1943: The Battle of Midway
From Freepedia
| 1943: The Battle of Midway | |
| Image:1943 arcade.png | |
| Developer | Capcom |
| Publisher | Capcom |
| Release date | 1987 |
| Genre | Scrolling shooter |
| Modes | Up to 2 players, playing simultaneously |
1943: The Battle of Midway is a vertically scrolling shoot'em up arcade game made by Capcom in 1987. Capcom released their own port for the NES, but the game has also been ported to the Atari ST, the ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC, the Commodore 64 and the Amiga. The overall faithfulness and quality of execution of these third party versions varies greatly. 1943 is the second game in the 1940s series, following the successful 1942.
Contents |
Gameplay
The game is set in the Pacific Theater of Operations in World War II, off the coast of the Midway Atoll. The goal is to reach the Japanese battleship Yamato to destroy it, reaving through the 16 levels and destroying the Japanese fleet on the way. Most of the levels consist of an air battle section and a surface battle that pits you against ship targets, but a few levels only have the air battle, culminating in a boss fight against a squadron of tougher planes, instead.
The player (an American "Super Ace") pilots a P-38. Besides firing the main guns, the player can not only perform a "loop-the-loop" to avoid collision or enemy fire, but he can also use a special bomb attack "Mega Crash" (depicted either as a lightning, a cyclone or a tsunami) to clear the skies of enemy ammunition. However, this will tap the energy meter considerably. Unlike the first game, you only have one life, but are given a replenishable energy meter which will not only respond to hits, collisions and Mega Crash use, but will also dwindle over time. If you're hit while this meter is empty or hit so hard that it reaches the bottom, your plane is destroyed and the game is over (unless you can use a continue).
If the level ends with a surface attack, the ship targets will count towards your rating; otherwise all air targets are accounted for. You must succeed in destroying most of the ship targets or face a return to the scene to finish the job. Upon level's completion, most of the your energy is replenished and you're awarded points according to the percentage of destroyed targets and the number of loop moves remaining.
Destroying a formation of red enemy planes will result in a power-up, the most common type of which is the POW icon, which will replenish a little of your energy. You can optionally fire at the POW icon to turn it into a variety of weapon power-ups. These include a three-way gun, a spread-firing shotgun (the only main weapon that destroys enemy ammunition as well as the enemies themselves, plus it can be further boosted by picking up a second identical power-up), a semi-automatic machine gun and the immensely powerful missile launcher. As the weapon power-up you currently carry wears out with time (one point per second), replacement power-ups need to be picked up on a regular basis, or you will return to the stock guns. The last of the regular power-ups, the rare double canister, will replenish most of your energy gauge. Apart from chance encounters straight from a red squadron, it is acquired by firing at a regular power-up icon for a very long time - it finally turns into one.
Other rarer power-ups exist. Occasionally a red squadron will yield Capcom's famous "Yashici" symbol, which will replenish your energy completely. A plane symbol will give you reinforcements in the shape of two wingmen. Sometimes a small, green plane will enter from behind you - destroying it will reveal a star-shaped score bonus. Every level also contains hidden bonus items that can be spotted by firing randomly - if it would appear that your bullets hit an invisible target, keep shooting at the spot and a hidden bonus is bound to show up. The most noteworthy of these is the curious cat-shaped statue, which will teleport randomly around the screen. Picking it up will grant you a special laser weapon for a short time.
1943 on the Nintendo Entertainment System
The NES version varies from the arcade version somewhat, introducing the gradual improvement of the player's plane by several "augmenting" power-ups that you never lose. These include the plane's offensive and defensive powers, the energy level, its special weapons and their durations. This somewhat alters the game balance and a different tactic is required to survive the game.
1943 - Midway Kaisen
Also known as 1943 Kai, Midway Kaisen was released exactly one year after the original game's debut. 1943 Kai is an enhanced, "wild" version of 1943 that was made only available in Japan. Most of the graphics and sounds have been reworked, the weapons have been made more extreme and some fairly strange things (laser-firing WWII planes and ships that run on ground) have been added. The trademark P-38 has been replaced with an anachronistic World War I era biplane.
- The Turbo Grafix 16 / PC Engine ports of '1943 are actually ports of 1943 Midway Kaisen.
Screenshot Gallery
External links
- 1943: The Battle of Midway at MobyGames
- GameFAQs entry on NES version
- KLOV entry
- 1943 at Everything²
| 1942 Series |
|---|
| 1942 | 1943: The Battle of Midway | 1941: Counter Attack 19XX: The War Against Destiny | 1944: The Loop Master |
Categories: Cleanup from October 2005 | 1987 arcade games | 1988 computer and video games | Amiga games | Amstrad CPC games | Arcade games | Atari ST games | Capcom games | Commodore 64 games | NES games | World War II games | ZX Spectrum games
