Astra Superstars (アストラスーパースターズ) is a 1998 2D versus fighting arcade game illustrated and designed by SANTACLAUS, developed and published by Sunsoft, and distributed by Tecmo in Japan on June 6, 1998. It is Sunsoft's fourth fighting game after the 1994 Super Famicom Hebereke franchise spin-off Sugoi Hebereke, the 1995 Galaxy Fight: Universal Warriors and the 1996 Waku Waku 7. It is powered by the Sega Saturn-based arcade system known as the ST-V (Sega Titan Video). Unlike most typical fighting games, Astra Superstars is an airborne-based fighting game.
It was later ported to the Sega Saturn.
This Video Game contains examples of:
- Anime Hair: Given that this game uses an Anime-style aesthetic, this and plenty of other anime/manga tropes are present. Lettuce has the Shonen Hair sort of style that Stock Shonen Heroes would be expected to sport. Meanwhile in terms of unnatural real-life hair colors, Maron, Coco, and Sakamoto are pink, purple and blue haired respectively.
- Badass Cape: The adventurer Lettuce wears such a cape. Satan Volte also deserves special mention which in his case is an All-Encompassing Mantle.
- Ditto Fighter: The My Devil and My Angel will copy their opponents' moveset and appearance (with a black and blue Palette Swap in the case of the former and white and gold swap for the latter).
- Expy: Test-kun is in many ways this game's equivalent to Bonus-kun who was featured in Sunsoft's prior fighting games Galaxy Fight and Waku Waku 7. Like Bonus-kun, he is a parody of certain fighting game tropes and also a Final Boss/Superboss.
- Final Boss: Satan Volte. Test-kun, depending on how well someone has played, can be fought after Satan Volte as a Superboss.
- Flight: One unique feature of this game is that everyone can fly and float in the air in a manner similar to Dragon Ball and other similar such Shōnen Demographic aimed anime/manga.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Invoked in that two sub-boss characters are named "My Devil" and "My Angel". To quote the other wiki: "Depending on what is said, the player can encounter the Devil (based on bad judgment of character) or the Angel (based on good judgement of character) to fight before the final boss, though the Angel requires the player to judge their opponent well and not have any hiccups, or else the Devil will inevitably show up, should just one choice be bad."
- Guest Fighter: Rouge given that she is actually the mascot of the company SANTACLAUS rather than being a character of Sunsoft's own creation.
- Horned Humanoid: The sword wielding Policeman Sakamoto has two orangey-yellow colored horns.
- Mighty Glacier: Cupe, of whom is the largest playable fighter on the roster and second biggest character in the game overall after Satan Volte.
- Ms. Fanservice: Stella is a Hot Witch who wears an outfit with a prominent cleavage
- Our Angels Are Different: Maron and My Angel are both angels with the latter being closer to traditional imaginings of angels in appearance while the former has a set of bird-like wings, but aside from that is a teenage, pink clad Plucky Girl.
- Really 700 Years Old: Stella in her character profile is stated to be 1,024 years old.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Coco's character profile states that he is a prince.
- Stylistic Suck: Were you expecting the Superboss to be some sort of imposing badass figure? Well Test-kun, who is simply a stick figure, probably won't be the first guy who comes to mind.
- Winged Humanoid: Fooly and Maron who have bat-like and bird-like wings respectively.