Gaiares is a horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Telenet Japan and published by Renovation for the Sega Genesis, released in Japan in December 1990 and in North America the following March. It was primarily the work of just two people, programmer Masayasu Yamamoto and lead designer Kouji Yokota, in what was Yokota’s first project as lead designer after previously working only as a graphic artist. Players pilot a starfighter equipped with the TOZ system, a mechanic that lets them capture and repurpose the weapons of certain destroyed enemies, giving the game a Gradius-like power-up structure built around choice rather than a fixed upgrade path. Gaiares was also notable on a technical level as one of the first Genesis games to ship on an 8-megabit cartridge, allowing for more detailed sprites and stage variety than many earlier titles on the console.