Super Aleste

Space Megaforce, known in Japan and Europe as Super Aleste (スーパーアレスタ), is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by Compile. It was published by Toho in 1992 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as part of the Aleste series. In a traditional fashion, the player pilots a spaceship through a variety of locales crawling with enemy squadrons to shoot down, though the story in the Japanese version is different from the American and European one. Super Aleste also offers a "Short Game", featuring short segments of the regular levels, with the emphasis on scoring as many points as possible.

Story
The story differs slightly depending on which version is played, though the opening premise is always the same.

In the year 2048, a large mechanical sphere falls from space and starts attacking major cities around the world. After much destruction, the sphere hovers over the jungles of South America, drawing lines into the ground similar to the Nazca Line drawings as it expands itself and draws energy from the jungle foliage. Equipped with its own defense system, The Sphere destroys all attacks made on it by Earth's military. The original Aleste fighter ship's failure to stop the sphere's growth prompts the construction of a space fighter capable of wielding amazing weaponry, that fighter being the Super Aleste. Tasked with flying into and destroying the sphere, the Super Aleste must also destroy any reinforcements the sphere calls for which come from the deepest depths of space.

In the original Japanese story, the Super Aleste is piloted by an ace named Raz and his co-pilot is a mysterious young alien woman named Thi, a prisoner aboard the sphere who harnesses strange powers freed by the constant attacks against the sphere. Thi's role in the game is to fly with Raz into the sphere, weaken its defenses and properly wrest the sphere's power source. The presence of both characters, and thus the game's original ending, were cut from Space Megaforce and the European version of Super Aleste.