Introduction Three Wonders, known in Japan as Wonder 3, was developed and published by Capcom on CPS-1 hardware, released in arcades in July 1991 as an unusual multi-game cabinet offering players a choice between three entirely different games on a single board. Midnight Wanderers: Quest for the Chariot is a fantasy action-platformer following a hobbit-like…
Introduction Galaxian was developed and published by Namco, released in arcades in 1979 as the company’s answer to the runaway success of Taito’s Space Invaders the year before. Players control a starship at the bottom of the screen, firing upward at a formation of alien insect-like enemies that, unlike the steadily advancing rows in Space…
Introduction Space Invaders was developed and released by Taito in 1978, designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, who reportedly spent close to a year building both the game and the custom hardware needed to run it. Players control a small cannon at the bottom of the screen, moving left and right to shoot down descending rows of…
Introduction 1942 was developed and published by Capcom, released in Japan in 1984 as the studio’s first vertically scrolling shoot ’em up, with early development work credited to Yoshiki Okamoto, who would go on to shape many of Capcom’s most important arcade titles. Set during World War II, the game puts players in control of…
Introduction Gun.Smoke began as a 1985 Capcom arcade shooter designed by Yoshiki Okamoto, who would later oversee the studio’s biggest hits like Final Fight and Street Fighter II, with programming by Takashi Aoki and a soundtrack by Ayako Mori that helped make it one of Japan’s highest-grossing arcade games in early 1986. Capcom brought it…
Introduction Life Force was developed and published by Konami, originating as the 1986 arcade shoot ’em up Salamander, a spin-off of the studio’s hit Gradius built instead of an immediate direct sequel and released internationally under the Life Force name. Rather than a straight arcade port, Konami used the NES conversion, which reached Japan in…
Introduction Gradius began as a 1985 arcade shoot ’em up from Konami, developed under the working title Scramble 2 as a spiritual successor to the studio’s earlier Scramble, and it became one of the biggest arcade hits of the following year. Konami ported it to the Famicom in April 1986 and brought it to the…
Introduction The Steel Empire is a horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Hot-B and released for the Sega Genesis in 1992, originally launched in Japan under the title Koutetsu Teikoku (literally ‘Empire of Steel’), then brought to North America by Acclaim’s Flying Edge label as The Steel Empire and to Europe under the more…
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…
Introduction Super Fantasy Zone is a side-scrolling shoot ’em up developed and published by Sunsoft for the Sega Mega Drive, released in Japan in January 1992 and in Europe the following year, though it never saw an official North American release. Sunsoft came to the project with experience from having developed the Famicom version of…
Introduction Sol-Deace is a horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Wolf Team and published by Telenet Japan, originally released for the X68000 computer in November 1990 under the name Sol-Feace before reaching the Sega CD in Japan the following year. The Sega Genesis cartridge version, ported and published in North America by Renovation Products…
Introduction Hellfire is a horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up originally conceived by Tatsuya Uemura at Toaplan, developed alongside Truxton as Japanese arcade publisher Taito’s experiment in translating the studio’s vertical-shooter style into a horizontal format, released in 1989 after a famously troubled development cycle. The home version was built separately by NCS Corporation for the…