Video Game / Night Striker

"Stand by — Ready? Good luck."

Night Striker is a 1989 arcade Shoot 'Em Up by Taito. The player controls Inter Gray, a Flying Car to shoot down a terrorist organisation that have taken over the city. It was ported over to the Sega CD, PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1993, 1995 and 1996 respectively.

Not to be confused with Night Driver, another game featuring cars driving in the night.

This game provides examples of:

• Airborne Mook: Helicopters, missile planes, robotic drones, flying cars, etc.
• Attack Drone: You get one at the start of stage R. It's very helpful at saving your bacon.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The truck boss. Shoot it when it opens up to spam missiles.
• Badass Driver: Your character, especially in Stage Q when your car gets shot down and you escape in an armoured Jet Pack.
• Big Bad: The terrorist leader. However, it's later revealed that it's actually his adjutant who's the real mastermind behind the organization, manipulating the leader.
• Bittersweet Ending: Ending S. You manage to destroy the guards, but ran out of ammo for destroying the enemy supercomputer. You thus crash your motorbike (transformed from your car) into the supercomputer, destroying it, but losing your best companion in the process.
• Boss Subtitles: Only for the Final Bosses. They are only shown after you beat them, in the ending text.
  • Factory Gun Battery (Area P): Moving Manipulator
  • Terrorist Adjutant (Area Q): Sky Dragoon
  • Terrorist Leader's Helicopter (Area R): Gyrohound
  • Heavy Foot Soldiers (Area S): Great Destroyers
  • Missile Trailer (Area T): Fire Cracker
  • Anti-Aircraft Submarines (Sea Worms) (Area U): Dragon Head
• Boss Warning Siren: Upon reaching a boss, "WARNING!" appears on the screen, along with a siren blaring and a female voice saying "Warning, target approaching."
• Broken Armor Boss Battle: The Gyrohound helicopter bosses, such as the first stage boss (and the stage R Final Boss). They are protected by a forcefield which can take some damage, once you destroy the field, you will be able to harm the helicopter. The catch? The helicopter puts up the forcefield again as soon as it takes a single hit, or if you take too long to hit it. The good news is that said helicopters are three hit point wonders.
• Collision Damage: With walls. Certain Mooks will also do this to you.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: You can collide with background objects if you're not careful. Your shots will also get blocked by such objects. The enemies have no such restrictions.

• Corrupt Politician: The terrorist leader was one...at least until ten years ago, when he was driven out of office. Cue him going insane with vengefulness and a desire to obliterate the city that dared to reject him.
• Deadly Walls: Gets really annoying in the tunnel stages. And then there's stage N, a factory stage with them all over the place. The tunnel stages are slalom courses of a sort. Stage N? A maze.

• Deflector Shields:
  • You have five shield points per credit. Every time you get hit, you lose one point of shielding, and if you are hit without any shield, you die (read: Game Over). You only get one or two points of shielding, depending on how the DIP switches are set, every time you complete a level — naturally, you don't want to take any chances.
  • Helicopter bosses have these, which you must shoot down in order to damage them.

• Dragon with an Agenda: The terrorist adjutant was behind the scene the whole time, using the mentally unstable terrorist leader like a puppet.
• Dual Boss: Many of the early-game bosses come back as late-level bosses. Except you fight two or three at one go.

• Flying Car: Your car. Enemy cars can also fly too.
• Homing Projectile: Very subtle, but your car shoots one periodically as long as it you move in a direction. Some enemies have those dreaded homing missiles.
• Jet Pack: Used by your character in the final stage Q, after the terrorist adjutant shoots down your car. Also used by the Sky Dragoon bosses (the adjutant is a ridiculously fast Sky Dragoon).
• Last Breath Bullet: If you get defeated, you can still fire at enemies for a short period before your car goes down.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: The terrorist leader's helicopter and his adjutant's Jet Pack Powered Armour are golden in colour.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Used by the missile truck boss of the Suburb stages. The only time it allows you to Attack Its Weak Point is when its hatch opens up to fire out a slew of homing missiles.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: She gets kidnapped by the terrorists, and you save her in stage U.
• The Man in Front of the Man: In ending Q, you find out that the terrorist adjutant used the chief like a puppet and was the real person in power.
• Misguided Missile: The only way you can avoid missiles, because you cannot shoot them down. Try to move round in a circle to shake them off.
• Multiple Endings: Like the Darius series by Taito, you get the option to choose between two routes at the end of a level. Depending on which final stage you play, you get a different ending.
  • In stage P, you destroy the prototype laser in the factory where the terrorists produce all their weapons. The resulting explosion destroys the entire factory while you escape.
  • In stage Q, you defeat the terrorist adjutant. Turns out he was The Man in Front of the Man, and his death led to the terrorists' downfall.
  • In stage R, you destroy the terrorist leader's helicopter, killing him. Without a leader, the rest of the terrorists are soon defeated. It is revealed that he was a disgraced Corrupt Politician.
  • In stage S, you jump off your car (now a motorbike) and charge it into the terrorists' central computer, taking it down. You lose your best companion in the process, however.
  • In stage T, you save the kidnapped scientist, who was forced by the terrorists to build a powerful laser weapon with which to incinerate the city.
  • In stage U, you save the scientist's kidnapped daughter who managed to escape from the terrorists.
• No-Damage Run:
  • The game rewards you with a Pacifist Bonus of 2 million points at the end of a stage if you don't fire any shots, AND avoid taking any damage. If this is done in the next stage, the Pacifist Bonus will then be double the previous amount, topping out at 20 Million.
  • Demonstrated here, in the first of a two part full Pacifist Run. Take note of the text commentary; while most of it is in Japanese, the player still lets out a Big "YES!" after a particularly tricky boss self-destructs.
• Powered Armour: The jetpack bosses, as well as the temple bosses.
• Power Up Letdown: In stage U, your car gets a dual spread upgrade ("all gun barrels open"). This may be less than a good thing in some situations, as you no longer have a forward-firing shot and can find it harder to hit enemies from afar.
• Rush Boss: The robot wolves. They take one hit to die, but you have to shoot each of them down in a very short time or else it'll pounce on you.
• Savage Wolves: The boss of the Tunnel stages is a pack of robot wolves that keep coming until you kill all 20+ of them or the timer runs out. Thankfully, they're one of the easier bosses, as they take one hit to die and cannot fire at you.
• Save the Princess: The terrorists have attacked the city, and captured the leading scientist and his daughter.
• Sea Worm: Robotic variants act as the bosses of water stages.
• Segmented Serpent: Although you can hit any part of their body to damage them.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Fire Cracker in the suburbs stages. It would be otherwise invulnerable if not for the fact that it opens its weak spot to shoot out a Macross Missile Massacre.
• Time-Limit Boss: All of them, actually. You have a timer of 10 that counts down every 5 seconds or so, once it reaches zero, the boss self-destructs and you don't get the bonus unless you succeeded in your Pacifist Run for that stage and battle (it's still considered a win either way, though).
• Transforming Mecha: In stage P, your car transforms into a robot to storm the factory.

• Whack-a-Monster: One of two bosses for skyline stages is a giant airship whose guns periodically extend downwards to shoot at you. Destroy all of them to defeat the boss.
• Wolfpack Boss: A literal example in the tunnel stages. A pack of robotic wolves try to rush into you, you have to shoot them to destroy them before they pounce on you. There's also the other type of boss for skyline stages, a large squad of jetpack troopers.
  • The Final Boss of stage P are three crane arms, similar to those you battled in the factory stages.
  • The Final Boss of Stage R (The terrorist leader) is a golden helicopter accompanied by two green ones
  • The Final Boss of stage Q (the terrorist adjutant) is a golden guy in a jetpack accompanied by smaller green ones.
  • The Final Boss of stage S are three Mini-Mecha.
  • The Final Boss of stage U are three mechanical sea worms.

---