Space Ace

Space Ace for Sega CD is a single-player interactive animated adventure released by ReadySoft in 1994. It brings Don Bluth's science-fiction LaserDisc game to Sega's CD-ROM add-on, preserving the original's cartoon-led format rather than turning it into a conventional platform game. The Sega CD version follows Dexter, better known in his heroic adult form as Ace, as he races to stop the alien Commander Borf and rescue Kimberly.

The crisis begins when Borf unleashes the Infanto Ray, a weapon intended to reduce Earth's population to helpless infants. Ace is caught in its beam and becomes the teenage Dexter, leaving him to pursue Borf while coping with a far less imposing form. The story moves through a succession of animated escapes, chases, alien encounters, and confrontations as Dexter tries to reach Kimberly, destroy the threat, and prevent Borf from carrying out his plan.

Play is built around timed decisions within pre-animated scenes. Using the Sega CD controller's directional pad, the player must choose the correct direction at key moments; the B button is used for actions such as firing Dexter's blaster or responding to the on-screen Energize prompt. An incorrect input, a missed cue, or bad timing sends the current scene to one of the game's failure animations and requires another attempt. Progress therefore comes from recognizing hazards, learning the required responses, and executing them quickly enough to keep the cartoon moving.

The Energize mechanic gives Space Ace an important distinction from Dragon's Lair. When Dexter can restore himself to Ace temporarily, the action changes from evasive survival to more direct heroics, with different responses and additional material available along the way. Choosing when to transform can alter how a sequence plays, while the harder Ace route asks players to handle more demanding scenes. The game also uses visual prompts and flashing details to signal many decisions, though close attention is still needed because the next command can arrive in a very short window.

Space Ace began as an arcade LaserDisc production in 1983–84, created by the Bluth Group with Cinematronics and RDI Video Systems, shortly after Dragon's Lair demonstrated the appeal of feature-quality animation in an arcade cabinet. Its animated footage, character voices, and space-opera comedy were designed around that original format. ReadySoft later made home versions for several CD-based and computer platforms; the 1994 Sega CD release is one of the versions that uses the system's disc storage to present the animated adventure rather than the top-down game design used by the separate Super NES adaptation.

On Sega CD, the presentation is shaped by compressed full-motion video, so the hand-drawn animation is delivered at a lower fidelity than the arcade LaserDisc source. Even so, the port retains the central appeal of Space Ace: a branching, rapid-fire cartoon in which the player guides Dexter between vulnerable teenage improvisation and brief returns to his larger-than-life Ace persona. Its structure makes it a game of observation, recall, and timing, while its setting and transformation device give it a character distinct from its medieval companion in the Dragon's Lair series.