Topic: Super Aleste (Space Megaforce) ?

Would love to see my all time fav shooter come to the VC. Any chance of this happening?

Super Aleste eh? Well, that's probably a rather hard thing to answer. Seems to be a license nightmare to be honest...

The Aleste series was made by a developer called Compile, probably more famous for the Puyo Puyo series. Now, Compile went bankrupt in 2003 so obviously they can't release it. However, since the original Aleste was released for the VC in Japan by D4 Enterprise, it seems likely they are the right holders to Compile's games. However, apart from the first two games for MSX aswell as the Sega CD game, Compile doesn't seem to have published their games themselves but instead enlisted other companies to publish the games. Different publisher every time almost. Super Aleste specifically was published worldwide by Toho. Toho is primarily a movie studio and left the game industry years ago, but it's possible it still has the rights to Super Aleste... And judging by which companies it was that released Musha Aleste on the VC, it does seem likely that Toho are the rights holders. And if that's the case... Well, Toho won't be releasing it, I can promise you that. So it would be up to D4 Enterprise to try and acquire the rights from them which to a smallish company like D4 might seem like a fairly daunting task considering that compared to D4, Toho is a behemoth, so odds are they won't even bother...

So basically... Don't hold your breath... You should probably look into getting a cart instead...

Thanks for the reply. I knew there was some chaos in the history of this game but I never knew it was that bad. Yah...this will probably never come to the VC. Bummer, as it still ranks very well with today's shooters.

@WiiCool Shouting out for a Super Aleste appearance on Virtual Console was such a good call, it would have sat well next to Mega Drive MUSHA in my VC collection. Issue 3 of the UK mag 'Super Play', described it as "the current benchmark" shmup, early in the SNES's lifespan in January 1993. They were particularly impressed by its graphics holding up with "lots of sprites and no slow-down", a great achievement when held up in comparison to early side-scrolling titles like Super R-Type and Gradius III.
Ah well, hats off @Djungelurban for a comprehensive background on developer/ licensing complications, it was such a good idea while it lasted. However, I will still keep my fingers crossed, just in case.