1943: The Battle of Midway
- This article is about the arcade game. For the actual World War II battle, see Battle of Midway.
| 1943: The Battle of Midway | |
|---|---|
| title screen title screen | |
| Developer(s) | Capcom |
| Publisher(s) | Capcom |
| Designer(s) | Yoshiki Okamoto |
| Platform(s) | Arcade game, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, NES, TurboGrafx-16, ZX Spectrum |
| Release | 1987 (arcade) 1988 (Amiga) 1988 (Atari ST) 1988 (Commodore 64) 1988 (NES) 1988 (TurboGrafx-16) 1988 (ZX Spectrum) 2005 (Xbox and PS2 as part of Capcom Classics Collection) |
| Genre(s) | Vertical scrolling shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, 2 player Co-op |
1943: The Battle of Midway is a vertical scrolling shooter arcade game made by Capcom in 1987. Capcom released their own port for the NES, but the game has also been ported to the Atari ST, the ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC, the Commodore 64 and the Amiga. In 2005 it was released for Xbox and PlayStation 2 as part of Capcom Classics Collection. The overall faithfulness and quality of execution of these third party versions varies greatly. 1943 is the second game in the 1940s series, following the successful 1942.
Gameplay
The game is set in the pacific theater of World War II, off the coast of the Midway Atoll. The goal is to attack the Japanese Air Fleet that bombed the players' American Aircraft Carrier, pursue all Japanese Air and Sea forces, fly through the 16 levels of play, make their way to the Japanese battleship Yamato and destroy her. 11 Levels consist of an Air-to-Sea battle (with a huge battleship or an aircraft carrier as an End-Level Boss), while 5 levels consist of an all-aerial battle against a squadron of Japanese Bombers and a Mother Bomber that needs to be destroyed.
As with 1942, players pilot a P-38. Unlike 1942, the player only has one life, the player only has one refillable energy meter which dwindles as follows:
- Getting hit by Enemy Fire (Minor Energy Loss, about 4-16 points)
- Getting rammed by Enemy Planes (Major Energy Loss, Players lose more energy if hit by large planes, can be as severe as (circa) 88 Energy Points!)
- Time
- Grabbing special weapons power-up
- Using lightning on enemies
- Using Tsunami on enemies
The game is over when all of the P-38's energy is gone.
In addition to the Loop-the-Loop techniques (2 Loops per stage), the P-38 was re-tailored to carry more weapons as outlined herein:
- Shotgun (Clears Enemy Fire, grab a second one to increase its power)
- Three-Way Machine Gun (Widens the shot burst)
- Auto (Fires an extremely fast burst with one touch of the button)
- Super Shell (Hold the button to continually fire—double the power of normal bullets)
- Laser (Rarity that can pierce even the toughest targets)
- Lightning (Mega Crush—Destroys all flying objects)
- Tsunami (Mega Crush—damages ships)
- Cyclone (Mega Crush—clears all enemy fire)
Using either the Lightning, Tsunami, and Cyclone will decrease the player's energy meter rapidly.
If the level ends with a surface attack, the ship targets will count towards the score; otherwise all air targets are accounted for. The player must succeed in destroying 70% of the boss or face a return to the scene to finish the job. Upon level's completion, most of the energy meter is replenished and points are awarded according to the percentage of destroyed targets and the number of loop moves remaining.
Destroying a formation of red enemy planes will result in a power-up, the most common type of which is the POW icon, which will replenish a little of the energy meter. Optionally, the player can fire at the POW icon to turn it into a variety of weapon power-ups as described above. As the weapon power-up currently in effect wears out with time (one point per second), replacement power-ups need to be picked up on a regular basis, or weapons will revert to the stock guns. The last of the regular power-ups, the rare double canister, will replenish most of the energy gauge. Apart from chance encounters straight from a red squadron, it is acquired by firing at a regular power-up icon for a very long time - it finally turns into one.
Other rarer power-ups exist. Occasionally a red squadron will yield Capcom's famous "Yashichi" symbol, which will replenish the energy meter completely. A plane symbol will provide reinforcements in the form of two wingmen. Sometimes a small, green plane will enter from behind, destroying it will reveal a star-shaped score bonus. Every level also contains hidden bonus items that can be spotted by firing randomly, if it would appear that bullets are hit an invisible target then continuing to shoot at that spot will reveal a hidden bonus. The most noteworthy of these is the curious cat-shaped statue, which will teleport randomly around the screen. Picking it up will enable the P-38 to use the laser weapon for roughly 65 seconds.
Bosses (from start to finish)
- Tone (Japanese Heavy Cruiser)
- Kaga (Japanese Aircraft Carrier)
- Ayako 1 (Japanese Mother Bomber)
- Fusō (Japanese Battleship)
- Akagi (Japanese Aircraft Carrier)
- Daihiryu 1 (Japanese Aircraft Squadron)
- Ise (Japanese Battleship)
- Hiryū (Japanese Aircraft Carrier)
- Ayako 2 (Japanese Mother Bomber)
- Mutsu (Japanese Battleship)
- Daihiryu 2 (Japanese Aircraft Squadron)
- Yamashiro (Japanese Battleship)
- Sōryū (Japanese Aircraft Carrier)
- Ayako 3 (Japanese Mother Bomber)
- Nagato (Japanese Battleship)
- Yamato (Japanese Battleship and Final Boss)
1943 on the Nintendo Entertainment System
The NES version varies from the arcade version somewhat, introducing the gradual improvement of the player's plane by several "augmenting" power-ups that never go away. These include the plane's offensive and defensive powers, the energy level, its special weapons and their durations. This somewhat alters the game balance and a different tactic is required to survive the game. For example, initially very few weapons are made available; more can be attained from power-ups by putting statistic points into "special weapons ability". Likewise, there are statistics for offensive ability, defensive ability, total energy, and special weapon time limit. The statistics modify the rates of change for the energy reserve, damage inflicted, and special weapon time limit.
Moreover, the names of the targets have changed as follows (from start to finish):
- Rikaku (Japanese Heavy Cruiser)
- Kaku (Japanese Aircraft Carrier)
- Ayako 1 (Japanese Mother Bombership)
- Kakushi (Japanese Battleship)
- Kyoshu (Japanese Aircraft Carrier)
- Ganryo (Japanese Bomber Armada)
- Choko (Japanese Battleship)
- Roshuku (Japanese Aircraft Carrier)
- Ayako 2 (Japanese Mother Bombership)
- Kayu (Japanese Battleship)
- Bunshu (Japanese Bomber Armada)
- Chojin (Japanese Battleship)
- Riju (Japanese Aircraft Carrier)
- Ayako 3 (Japanese Mother Bombership)
- Ryofu (Japanese Battleship)
- Totaku (Japanese Battleship, this is actually a fake Totaku)
- Kaku (Japanese Aircraft Carrier)
- Ayako 1 (Japanese Mother Bombership)
- Choko (Japanese Battleship)
- Ayako 2 (Japanese Mother Bombership)
- Chojin (Japanese Battleship)
- Ryofu (Japanese Battleship)
- Ayakoes 1, 2, and 3 (Japanese Mother Bombership Armada)
- "The Real Totaku" and a heavily-armed Japanese naval armada (All Battleships)
As opposed to the arcade version which had 16 stages, the NES version has 24 stages.
1943 - Midway Kaisen
Also known as 1943 Kai, Midway Kaisen was released exactly one year after the original game's debut. 1943 Kai is an enhanced, "wild" version of 1943 that was made only available in Japan. Most of the graphics and sounds have been reworked, the weapons have been made more extreme and some fairly strange things (laser-firing WWII planes and ships that run on ground) have been added. The trademark P-38 has been replaced with an anachronistic World War I era biplane.
- The Turbo Grafx 16 / PC Engine ports of 1943 are actually ports of 1943 Midway Kaisen.
- Though it was never released in the US in arcades, it was included in Capcom Classics Collection for PS2 and Xbox in 2005.
External links
- 1943: The Battle of Midway at the Killer List of Videogames
- Template:GameFAQs
- 1943: The Battle of Midway at MobyGames
- 1943: The Battle of Midway at SpectrumComputing.co.uk