Retro Game of the Day! 1943 - The Battle of Midway
1943 - The Battle of Midway was released to arcades in 1987 (*almost* 43 years later.. hmm, hmm, interesting, interesting..) by Capcom, and it showed up on the NES a year later (likewise, a bevy of other platforms eventually). A successor to Capcom's earlier hit 1942 - how does this one measure up?
Quite well, actually! The game was a blast to play in the arcade and the NES version was no slouch either. The dip in visual quality - as usual - was notable, but the furious gameplay was fairly intact. Not to detract from the visuals, they still did a good job (and the enemies, especially the large bosses, were quite powerful and threatening looking). Also, the music was quite hectic and kicking, great music to shoot down aircraft carriers to! Eat your heart out Burt Bacharach!
This is a top-down shooter where you pilot a solo American P-38 fighter against the massive Japanese naval fleet (interesting that this game came out of Japan, eh?) Rather than lives, you have a refillable energy meter which constantly ebbs away and drastically diminishes whenever you get blasted. Get shot down to zero and you are history, my friend. To aid in your long and arduous battle, you can pickup powerup weapons (measured in HP and counted down in the same manner as your health) and little biplanes which aid in your shooting ability.
Each of the game's levels consists of two stages, the main attack followed by a closeup-press on different battle cruisers and such - it is in these sub-stages where the tension really picks up, and you must be sure to destroy a high percentage of each vessel or it's a failure and you must try again. Neat idea!
Hmm, why would someone make a 1943 stool? Anyway, 1943 is a wonderful game which has a lot of action, simple pick-up-and-play, and incorporates a bit of strategy to see through to completion. They don't have games like this anymore (all we get are bullet-hell shooters) but that doesn't mean they are not still a great time to play!
Your last sentence was very well said. I'm a firm believer that anyone making a shooter these days should study 1942 / 1943 and Time Pilot before doing any game design of their own. I feel that these games are some of the best scrolling shooter action ever made.
ReplyDeleteThis is a cool game. The enemy warships are named after actual ships that were in the Japanese fleet, and if you look up photos of them and compare them to how they look in the game they are surprisingly similiar. Even though it is kinda strange that this game came out of Japan and its about destroying the Japanese fleet it might be intenional... I mean is there even an end to this game? :-)
ReplyDeleteYes there is an end! I was very riveted to 1943 and got to the end rather quickly (and it was pretty cool for a shooter ending, too!)
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