High Context Burning Rangers

Burning Rangers was a video game that came out for the Sega Saturn in 1998. It's about a futuristic team of firefighters who jet around the planet (and space) saving people from catastrophic fires.

Not many people played it.

Not many people remember it.

But I do! In these pages I'm going to give this underrated game a very close reading, and in doing so try to convince you that it's worth remembering.

The context

1998 was a difficult year for Sega. Its Saturn console was not an international success, and the company was already preparing its successor (the Dreamcast, which would come out later in the year). Only a handful of titles were set to be released for the system outside of Japan, and even those were only produced in limited quantities. One of the final Saturn titles was Burning Rangers. 

Burning Rangers was developed by Sonic Team, the group within Sega responsible for the Sonic the Hedgehog series. You would think Sega would have tasked them with developing a mainline Sonic game for the Saturn. That would have sold some consoles! But for some reason they... didn't. Instead, Sonic Team produced NiGHTS Into Dreams, a weird and wonderful game about a flying purple jester.

"Well, they got that out of their systems," I can imagine a beleaguered Sega executive thinking. "Surely now they'll do a new Sonic game for us, right?"  Haha, no. Sonic Team put together a compilation of old games for the Saturn (Sonic Jam) and then turned their attention to this very ambitious firefighting game with hundreds of characters and extreme technical demands.

Fallen memory

Early 1990s games are well preserved. People remember that era fondly, and it's easy to revisit: there are multiple high-quality emulators for the NES, SNES, and Genesis.  And games that came out after roughly 2003 are also easy to revisit. By that time the Internet was mainstream, and every new title generated some number of previews, reviews, and articles with commentary. Not every site is still around, but many are, and lots of others are available through archive sites.

The 32-bit era is a little bit harder to return to. There are emulators for the major systems - the Playstation, Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn - but they're not quite as solid as their 16-bit counterparts. Those consoles had quirky graphics and sound capabilities that require more effort to recreate. And even though we had the Internet in 1998, it was more of a niche thing - people still mostly got their news about games from magazines.

In this era of remakes and reboots and franchises, you might expect Sega to do something with the Burning Rangers IP. Even NiGHTS got a sequel - 2007's Journey of Dreams. But alas, no: Sega has inserted some references to BR into a few games, but the otherwise the property is dormant.

Request for immediate rescue

Why did (and do) I love Burning Rangers so much?

I could tell you about the graphics. They look rough today, but I promise that at the time they were impressive - especially the flames. The Sega Saturn was notoriously difficult to develop for, but Sonic Team really pushed its limits.

Or I could tell you about the voice acting. It's standard now for games to have lots of voice acting, but it was a novelty in 1998. The story unfolds over the in-game intercom, which is also used for navigation. That's still cool!

The gameplay is pretty good, too. You're racing against the clock - the building you're in will go up in flames if you take too long. But you want to take your time and explore, too - there are people to rescue if you look around. This tension makes for a compelling experience, and there's plenty of replay value.

But the thing that really gets me about BR is the fact that they made 108 extra characters with portraits and 3D models and personalities. After you rescue them, they send you e-mail. Many of the messages just say something like "Thanks for saving me," but some provide more information about the story. Others are goofy little jokes. Several give you special codes for unlocking extra features.

If you just played through once, you'd miss this whole gotta-catch-em-all part of the game. Each time you replay a stage,  different parts of it will be open to explore. So you always get a new set of people to rescue. There are supposedly 3,125 variants of the stages, and I doubt any individual has played more than a fraction of them.

They didn't have to do all that! Their care and attention to detail is impressive, and what makes me want to keep the Internet from forgetting about BR. 

Just do it, just Burning Rangers

Here is what I'm doing for the BR cause:

High Context Burning Rangers — a series of articles that examine various aspects of BR:

Burning Rangers prototypes and hacking — what I've learned from reverse engineering different versions of BR: 

Rings of Saturn — I'm spinning off my Sega Saturn reverse engineering posts into their own website. Check it out at 32bits.substack.com.

Low Context Burning Rangers — a Twitter account where I post things about BR:

Here are some links to other BR things of interest:

I'd also like to commend these other people for their efforts in keeping the BR flame alive: