Total Eclipse

About Total Eclipse

The game is played in a third-person perspective as the player's ship flies across each stage. The player is free to accelerate, decelerate, and maneuver around to dodge obstacles and attack enemies, but the course for each stage is fixed.

Rather than space, the player's ship flies over planetary surfaces and through tunnels. On the surface, the player flies over 3D heightmapped terrain, avoiding mountains and obstacles. In tunnels, the player avoids mechanical traps such as large moving doors and twisting passageways. The exit of the tunnel appears later on the surface of the same stage, so the player may miss a power-up (or a challenge) on the surface by taking a tunnel and vice versa. Some tunnels are optional and may contain bonus power-ups, while other tunnels are entered at dead ends on the surface. If the player fails to properly guide his ship into the tunnel at that point, his ship collides with the dead end terrain and explodes, costing a life.

Colliding with enemies or terrain, being shot by enemies, and the passage of time all drain the ship's shields. When the shields reach zero, the ship explodes, a life is deducted from the player's stock, and play resumes at a checkpoint. Since there are very few shield refills in the game, the only way to avert this is by destroying enemies and ground installations; upon doing so the player's ship automatically absorbs their power to replenish its shields. Extra lives may be earned by collecting 1-ups and scoring large numbers of points. In addition, the player has a limited supply of continues, which place them back at the beginning of the current stage. When all lives and continues are exhausted, the game is over.

Earth is attacked by an aggressive alien race known as the Drak-Sai. The aliens use their powerful weapon, the Sun Dagger, to initiate a supernova in the sun. The player must pilot their ship across four planets and ultimately destroy the Sun Dagger to prevent further destruction.