Advanced Busterhawk Gleylancer

Advanced Busterhawk Gley Lancer is a scrolling shooter game developed by NCS. It was released in 1992 in Japan for the Sega Mega Drive game console.

Originally, the game was never released outside of Japan, and because of this was somewhat unknown worldwide. Strangely enough the weapon selection screen at the start of the game is written completely in English with very few language errors.

The game was eventually released outside of Japan with a Virtual Console release in Europe and North America in 2008. Previously, an unofficial fan-made translation patch was made available, allowing non-Japanese players to understand the story.

The story is narrated through manga-style panel illustrations, similar to Phantasy Star IV and Gaiares. The manual of the Virtual Console version includes translation of the Japanese voice and text of the first few narrations.

The story follows Lucia, a 16 year old star fighter pilot in the Earth Federation. A war breaks out between humans and an unknown alien race in the year 2025. Lucia's father, Ken, a high-ranking admiral in the Federation Navy, is captured after his ship is warped out of the combat zone with 4 alien modules which have the ability of teleportation. Lucia, heart-broken after hearing her father's disappearance, decides to hijack the prototype fighter CSH-01-XA "Gleylancer" with the help of her friend Teim and go after her father.

The name of the fighter "Gley Lancer" is possibly a pronunciation error, as the Japanese language does not distinguish "R" and "L". The corrected name of the game is most likely to be "GREY LANCER".

Source: Wikipedia, "Gley Lancer", available under the CC-BY-SA License.