned-programmer who was responsible for many of the impressive bosses found in Treasure’s first game, Gunstar Heroes. After the completion of that game, he received approval from Treasure president Masato Maegawa to develop a new game all by himself. That included doing all of the programming and drawing all of the graphics. The game he had in mind was a pure boss-rush game, filled with 100 back-to-back boss fights of the sort found in Gunstar Heroes. However, after one year, he had completed just one stage of the game, so Maegawa and a few other developers stepped in to lend a hand. Unfortunately, the Mega Drive had reached the end of its lifespan in Japan by that point, and publisher Sega gave the order to wrap things up quickly. Suganami was forced to cut many of the ideas he had for Alien Soldier. Less than half of the intended number of bosses were included, and the famed boss Seven Force only had five forms.
Perhaps most distressingly to Suganami, however, was that Alien Soldier’s story was almost entirely cut. He had developed an incredibly elaborate, bizarre backstory, and he intended to include a number of cutscenes throughout the game to explain the story. Almost all of these were removed, and the entire story was filtered down to a difficult-to-understand opening text crawl that played before the game’s start.
In writing my book on Treasure, I dug deep into Alien Soldier’s original design documents and Suganami’s notes he later posted online (the bulk of which I translated and included in the book). To put it simply: the story is really out there. Treasure president Maegawa said that no one who worked on the game aside from Suganami could understand more than half of the story. I can easily believe that. Suganami’s writings are vague and difficult-to-understand, but they also have a certain creative genius to them. Despite translating Suganami’s writings for the book, I suspect the story is still impenetrable for most readers given Suganami’s presentation of it.
Here, for the first time, I will attempt to fully explain the incredibly bizarre plot of Alien Soldier. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
An important note: The story went through many revisions during the game’s two years of development. I will only focus on what I consider to be the final form of the story as Suganami intended it.
The World of Alien Soldier
Alien Soldier takes place on an alternate-universe version of the Earth, called the A-Earth, which is populated by A-Humans. For the sake of simplicity, I will omit the A prefix hereafter, but Suganami’s intention is to say that this is not actually our Earth. Suganami developed an extensive backstory to this other Earth, leading up to the action of the game.
In the game’s past, the Earth made contact with alien beings, members of the Galactic Federation. Humans received advanced technology from the Federation, and the scientific level of the Earth increased rapidly.
Meanwhile, the state of the Earth’s natural ecosystem was in complete chaos due to the past destructive behavior of humankind. Abnormal, mutated organisms were appearing and crossbreeding at a rapid pace. In an effort to regain control of the ecosystem, the humans created modified genetic code and injected it into the Earth’s organisms. This modified genetic code quickly spread to all non-human organisms, giving rise to intelligent Modified Lifeforms, which I will refer to as “Mods”.
These Mods developed unusual abilities, one of which was the ability to parasitize both organic and inorganic matter. Using this ability, they could take control of other organisms or even of inanimate objects. Some of the Mods were violent, and they used their parasitic ability to inflict massive damage on the humans. In response, special task forces were set up to track down and deal with violent parasites. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department established one such task force, the Black Sheep, which included a detective named Kyosuke Kosatsu (more on him later).
The Earth government also established a new research institute, Scarlet, to study the parasitic ability of the Mods and determine if it could be utilized in some way. Scarlet was able to pacify the Mods by further manipulating their genetic structure. Scarlet then trained them to parasitize machinery so that they could, for example, serve as pilots of airplanes and space shuttles. In essence, the will of the Mods was bent to serve humankind. Soon, Mods and humans were living side-by-side in peace, although some Mods still bore a deep hatred for humans.
The Discovery of Omega
A mysterious lifeform known as Omega was one day discovered in the Atlantic Ocean. Hajime Nanase, the scientist leading the Scarlet research institute, determined that Omega had been present on the Earth since the planet’s creation. Nanase realized that Omega must have arrived from outer space, and that it was likely the ancestor of all life on the planet. At the press conference announcing his results, he shockingly committed suicide.
The Galactic Federation initially remained silent about the origins of Omega. However, when pressed, it eventually revealed the truth: the Earth had been created as an experimental laboratory by an alien race from another galaxy. Omega served as a “soup of life” that was able to generate organisms according to a genetic program. The alien race created the Earth’s moon as an observation post, and then they carried out a number of experiments that involved generating life on the planet.
This alien race was eventually discovered by the Galactic Alliance (the predecessor of the Federation) and eliminated. However, the Alliance then acquired the alien race’s genetic technology and continued to run the experiments on the Earth. This went on until the Galactic Federation was formed several thousand years ago.
The Earth’s residents were shocked to discover that they were the product of experimentation by aliens, and many people suffered a crisis of identity. Public opinion shifted strongly against the Galactic Federation due to its past involvement in the incident.
Meanwhile, Omega was being studied at the Scarlet research institute. The scientists there learned that Omega could serve as the catalyst for the creation of supreme beings known as Perfect Lifeforms, which I will refer to as “Perfects”. Each time Omega gave birth to a new lifeform, it transformed and evolved to pass on new memories, instincts, and powers to its offspring. The Scarlet scientists learned that by implanting specially synthesized seeds into Omega, they could guide the development of the organism’s genetic program as it produced Perfect offspring. Each new Perfect produced would be stronger than the last, until the ultimate Perfect was produced.
Scarlet developed a plan known as the Alpha Plan to utilize Omega’s capabilities. The plan consisted of 23 stages. Each stage, a seed would be implanted into Omega, which would then produce a Perfect. Each Perfect would be stronger than the previous, until the final stage produced the ultimate Perfect. The plan was called the Alpha Plan because it began at Omega (the last letter of the Greek alphabet) and ended at Alpha (the first letter of the Greek alphabet).
The Appearance of the X-Ages, and Yu Misaki’s Mistake
As all of this was happening, children who possessed superpowers began to appear on the Earth. There was no explanation for why they had developed superpowers, so the Earth government decided to isolate them in a research facility in Japan known as Indigo. The children were given the codename “X-Ages.” It was rumored that they were the result of further experimentation by the Galactic Federation, but there was no clear evidence of this.
One of the X-Ages, a ten-year-old girl named Yu Misaki, had an exceptionally high IQ. Because of this, the Earth government exempted her from isolation and instead appointed her the new head of Scarlet.
As head of Scarlet, Yu Misaki began to implement the Alpha Plan. However, she added an idea of her own. She incorporated the parasitic ability of the Mods into the Alpha Plan, so that the Perfect offspring would be able to parasitize human hosts. Unfortunately, this had disastrous consequences.
The trouble began with the birth of the 6th Perfect, Sigma Fox. Due to Yu Misaki’s addition of genetic code from the Mods, Sigma Fox acquired the Mods’ hatred for humankind. Immediately after being born, she declared the humans her enemies and parasitized the body of Yu Misaki. Together with her Perfect siblings, Sigma Fox took control of Scarlet and began to wage a war of terrorism against the humans, while continuing to run the Alpha Plan.
Armed police, including the Black Sheep, were dispatched to reclaim Scarlet, but they were quickly annihilated. The powerful Perfects could repeatedly parasitize the humans at will. It was at this time that Black Sheep member Kyosuke Kosatsu was parasitized by Xi Tiger, the 10th child of Omega.
Kyosuke Kosatsu, parasitized by Xi Tiger
The Earth was thrown into chaos. Scarlet, now controlled by the Perfects, was launching continuous attacks against the planet’s population. In addition, many Mods had joined Scarlet to gain revenge against the humans. The only effective weapons the humans had were the X-Ages children.
Kaede Nanase, the Last Hope
One child among the X-Ages was incredibly powerful. Her name was Kaede Nanase, the daughter of former Scarlet director Hajime Nanase, who had killed himself after discovering Omega. Kaede, just 14-years-old, possessed incomparably strong telekinetic powers. Indigo, the organization overseeing the X-Ages children, planned to use these powers to combat Scarlet, and they developed the mobile weapon “Seven Force” for Kaede to pilot. The weapon was made of many pieces of ultra-hard ceramics that Kaede could reshape into various forms using her telekinesis ability.
However, Kaede suffered many setbacks during her training. The emotional strain she endured caused her to mentally regress to a point where she could not function as needed. Indigo was in a precarious situation. The humans were suffering heavy losses to Scarlet, and more and more X-Ages children were being sacrificed in battle to buy time for Kaede to finish her training. They needed a way to help Kaede mentally redevelop so that she could begin her mission. The answer came in the form of a child named Fou Misaki.
Epsilon Eagle Appears
Scarlet, lead by Sigma Fox (who had parasitized Yu Misaki), continued to follow the Alpha Plan. More and more Perfects were brought to life and the plan neared completion. The Perfects had become incredibly powerful. Zeta Leo, the 18th child of Omega, possessed a fully armed and armored body. However, he was surpassed by the 19th child, Epsilon Eagle, who had the ability to teleport through space-time itself.
Epsilon Eagle had a will of pure evil, far worse than any of the Perfects to come before him. He wrested control of Scarlet from Sigma Fox, who fled in defeat. Under Epsilon Eagle, Scarlet further intensified its wave of terrorism against the humans.
Finally, the Alpha Plan was completed: the ultimate Perfect, Alpha, was born. It was an immensely powerful being, capable of parasitizing an entire planet (Alpha is depicted in the background of Alien Soldier’s opening crawl, feeding off of the Earth). However, it required time to grow to its full size.
Alpha is seen here parasitizing the Earth
At this point, the Galactic Federation became concerned about the fate of the galaxy at the hands of Alpha. It dispatched an elite mixed-race task force known as Alien Soldier to Earth in order to deal with the situation.
Meanwhile, the humans, supported by X-Ages children, launched a series of desperate attacks against Scarlet in a last-ditch effort to save humankind. One attack targeted Sigma Fox and the parasitized Yu Misaki (the humans had not yet learned of Sigma Fox’s defeat at the hands of Epsilon Eagle). During the raid on Scarlet’s headquarters, the human attackers found what they thought was their target: a child with the letters “4-MISAKI” engraved on a collar around his neck. The few surviving members of the raiding party managed to escape with the child in their custody. It turned out, however, that this was not Yu Misaki, but rather a copy of Yu Misaki named Fou Misaki.
In another attack against Scarlet, a special task force of X-Ages children attempted to eliminate the evil Epsilon Eagle. Using their psychic powers, the X-Ages children managed to split the lifeforce of Epsilon Eagle into two. Epsilon 1 possessed the original’s pure will of evil, while Epsilon 2 possessed the original’s teleportation ability but lacked any will. During the attack, Epsilon 2 used his power to escape through space-time unnoticed. Scarlet beat back the attackers, and Epsilon 1 resumed his positioned as leader. Unbeknownst to the others, he now lacked the ability that gave him his power.
Epsilon 1
Xi Tiger, one of Epsilon Eagle’s older siblings, grew suspicious of the Scarlet leader’s sudden lack of strength. He decided to act, and he ousted Epsilon 1 from power and took control of Scarlet. The defeated Epsilon 1 fled Scarlet and began to search for his other half, so that he could restore his power.
Xi Tiger was a brutal leader. He immediately executed a number of X-Ages children that had been taken captive, and he instituted a wave of brutality that seemed to lack any logic or reason. His Perfect siblings quickly became wary of him and conspired to find Epsilon Eagle and restore him to power. Xi Tiger, however, was not who they thought he was.
During a past raid by the special task force Black Sheep, Xi Tiger had parasitized the detective known as Kyosuke Kosatsu. Kosatsu was, in fact, a powerful assassin and practitioner of the ancient assassination technique known as the Burning Tiger Fist. His power and strength of will allowed him to resist Xi Tiger’s attempt to claim his body. Instead, Kosatsu’s will dominated Xi Tiger’s will into submission, and Kosatsu claimed the body of Xi Tiger. His murderous intent brought chaos upon Scarlet.
Fou Misaki and Epsilon 2
Back at Indigo, scientists were studying the child with the “4-MISAKI” collar. They quickly realized this was not Yu Misaki, but rather a copy of Yu Misaki named Fou Misaki. The name “Fou” reflected that this was the fourth Misaki copy. Each copy of Misaki had a different biological sex, and Fou was the sexless copy that did not possess any sex organs (I will explain below why Fou is referred to using the masculine pronoun). As a copy, Fou did not possess the capability for conscious thought. He was barely alive and could not take care of himself. Some of the Indigo scientists thought that he was not worth keeping alive, that he was just Yu Misaki’s failed experiment. However, a use was found for him.
Fou was given, essentially as a pet, to Kaede Nanase in order to help with her mental rehabilitation. The Indigo leaders thought that by learning to take care of Fou, Kaede would redevelop her mental capabilities and would then be ready to join the battle against Scarlet. Kaede dutifully took care of Fou, first as a requirement, and then because she had learned to care for this child that lacked the ability to think. Every day, she fed him, washed him, and even cleaned up his excrement. Fou grew to be dear to Kaede, much like a doll or a human toy.
Epsilon 2
After the X-Ages children attacked Epsilon Eagle and split his lifeforce into two, Epsilon 2 managed to escape unnoticed. Confused, he sought refuge by parasitizing the body of Fou Misaki. Lacking any strong will, Epsilon 2 remained inert and unnoticed within Fou for some time.
Through their symbiotic relationship, Fou gradually began to develop the ability to think, and Epsilon 2 acquired a benevolent will from the loving treatment that Kaede provided. Through his love for Kaede, Fou sought to define his gender as male so that he could be with her as a lover. He developed a purpose for living: to protect Kaede. However, fate would not be so kind.
Xi Tiger Strikes
Xi Tiger was isolated within Scarlet due to his brutality. The other Perfects came up with a plan to locate Epsilon Eagle in order to return him to power. They believed that the true form of Epsilon Eagle was trapped within space-time. They learned from captured X-Ages children of the location of Indigo, and they also learned that there were children there who were capable of opening holes into space-time. They planned to attack Indigo and force these children to free Epsilon Eagle. Xi Tiger overheard this plan, and he decided to act first. He would attack Indigo, locate Epsilon Eagle, and kill him in order to secure power within Scarlet.
During his attack on Indigo, Xi Tiger was surprised to sense what felt like the presence of Epsilon Eagle within one of the children there—Fou Misaki. However, there was something strange. He could not sense Epsilon Eagle’s will of pure evil.
Xi Tiger grabbed the girl that was with Fou Misaki—Kaede Nanase. He attempted to compel Epsilon Eagle to appear by threatening Kaede’s life. Fou learned to feel anger at that moment, and through that anger he suddenly transformed into the body of Epsilon 2. However, the steel-winged bird had inherited Fou’s will of love and benevolence, and he was infused with a human sense of justice.
Shocked at the immense power of this new Epsilon, Xi Tiger killed Kaede and fled. Epsilon 2 chased after him in a burst of grief and anger.
This is the point at which the gameplay of Alien Soldier begins. Epsilon 2 chases Xi Tiger through a spaceport and onto the roof of a flying shuttle, where Xi Tiger is defeated.
The Resurrection of Kaede
After Kaede’s death, Indigo decided to resurrect her as a cyborg. Her organs were replaced with machine parts, and most of her brain was replaced with a biological computer incapable of feeling emotion. Only the portion of her brain responsible for her telekinesis ability was preserved. In this new cyborg form, Kaede was finally able to pilot Seven Force.
Kaede Nanase, in her cyborg form
It is at this point that Suganami’s detailed notes for the story mostly end. He does not give many specific details about how the story would have progressed as the player worked through the game.
Suganami was clear on one point in particular: Alien Soldier was intended to be a love story, centered on the love between Fou and Kaede. He described this as “love between genderless (or asexual) comrades.” Neither Fou nor Kaede possessed sex organs. Kaede lost hers when she was reborn as a cyborg, and Fou never possessed any. This shared trait gave them a unique bond.
Just as Fou initially had no will, Kaede essentially lost hers when she was turned into a cyborg. She became a machine to be controlled by Indigo in its battle against Scarlet. The only things that she responded to on a primitive emotional level were wild birds and Epsilon 2. (A quick note on names here: Suganami made it clear that Fou and Epsilon 2 had become a single entity, so their names are interchangeable.)
The game’s story, therefore, was presumably meant to show how Epsilon 2 reconnects with Kaede and somehow rehabilitates her.
At the same time, the action was presumably meant to focus on Epsilon 2 confronting his siblings, the other Perfects, and defeating them to save humanity.
Although Suganami was unable to realize his dream for Alien Soldier, he had more success with Sin and Punishment, released in 2000 for the N64. This game also features adolescent protagonists, genetically modified beings, and other conceptual elements found in Alien Soldier. In fact, Suganami intended this to be a sequel of sorts to Alien Soldier, and the game’s original title was Glass Soldier. The character Achi was meant to be from the Alien Soldier world. It is certainly worth checking out if you are interested in Suganami’s storytelling.