GG Aleste on Game Gear: Compile’s Shooter, and the Database Row That Belongs to a Different Game

GG Aleste — GGアレスタ — is a vertical shoot-’em-up developed and published by Compile for the Game Gear, licensed through Sega’s third-party program. Sega’s own records put it on sale on 29 December 1991 at 4,800円 before tax, though as covered below, that date is not as settled as it looks.

This is the messiest catalogue-number case in this catalog so far. Japan’s Media Arts Database has exactly one row for GG Aleste — and that row’s platform, product code and barcode all belong to a different cartridge: the 1988 Sega Mark III shooter simply titled Aleste, a different console generation entirely. The Game Gear game’s real code had to be confirmed independently, from three other sources.

• Japanese title: GGアレスタ. Developed and published by Compile, licensed under Sega’s third-party program (it appears on Sega’s software-licensee list, not its own first-party list)
• Game Gear cartridge: priced 4,800円 before tax · vertical shooter · third game in Compile’s Aleste series
• Catalogue number: T-66017, confirmed independently by Sega’s own licensee software list, Suruga-ya’s product page, and the SMS Power! hardware database. The Media Arts Database row (M726876) instead carries G-1352 and barcode 4974365143527 — both of which belong to the 1988 Sega Mark III cartridge Aleste, not this game
• Release date: unresolved. Sega’s licensee list says 1991年12月29日; SMS Power! says 20 December 1991; Suruga-ya’s product pages (both listings checked) say 1991/11/29. We use Sega’s own date as primary below, but no two of the three sources agree exactly
• Watch the sequels: searches for the bare title get diluted by GG Aleste II, GG Aleste 3 (a Japan-only PS4/Switch release from 2020) and the 2020 Aleste Collection compilation and its merchandise
• Buying it: the catalogue number T66017 (no hyphen) is Suruga-ya’s cleanest route; the Japanese title is the one to use on Buyee, filtering out the sequels by eye

What is GG Aleste, and where does it sit in the Aleste series?

Aleste began on the MSX2 in 1988 from Compile, the studio behind the Puyo Puyo series and a long run of shoot-’em-ups. The same year, Compile brought it to Sega’s 8-bit Mark III console under the same plain title, アレスタ. GG Aleste, three years later, is the series’ move to Sega’s color handheld: a fast vertical shooter with a weapon-upgrade system the series is known for, credited to Compile as both developer and publisher even though it carries Sega’s branding on the box through the licensee program.

It is the first of what became a small Game Gear-focused sub-series: GG Aleste II followed in 1993, and decades later Compile Heart-successor M2 produced GG Aleste 3 as a new Game Gear-style entry bundled into the 2020 Aleste Collection for PS4 and Switch — the compilation that also came packaged with a Game Gear Micro unit in one retail bundle. All of that later merchandising is exactly what pollutes a plain search for this game today, covered below.

Which release is the Japanese cartridge, and what is its real code?

This is the one to get right. The Media Arts Database’s only row for GG Aleste (M726876) lists the platform as SEGAマーク3 — Sega Mark III, the 8-bit console from 1985, not the Game Gear — with product code G-1352 and barcode 4974365143527. Those two identifiers do exist and do belong to a real cartridge: they are printed on copies of the 1988 Sega Mark III game simply called Aleste, a separate release from the one this article covers. The database has conflated the Game Gear sequel’s title with the original Mark III game’s hard data. This is the same kind of error this catalog has documented before in Sega’s own official lists (platform rows that put a third-party title in the wrong file); here it turns up in the government database instead.

The real code for the Game Gear cartridge is T-66017, and three independent sources agree on it: Sega’s own software-licensee list (the page for Compile-published, non-Sega-branded Game Gear titles) gives GGアレスタ as 発売元：コンパイル, catalogue number T-66017; Suruga-ya’s product page for the cartridge lists 品番：T-66017 directly; and the SMS Power! hardware database, an English-language reference maintained independently of both Japanese sources, also gives T-66017 for the Game Gear GG Aleste. Use T-66017, not the code sitting in the Media Arts Database row.

When was it released, and why do the sources disagree?

Three sources, three dates, all in the same six-week window at the end of 1991:

• Sega’s software-licensee list: 1991年12月29日
• SMS Power!: 20 December 1991
• Suruga-ya (both of its listings for this cartridge): 1991/11/29

None of the three is corroborated by a second independent source, so we cannot resolve this the way this catalog usually does — by favoring whichever date two sources share. We use Sega’s own licensee list as the primary date, 29 December 1991, because it is the publisher-of-record’s own release schedule, but flag plainly that SMS Power! places it a week and a half earlier and Suruga-ya a full month earlier. If you are cataloguing this cartridge yourself, treat “late 1991” as the safe claim and the exact day as unsettled.

What was the list price, and what does it cost now?

Sega’s licensee list gives 4,800円 before tax. Suruga-ya’s 定価 field shows ￥5,280 — exactly 4,800円 plus 10% tax, so the figures agree once tax is accounted for.

On 21 September 2026, Suruga-ya listed two copies of the base game: a near-mint (美品) copy priced between ￥48,100 and ￥405,600 depending on condition grade, with a marketplace copy from ￥26,620; and a cartridge-only, box-and-manual-missing (箱説なし) copy at ￥26,400. Both figures put this well above the Game Gear strategy titles covered elsewhere in this catalog, in line with GG Aleste’s reputation among Game Gear collectors as one of the harder shooters to find complete.

How do you search each shop for it, given the sequel-name pollution?

Suruga-ya: the plain Japanese title GGアレスタ shows results: 8 (this game: 2; GG Aleste II: 1; the 2020 Aleste Collection compilation across three platforms: 5), all sharing enough of the name to surface in the same search. The catalogue number without a hyphen, T66017, is the clean route: it returns exactly 1 listing, and it is this game — though it also misses the second (box-less) listing that the title search catches, so neither search alone is complete. Use the code first, and check the title search for anything the code missed.

Buyee: the plain title GGアレスタ returns 29 listings, but genuine copies of this specific game — cartridges, complete sets — make up only a small fraction of them; most of the rest are GG Aleste II listings, GG Aleste 3 merchandise (acrylic panels, tapestries, charms), strategy-guide DVDs for all three games, and unrelated hardware. Adding the platform word (GGアレスタ ゲームギア) does not meaningfully improve this — the same sequel and merchandise listings still surface. The catalogue number T66017 returns nothing useful on Buyee at all. There is no clean single search term here; expect to filter the results by eye for listings that say plainly GGアレスタ without a II, 2 or 3 attached.

Why search Kataban for this one?

Because the correct catalogue number is the one thing none of the big Japanese sources agree on cleanly — the government database has the wrong one entirely, tied to an unrelated 1988 cartridge — and getting it wrong means chasing the wrong product page. Kataban carries the corrected code alongside the Japanese title, so a search here does not risk landing on Sega Mark III listings by mistake.

GG Aleste · GGアレスタ · Game Gear, 1991 (T-66017) · Compile

Where to buy: Suruga-ya.jp — catalogue number (T66017) · Buyee — the Japanese title (GGアレスタ)
See it on Kataban →