Space Ace

Space Ace for Nintendo DSi is Digital Leisure’s 2010 DSiWare edition of Don Bluth’s animated arcade adventure. Originally created as a LaserDisc game by the Bluth Group with Cinematronics and Advanced Microcomputer Systems, Space Ace followed Dragon’s Lair into arcades in the mid-1980s. This Nintendo DS family release brings the same branching, cartoon-led science-fiction chase to DSi owners as a one-player download, with a North American release on December 6, 2010 and a PAL release later that month.

The adventure begins when Ace, whose civilian name is Dexter, moves to stop Commander Borf from conquering Earth with the Infanto Ray. Borf’s weapon turns Ace into the younger Dexter and leaves Kimberly in the villain’s custody, sending the player after Borf through hazards, strange locations, and attacks from his forces. The goal is to keep the pursuit alive long enough to rescue Kimberly, stop the ray, and prevent Borf’s plan for Earth from succeeding.

Rather than offering free movement through large stages, Space Ace is an interactive movie built from animated scenes. At critical moments, the player must choose a direction or make an action input with precise timing to steer Dexter away from danger, fire a laser, or take the next route through a sequence. A wrong decision can end the attempt, while correct reactions advance the story. The format makes observation, timing, and learning the animated set pieces central to play.

Dexter’s ability to become Ace adds an important choice to the familiar reaction-based design. When the on-screen Energize prompt appears, activating it temporarily restores the adult hero. Ace can confront some threats more directly, while Dexter’s route often emphasizes escapes and evasive moves; the decision can therefore lead to different action within a scene. The original game also introduced selectable difficulty levels and alternate paths in certain sequences, helping distinguish it from the earlier Dragon’s Lair formula.

The DSiWare release is a presentation of the animated Space Ace adventure rather than the separate Super NES game that used a top-down action format. Its hand-drawn visuals come from the Don Bluth team, whose animation gives the game its feature-cartoon character, while Digital Leisure handled this 2010 downloadable edition. Nintendo listed it for Nintendo DSi and later Nintendo 3DS access through the DSiWare catalogue, with English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish language support in Europe.

Space Ace is closely tied to the early LaserDisc arcade period, when games used prerecorded animation to create an unusually cinematic look. On Nintendo DSi, that legacy remains the focus: players guide a heroic but temporarily transformed Dexter through a fast-moving animated story, choosing the right response before the next peril arrives. For fans of Dragon’s Lair, Don Bluth animation, and reflex-driven interactive cartoons, Space Ace on Nintendo DSi preserves the series’ distinctive combination of branching scenes, science-fiction peril, and split-second decisions.