Arcade Shmups #27

1942 (1984)
By: Capcom Genre: Shooting Players: 1-2 (alternate) Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 62,520 (one credit)
Also Available For: NES, Game Boy Color, PC-88, Fujitsu FM-7, Sharp X1, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

Capcom have been responsible for some truly wonderful games over these long years but one series that seems to be somewhat overlooked nowadays is the 19XX shooter series. It isn't even one of the 13 series mentioned in the company's summary on Wikipedia! What has the series done to deserve such scorn? Does it suck ass? I doubt that, but in order to find out I will play through the entire series starting with this original which graced arcades long before their mighty CPS boards were introduced. It is therefore a simple enough game as you might expect. Rather surprisingly for a Japanese-developed game, however, it sees you on the side of the Americans against the entire Japanese Air Force!

I'm not sure if this set-up is recognition of their aggressive actions during WWII or simply an attempt to appeal to the overseas market but nonetheless, you are placed in charge of an American P-38 Lightning fighter plane with which you must battle your way from the Pacific theatre all the way to Tokyo during the titular year, destroying as many enemy aircraft as you can along the way. Well, that's what we're told by the game's blurb but the action is actually confined to the Pacific Islands as far as I can tell. There are a remarkable 32 stages in all, stretching from the Midway Atoll all the way to Okinawa by way of various stops in between, with four stages taking place in and around each location.

Your targets through these stages are all aerial - no tanks or guns here - just a few types of Japanese aircraft flooping about the place. Most are small fighters which zip across or down the screen seemingly at random, with some heading back up the screen after reaching the bottom. Only one kind offers powerups though - the orange ones which are also the only ones to fly in formation. Destroy a whole squadron and you'll get a POW symbol which will either boost the power of your basic cannon, give you a couple of small escort fighters, or blow up all enemies on screen. There are also a few larger aircraft that show up now and then too, and they usually arrive from the bottom of the screen, so watch out!

These include fighters slightly larger than your own (below) which appear in ever greater numbers the further you get into the game, a larger bomber (above) which turns up twice per stage, and a huge gunship (left) which you'll see four times through the game. That's about it for the enemies though. Aside from the gunship, you'll see each type of enemy from the first stage to the last, although I believe they are based on real Japanese aircraft from the time so I guess it's just being realistic. That goes for the stages as well. There isn't much variety - certainly no forest stage, desert stage, ice stage, etc - all stages begin and end on an aircraft carrier and all of them take place at least partially over water.

This is another thing that just makes the game surprisingly realistic for its day. Of course, it could've just been an excuse to be lazy and only make a few levels-worth of graphics and just jumble them around for each stage, but it works, even if it does make the game repetitive. It's even more repetitive in terms of audio, with the 'music' restricted to a few jingles and a strange repeating whistling sound in-game. Fortunately it's more enjoyable to play than listen to, with its consistent nature making it addictive to see how far you can get. It is a real challenge to get anywhere near the end on one credit though - the stages are quite short but it will still take a determined pilot over an hour to get through them all, and besides the basic power-ups the only help you get is a few vertical-roll manoeuvres per life which can be used as last-ditch attempts to avoid enemies and/or their bullets. The sections over land are usually much more challenging than the watery bits too, as the enemy bullets can often be tough to spot. The game's unusual length notwithstanding, however, it's certainly not the toughest game I've played from this era, and the decent controls and collision-detection means it's not often unfair either. The sequels obviously offer flashier visuals and greater variety but this original is still a decent shooter in its own right too.

RKS Score: 7/10

Gameplay Video: here's a video of the whole game being played by one of the talented fellows at World of Longplays (check out their great channel here). Oh, and don't watch if you want to avoid spoilers!