to three hits. The player can also store three power-up items in a storage box placed towards the bottom of the screen, which can be deployed at any time. Weapons can also be destroyed to give the player a devastating screen-clearing superweapon, which can wipe out all enemies on the screen. A miniboss will need to be fought towards the middle of the stage, followed by an actual boss at the end. Bosses can be destroyed by shooting at its weak point. Akin to other games in the series, Soldier Blade has two "Caravan" time attack modes, a two-minute version and a five-minute version. In both of these, the player is tasked with scoring as many points before the time runs out. Completing the main game will give the player access to a stage select, allowing them to play whichever area they choose. Development The initial idea for Soldier Blade was conceived by Hudson Soft designer Ukiuki Uribo, during conversations with others about which game to use for the company's upcoming Caravan video game tournament. Hikaru Aoyama suggested creating a new shooting game with the tournament in mind; Uribo was hesitant to begin working on it due to it being around six months away, however Hudson executives pushed for the idea to go forth anyway. During early stages of production Uribo was simultaneously working on several Game Boy titles, which gave him less time to focus on the new game until these were completed. Planning for the project was known to be constantly under pressure via time and memory constraints, with employees simply throwing in ideas on the spot and creating the game as they went. It was originally called Sonic Blaster F-92 in early versions, named after the player's ship designed by artist Tatsuya Doe, however trademark issues caused it to be renamed Soldier Blade instead. It began development on a 6-megabit HuCard, reduced to a 4-megabit one later on. Uribo originally wanted enemy sprites to have more diversity and variety, which due to memory limitations had to be cut. Miscommunication between Uribo and the rest of the development team within the planning documents caused some elements of the game to be altered by mistake, such as the large "Bay Wolf" battleships in the first stage being near-defenseless and easy kills and the "missile pod" enemies in the sixth stage to fire a simple spread shot instead of homing