Blog:W Ring (PC Engine)

CRV (talk) 09:00, 4 February 2013 (CST)

W Ring (or Double Ring in Japanese [ダブルリング]) from Naxat is one of many decent but overlooked shooters for the PC Engine. The main thing that separates this game from all (most of?) the others are the extra stages that are found hidden in the regular stages.

According to anonymous comments on Japanese sites, W Ring was actually developed by Flight-Plan, better known in later years for Black/Matrix and Summon Night. Development was slow, and the staff went to Naxat after it was finished, where they worked on games like Coryoon and Air Zonk.

If true, this might explain the large gap between Flight-Plan's 1989 founding and the earliest game listed on their website, Metamor Jupiter from 1993.

A document pertaining to Eighting contains a rundown of the company's officers at the time including Yuichi Ochiai, main programmer on W Ring. It says he joined Flight-Plan in November 1989, then Naxat in June 1990 (three months before W Ring was released in Japan).

Graphic designer Kenji Mori (aka "Moriken") tweeted in October 2020 that he founded Flight-Plan when he left Sunsoft and was a director there, then moved to Naxat.

It should be noted that in neither case is it mentioned they did W Ring at Flight-Plan. However, programmer Yoshiharu Takaoka has said on Twitter that it in fact was done there. [1] [2] According to him, W Ring was originally the work of Flight-Plan's president, then their team took over and made it. After the project was completed, the whole team joined Naxat.

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Post updated March 19, 2021