Saber Rider Kickstarter Adds Dreamcast Version

Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs is, by all accounts, a fairly well-loved cartoon series from the 1980s.  Created by World Events Productions and based on a Japanese cartoon series called Star Musketeer Bismarck, Saber Rider achieved moderate success in North America and ran for 52 episodes. Even though I'm an admirer of animated shows from the era (who can forget Dungeons & Dragons?), I have to be honest - I'd never heard of it before learning of the Kickstarter to turn the series into a side-scrolling shooter for the Nintendo 3DS.

Furthermore, I will admit right here that I had to do a bit of Wikipedia mining and Googling in order to get up to speed on the exploits of the titular Saber Rider, but what I found has impressed me. Anyone who remembers cartoon series from the 80s like the aforementioned Dungeons & Dragons and, more appropriately, stuff like BraveStarr (the series featuring a Native American sheriff and his talking horse) will be right at home with Saber Rider; and after watching some clips on YouTube I must admit to warming to the 'space western' aesthetics.
As previously mentioned, Saber Rider initially started life as Nintendo 3DS/PC project and a Dreamcast version with enhanced visuals was offered as a stretch goal. It appears that the development team, Team Saber Rider, received enough interest in a Dreamcast version from the start though, and as such three new rewards have been added to the project with varying funding levels. These are:
  • Dream Special Level 1 - Game only with Manual and Spine Card $49 - USD
  • Dream Special Level 2 - includes also the Games Soundtrack on a second CD - $99 USD
  • Dream Special Level 3 - includes also the the Saber Rider Art Book - $139 USD
The game will take the form of a Gunstar Heroes-style run and gun shooter and looks like a perfect addition to the release list for the Dreamcast. If Saber Rider reaches it's funding goal of $75,000 (it's already at $20,000 at the time of writing with 27 days to go) then we could all be looking at yet another genre being catered for. The Dreamcast really is enjoying something of a renaissance of late so why not help Saber Rider become a reality?

Head over to the Kickstarter page here and see what you think. You can also follow Team Saber Rider on Twitter for regular updates on the project.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

On the kickstarter page it said somewhere in the comments that the dreamcst version is kickstarter only so if you don't pledge you can't buy a fresh copy of the game of hucast somewhere down the line

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

No, the game will be also available after the camapign but we won't produce very high stock. If the demand is still very high after all the stock is sold we will consider a reprint.