Review of scrolling shooters for NES game console (Famicom)

What it is?

Surrounded by countless enemies, in the form of mutated hypertrophied space insects, continually moving forward and bravely gnawing lasers, rockets and machine guns on their way through them, the fighter rushes into the airless space. Collecting all sorts of bonuses in the form of additional rockets or lives, he prepares for a meeting with the boss, although he may do without him to gain a well-deserved rest at his base at the end of the level, replenish his ammunition, repair, improve equipment or buy new again in battle!

And so 999 times, if the developers of the game did not take pity on the player and did not make the number of levels at least an order of magnitude smaller, with minor, often, background changes and a variety of enemies to be destroyed by a brave space maid (scuba diver, combat robot, etc.).
If you see something similar on the screen, then this is a clearly marked arcade scroller. "Arcade" means that the gameplay is simplified to the limit (beat-run) and elementary control, and the "scroller" is a continuous moving screen, without the ability to slow down and at least a little ponder what is happening. Scrollers are divided into vertical and horizontal, in the first case, the movement occurs from bottom to top, and in the second, respectively, from left to right, although it may in Arab games and right to left. The action of the scroller can occur in any scenery; it can even be a miner making his way to the surface of the earth from the piled mine, the main thing is the constant movement of the screen. In most cases, the object controlled by us can move freely in all directions, shoot various ammunition, collect bonuses, avoid obstacles and ... everything seems to be). The actions of the enemies are also not too diverse - they can be divided into 3 types:

• Enemies appear at the far edge of the screen and, without changing the trajectory of movement, pass through the entire screen, perhaps by shooting something
• Enemies appear at the far edge of the screen and move to the opposite edge of the screen, changing the trajectory of movement along some simple algorithm (zigzag, oblique, or spiral)
• Enemies appear at the far edge of the screen and move at random, such enemies often do not disappear until you kill them.

At the end of the level, the boss may be waiting for us - especially a “fat” and unpleasant opponent with unique weapons - but this is not at all necessary. By the way, in some cases, when a “static” boss appears, for example, a ground-based battery of howitzers, the screen may stop moving and will have to show wonders of resourcefulness. The additional information displayed on the screen is usually the number of lives, points gained and the type of weapon currently selected. It is also possible to have an indicator in the form of a progress bar of life and / or energy.

Most scrollers were produced for gaming consoles (Atari, NES, SEGA, etc.) and arcade machines. The peak of their popularity comes in the mid-nineties of the last century. New games of this genre can now be found only in browser flash versions. Among the relatively modern ones, the Jets'n'Guns (2004), released under PS and the Touhou Project, can be distinguished. But now we are only interested in toys released under the NES platform (it’s also Famicon, it’s also Dendy).
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1942

So let's start with the first, in my opinion, worthy of mentioning the game, namely "1942", released in 1984 by Capcom for arcade machines. Later it was ported to a number of other platforms, including the NES in 1985. The game takes place, as you might have guessed by name, during World War II. The plot is very simple - piloting an American fighter, you must fly to Tokyo, simultaneously destroying the entire Japanese navy. Some types of aircraft in the game have real prototypes, for example, a fighter, under the player’s control, it is Lockheed P-38 Lightning, and among enemy aircraft, silhouettes of such machines as Mitsubishi A6M Zero and Kawasaki Ki-61 are guessed.
"1942" is a classic "vertical" scroller. Each level begins with the fact that you take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier and you are immediately attacked by the assembly of Japanese kamikazes, for the destruction of which you earn points. Gaining a certain amount of points you get an extra life. And after destroying a complete set from a flock of planes moving along a complex trajectory, you will receive one of the bonuses in the form of weapon reinforcement or an additional airplane accompanying us, which also shoots at enemies. The number of cartridges for the gun is unlimited, in contrast to the "super-weapon", by using which you destroy all opponents on the screen in one fell swoop. And the aircraft also has the ability to make a “dead loop”, which is rarely found in games of this genre, thereby leaving the opponent's strike for a while. There are quite a few levels in the game that are not very different from each other, but after the 32nd landing on ours, which has already become a native aircraft carrier, the game ends with the unconditional surrender of Dai-Nippon.

The diversity of the appearance and behavior of the enemy aircraft also do not differ - I noticed no more than ten modifications of them. Music, if you can call it that, and other sound effects are clearly not up to par and after the first few levels you want to turn off the sound altogether. However, all these minuses are striking after nearly three decades after the release of this game, but for its time it was a real hit! In total, about 1.2 million copies of all three parts of the 1942 Series franchise were sold. This is certainly not such an outstanding result as, for example, the game Super Mario Bros - about 40 million copies were sold to it, but also very good for the gaming industry. Among all the franchises of the Capcom corporation itself, “1942” takes the honorable fourteenth place, behind, naturally, such monsters as the “Mega Man Series” - 28 million copies, “Street Fighter Series” -25 million, “Ghosts' n Goblins Series” - 4.3 million and other more famous and long-playing games.
Oh yeah, the game has a cooperative transmission mode with a partner, which certainly is a big plus for games of this genre.

In order to be able to compare all the games in question at the end of the article, I introduced 4 criteria for evaluating them using a 5-point system, where 5 is super cool and 1 is complete sucks.
I will evaluate, so do not expect objectivity). So, the criteria will be as follows:

• 1) Management
• 2) Graphics
• 3) Sound accompaniment
• 4) Difficulty passing
• 5) The plot

By the fourth point, a small explanation is required - it will not be the absolute complexity of the game that is estimated, that is, the five will receive an impassable game that is not completely impermeable, but how to say this ... balanced. Too simple a game will not have time to captivate a player and after the first passing it will most likely be “put on the shelf”, and too complicated will scare the player away with its obstruction and will also be quickly abandoned. Therefore, in the game balance, as elsewhere, the golden mean is “taxing” - complexity gradually increases from level to level, making pico-like jumps during a meeting with level bosses. The last levels should be more difficult in order for the person who passed the game to feel the moral satisfaction of successfully overcoming difficulties.

In order not to repeat each time and not to list these items, I will simply write 5 numbers, each of which is an estimate of 1,2,3,4 and 5 points, respectively. The game “1942” receives the following ratings from me: 3, 3, 2, 2, 1.

Macross

Some games are gaining popularity not only because of their exceptional gaming qualities, such as addictive gameplay or stunning graphics, but also because they were based on the famous movie, animated series, or comic. My next one, “The Super Dimension Fortress Macross,” seems to me to such games. This game is based on the most popular anime in the genre of "fur" - Macross, we have better known as "Robotech". To tell the truth, in the game from the anime itself a little is taken: the recognizable outlines of the VF-1 fighter, some ships of the opposing earthlings of the Zentredi race and the cosmic landscape. But again, let's make a discount on the year the game appeared - 1985, and the possibilities of developers limited by the parameters of the console. Although the true fans of this animated series was enough and that.

To reduce the number of letters in this text, I will call it simply “Macross”. The game was developed and published by Namco Corporation.
in 1985 for the Famicom platform (NES). I could not find the sales data, but, apparently, no more than 100,000 copies were sold. The most famous series belonging to the “pen” of “Namco” can be considered “Tekken Series”, “Ace Combat Series”.
“Macross” is a horizontally oriented scroller with “Valkyrie” (aka VF-1) in the lead role. The fighter, which we have to control, has three configurations: the classic fighter, the so-called GERWALK (Ground Effective Reinforcement of Winged Armament with Locomotive Knee-joint) - a plane with arms and legs, to be simpler, and a humanoid robot. In each of the three configurations, the management style changes. In the first case, the forward movement on the screen is accelerated to the maximum, but maneuvering along the vertical axis becomes problematic, in the latter we are moving slowly, but we get supermaneuverability instead. Switching between configurations occurs instantly, which allows you to demonstrate the wonders of piloting. In service, we have a laser gun with "infinite" ammunition and limited unguided missiles. As opponents, we expect the same well-recognized combat units of aliens. This is mostly “Reguld” and as mini-bosses of the “Glaug” and “Queadluun-Rau” levels. Starting from the second level, the path of our “Valkyrie” will be blocked by minefields, and by collecting circles with a macro emblem and different letters you can restore your health, get an additional 5000 points or replenish your missile supply. At the end of each level there is a boss - this is always the middle command battleship Zentredi. Having dodged or destroyed all the laser turrets on his body, we get inside, where we complete the defeat of the enemy's space giant in 45 seconds. During the destruction of the reactor core of the battleship, our fighter will be attacked by its own defense of the core, at this point it is better to be in the GERWALK configuration. Just as in the previous game, the scenery from level to level does not change much, the number of all kinds of foes simply increases and at a certain moment they fill the whole screen. Game over). But seriously, the data on the number of levels I could not find, as well as pass it myself.

As a soundtrack, the eight-bit cover of the song “Shao Pai Long” (“Little White Dragon”) unobtrusively sounds, which was played in the animated series by one of the main characters. Other sound effects in the game are also not annoying, so she will get a higher score for the audio series than “1942”;). Unfortunately, the game mode for two players is not provided, so you can only compete with a friend in person - by the number of points earned ... well, or levels passed.
Ratings for The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: 5, 3, 3, 1, 1.

Crisis force

This game was released exclusively for the Famicom consoles in 1991, when the next generation of consoles ruled the ball - Nintendo released a more advanced gaming system - SNES. But the owners of the NES and Dendy consoles (its pirated version) of course also enjoyed the truly masterpiece of Konami, which, in my opinion, always produced only high-quality products. So, meet “Crisis Force” - in my opinion one of the best representatives of the genre on the NES. This is not to say that the game has become innovative, the same vertical scrolling shooter, the same principles as in all such games are flying and shoot. But! workmanship is completely different. Graphics, music, various gameplay, all sorts of "gadgets" in the form of a destroyed landscape, uncommon opponents ... in this game we even see the "settings" option, which is more characteristic of "sixteen-bit" games, in which the complexity of the game is set, the configuration of the joystick control and the possibility of listening to tunes from the game.

The game's plot is non-trivial for scrollers - seven evil gods that were destroyed ten thousand years ago by the civilization of the Atlanteans again awakened and pulled their dirty hands towards Japan in particular and the entire civilized world in general. And they can be stopped by their brother and sister - Asuka and Maya - the heirs of an ancient civilization of people, found by a married couple of archaeologists during their research on an uninhabited island in an ancient artifact seventeen years ago.

The game has only seven levels, each of which ends with a unique boss, but each of them has its own chip. There are no equal both in the background and in opponents - game designers have tried their best. We will be met by aliens of completely different forms, colors and manners of combat, but the fighting machine under our control is also not easy). We can accept three types of configurations, on which it will depend on how we destroy our enemies, the quantity, the appearance and direction of the projectiles fired, as well as the appearance of the fighter at the same time. List all enemies, bonuses and tactics of passage is not included in the task of this article, because it is an overview, but the game is very difficult - you can only write about it, and exceed all reasonable limits on the number of words, so we turn to statistics and estimates.

Konami has produced so many gorgeous franchises that, despite all its coolness, Crisis Force does not even make it to the top 50 of this sales corporation. “PES series”, “Metal Gear Series”, “Castlevenia Series” - against their background “Crisis Force” certainly does not look like a mega-monster. not nonetheless, it seems to me a cool game. And yes, you can play it together! Ratings? Mmm ... all the fives).

Epilogue

In the first approximation, it seems to me that there is no evolution as such in the scroller genre for the Nes / Famicom consoles. If you take out the graphics and sound, which of course are a pleasant part of the game, but do not fully define it, then companies that love the creation of the game received a competitive product at the output, and companies like "Toei Animation" created a Baltron svioch, and it does not really depend on the year of production).