Divine Sealing
From Sega Retro
| Divine Sealing | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| System(s): Sega Mega Drive | ||||||||||
| Publisher: CYX | ||||||||||
| Developer: Studio Fazzy | ||||||||||
| Genre: Shoot-'em-Up | ||||||||||
| Number of players: 1 | ||||||||||
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Divine Sealing (ディヴァインシーリング) is an unlicensed Sega Mega Drive adult vertical shoot-'em-up game developed by Studio Fazzy and published by CYX. Released in Japan in May 1992, the game is most notable for being one of few unlicensed titles to be exclusively developed and published domestically, and for being one of the very earliest unlicensed Mega Drive games ever released.
Divine Sealing is most known today for its involved story, presented between each level in cutscenes featuring hentai artwork (and used to incentive progression with the tease of increasingly adult images.)
Contents
Story
Characters
| Falchion | |
|---|---|
| The story's protagonist and pilot of the spacecraft Divine. | |
|
Elias (エリアス) |
| Known by the title "Mizu no Miko", Elias requests the assistance of Falchion and his spaceship Divine, and sets off the events of the game's story.[1] Encountered after completing Water Planet. | |
|
Soil (ソイル) |
| Known by the title "Daichi no Miko", Soil is a tough character who doesn't get along with Falchion at first, but soon grows an affinity for him.[1] Encountered after completing Earth Planet. | |
|
Chilly (チリー) |
| Known by the title "Kaze no Miko".[1] Encountered after completing Wind Planet. | |
|
Freyja (フレイヤ) |
| Known by the title "Saigo no Shinpan".[1] Encountered after completing Flame Planet. | |
|
Unknown |
| An unknown woman who appears at the conclusion to the game's story. Encountered after completing Final Planet. |
Gameplay
Divine Sealing controls much like other vertical shoot-'em-ups: the D-pad is used to control the movement of the Divine, and the 
button fires its weapons. The game features no form of screen-clearing bombs[1], and the 
and 
buttons therefore remain unused during gameplay. Additionally, START pauses the game, and the game's story cutscenes can be advanced with the button.
Gameplay is similar to titles in Hudson Soft's Star Soldier and Compile's Aleste series, focusing primarily on incoming patterns of attacking enemies, and challenging the player to formulate strategies on how to best avoid, defeat, and re-encounter successive waves of both enemies and their projectile attacks.
Scoring
Every 10,000 points upgrades the player's firepower and awards one extra life. Destroying one of the planet's bosses awards 20,000 points and also one extra life, but the Divine retains its current level of firepower.[1]
Levels
| Water Planet | |
|---|---|
| A planet of turbulent and rushing water. The enemies here appear in slow and predictable patterns, and the stage overall serves as a gradual introduction to the game's style of attack patterns. | |
| Earth Planet | |
| A planet of eerie organic purple structures which resemble veins. Enemies grow more challenging, with creatures beginning to use more frequent dive bomb tactics, as well as introducing more projectiles. The game's attack patterns grow even more erratic here, notably featuring swarms of insects which rapidly undulate up and down while approaching the Divine. | |
| Wind Planet | |
| A planet of green fields and blue water, somewhat resembling Xevious or Twinbee. While deceptively calm at first, the playfield soon switches to a long stretch of organic, blood-red walls and latticed grating, an effect achieved through multiple layers of vertical parallax scrolling to achieve an effect of flying over a deep canyon. Enemy attack patterns continue to utilize dive bombing techniques, and new and unpredictable patterns are introduced in an effort to overwhelm the Divine by flooding the available screen space with the enemies themselves. | |
| Flame Planet | |
| A planet of chaotic flames and lava, built over with a grey industrial metal motif. A number of both projectiles and enemy attack craft will easily fill the screen unless the Divine does not encounter and destroy them nearly as soon as they appear. Streams of raining enemies appear at numerous times, appearing similar to a meteor shower, and the planet features an increase in the number of dive bombing enemies. Additionally, enemies which fire projectiles will be lined up in rows to fire successive barrages at the Divine. | |
| Final Planet | |
| A dark planet of Giger-esque skeletal/industrial motifs, featuring demonic skulls attached to the end of robotic manufacturing arms, all connected to a long series of inter-connected spines, ribs, and skeletal computer chips. Nearly every type of previous attack pattern returns, as well as a number of patterns which appear from both the top and bottom of the screen simultaneously. Easily the longest planet in the game, and the one which requires the most attention to keep the Divine from being overwhelmed (especially as enemies begin appearing from the rear in progressively denser patterns.) |
Bosses
| Boss 1 | |
|---|---|
| The boss of Water Planet, a mecha piloted by the enemy. | |
| Boss 2 | |
| The boss of Earth Planet, an enemy spaceship mysteriously adorned with a second ship similar to the Divine. | |
| Boss 3 | |
| The boss of Wind Planet, an insect-like creature which can separate itself in half in order to attack the Divine. | |
| Boss 4 | |
| The boss of Flame Planet, a massive toad-like creature whose body mostly rests offscreen. | |
| Boss 5 | |
| The boss of Final Planet, a demonic ram skull embedded in a grotesque, ventricle-laden heart. |
History
Like most unlicensed adult games released in 1990s-era Japan, Divine Sealing came packaged in a cardboard box[2]; developer Studio Fazzy dedicated a significant amount of consideration to the quality of the packaging's overall presentation, featuring relatively well-drawn artwork and design for the unlicensed adult market. As a result of this, the game was sold as a premium item[1] and priced accordingly - available for the equivalent of about $85.[1]
Divine Sealing, similar to most other adult titles, was primarily sold at independent used adult software shops, especially those which specialized in the adult PC-98 market.[2] Most notably, the game was one of the first high-profile adult releases in its respective market, and one of the very first titles to show Japanese consumers that erotic games could indeed be produced for home consoles.[2]
Magazine articles
- Main article: Divine Sealing/Magazine articles.
Promotional material
- Main article: Divine Sealing/Promotional material.
Physical scans
| Sega Retro Average | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
 |
80 |
|---|---|
| Based on 1 review | |
| Mega Drive, JP |
|---|
    Cover
|
   Cart  PCB  Manual |
Images
A complete copy of the game
Artwork of the characters Elias and Soil
Artwork of the characters Chilly and Freyja
Technical information
ROM dump status
| System | Hash | Size | Build Date | Source | Comments | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
1MB | 1989-01 | Cartridge (JP) |
External links
- About Divine Sealing fansite at Enterprises (Japanese) (Wayback Machine)
- Divine Sealing review by David Wilson at Sega-16 (Wayback Machine)
- Divine Sealing at Segagaga Domain (Wayback Machine)
References
| Divine Sealing | |
|---|---|
|
Main page | Hidden content | Development | Magazine articles | Reception | Promotional material | Region coding | Technical information | |
