Gaiares (ガイアレス, Gaiaresu?) is a Japanese style side-scrolling space shooter released in 1990 by Telenet Japan for the Sega Mega Drive System and subsequently for its American counterpart, the Sega Genesis. Gaiares came into the video game scene at a time when this genre was immensely popular; competition was fierce with franchised games like Thunder Force II, R-Type and Gradius, so it had to distinguish itself with a unique weapon system. The name is supposedly a combination of Gaia (mother Earth) and a shortened form/abbreviation of the word "rescue" (Res), which is the main objective of the battle taking place within the storyline.