Cabinet Upright, Cocktail Initial release date 1984 Sound Zilog Z80 | CPU Z80 (@ 4 Mhz) Series Caravan Shooting | |
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Genre(s) Vertically scrolling shooter Mode(s) Two players, alternating turns Display Raster, 224 x 256 pixels (Vertical), 514 colors Platforms Similar Caravan Shooting games, Tecmo games, Shoot 'em up games | ||
Star Force (スターフォース, Sutā Fōsu), released in North America by Video Ware in the arcades as Mega Force, is a vertically scrolling shooter released in 1984 by Tehkan (now known as Tecmo). In Japan, it is considered to be a monumental work among shooting games. There have also been caravan tournaments for the game in Japan.
Contents
Star force arcade video game years 1984
Gameplay
In the game, the player pilots a starship called the Final Star, while shooting various enemies and destroying enemy structures for points.
Unlike later vertical scrolling shooters, like Toaplan's Twin Cobra, the Final Star had only two levels of weapon power, and no secondary weapons like missiles and/or bombs. Each stage in the game was named after a letter of the Greek alphabet. In certain versions of the game, there is an additional level called "Infinity" (represented by the infinity symbol) which occurs after Omega, after which the game repeats indefinitely.
In the NES version, after defeating the Omega target, the player can see a black screen with Tecmo's logo, announcing the future release of the sequel Super Star Force. After that, the infinity target becomes available and the game repeats the same level and boss without increasing the difficulty.
Sequels
Ports and related releases
Star Force was ported in 1985 to the Family Computer and MSX home computer by Hudson Soft (since Tecmo wasn't a licensee of Nintendo until 1986). The North American version for the Nintendo Entertainment System was developed and published in 1987 by Tecmo with different graphics, music, and control over the Famicom version. Despite the U.S. arcade version being titled Mega Force, Tecmo decided to release the NES version under the original name of Star Force. It was also ported to the SG-1000 by Sega, X68000 by Dempa Shinbunsha and mobile phones by Tecmo. In 1995, along with two other NES shooters, the Famicom version of Star Force was remade by Hudson Soft with minimal upgrades for the Super Famicom as part of the Japan-only release of the Caravan Shooting Collection. The same version was also included in Hudson's compilation of NES shooters in 2006 in Hudson Best Collection Vol. 5. The original arcade version was later added to the compilation titled Tecmo Classic Arcade, which was released for the Xbox. In 2009, the arcade version was made available for download on the Wii Virtual Console for 500 Wii Points as one of the four initial offerings for the "Virtual Console Arcade" category of the Wii Shop Channel (the other three being Gaplus, Mappy, and The Tower of Druaga from Namco).