Thunder Force Series - Part 1

Thunder Force (1984)
By: Tecno Soft Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: NEC PC-88
Also Available For: NEC PC-98, NEC PC-6001 Mk II, Sharp X1, Sharp MZ-1500, Fujitsu FM-7

Yes, this is the title screen in all its glory!

It has long been my intention to cover entire game series' from start to finish here, in addition to odd games, so to satisfy my own curiosity I thought I'd start with this classic and much heralded series of shooters. Pretty much all Mega Drive fans are already more than familiar with the series, no doubt, with the second game being one of the better launch titles for the console here in the UK, and the stonking third and fourth games remaining particularly popular among shoot 'em up fans, but what of the original game from which the others evolved? Before the days of the internet it was a complete mystery to me; I had heard many conflicting rumours but no definitive details and had certainly seen no screen shots, so solving this mystery seemed like a great place to start my humble blog.