Release date(s) JP: July 1987 | Genre(s) Isometric shooter Initial release date July 1987 Publisher Namco | |
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Mode(s) Up to 2 players, alternating turns Cabinet Upright, cabaret, and cocktail CPU 2x Motorola M6809 @ 2.048 MHz,1x Motorola M6809 @ 1.536 MHz,1x Hitachi HD63701 @ 1.536 MHz Similar Rompers, Bakutotsu Kijūtei, Thunder Ceptor, Finest Hour, Märchen Maze | ||
Blazer (ブレイザー, Bureizā) is an isometric perspective scrolling shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in 1987, only in Japan; it runs on the company's System 1 hardware, and was one of the first 16-bit games to use a three-quarter-view perspective (another one of them is Namco's own Pac-Mania).
Contents
Gameplay
The player must alternate between a tank named "Vanguard" and a helicopter named "Maiheriko" (and for the tenth and final mission, a boat named "Maiboto"), to kill enemies both on land and in the air. Some air-based enemies will leave behind powerups for Vanguard to collect, when hit by its anti-aircraft missiles; they can restore its fuel, increase its fuel capacity, make it invulnerable for a short period of time, and even grant it an extra life if it manages to collect enough of them (which is initially thirteen, but it can go up to sixteen).
Trivia
This game was dedicated to Shoko Tamako Sumie from all its staff; upon completion of the game, it gives a list of schematics for the player tank, and a passage from In The Cold Morning Of August.