Fire Shark
Introduction
Fire Shark is a vertically scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Toaplan, originally released to Japanese and European arcades in 1989 under the title Same! Same! Same! (literally ‘Shark! Shark! Shark!’), with Romstar handling the North American arcade release. The Sega Genesis conversion was built in-house by Toaplan itself and released in Japan and the US in 1990, followed by Europe the next year, making it one of several shoot ’em ups the prolific studio brought to the console in a short span before its output slowed and the company eventually folded in 1994. Players pilot a World War II-style biplane over ocean and jungle stages, collecting power-up icons to upgrade a forward-firing main weapon and a set of secondary bombs while weaving through dense bullet patterns and recurring boss encounters. Its combination of a period military setting with Toaplan’s usual bullet-heavy design made it a distinctive entry in the Genesis’s early shooter library.
↑ = up
→ = right
↓ = down
← = left
Z = A Button
X = B Button
A = X Button
S = Y Button
Q = L Button
E = R Button
Shift = Select
Enter = Start
