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Capcom Shmups - Taking a look at the 194x series
Taking a look at a wonderful series of shmups created by Capcom in the 80's and early 90's. The games were released out of sequence with the 1942 game appearing first and then 1943. The 1941, 1944 and 19xx games came afterwards. Just a simple set of video-reviews that I thought would be interesting to our readers (viewers?) over here at Armchair Arcade. Let me know what you think. The videos can be found within this article. Enjoy!
Taking a look at the 1990 Capcom shmup '1941 Counter attack'. This game was originally released on the CPS-1 system that is very similar to the Megadrive, Genesis, AtariST, Amiga, Neogeo range of systems that were out there back in the day. The combination motorola 68000 and zilog Z80 was found in a lot of those systems.
Capcom's 1984 shmup 1942 which was the first game int he 19xx series of shmups produced by Capcom. A lovely 8 bit game that has been ported to various home computer systems back in the day. There's an excellent port on the MSX2 I showed earlier.
Capcom's vertical shooter published in 2000 developed by 8ing/Raizing, Eighting/Raizing, Raizing (?????), Eighting (??????)
Very similar to the other 1940-something game yet with a difference.
The Capcom 19xx game from 1995-1996 running on the CPS-2 hardware. Portrait mode game very well executed.
Still one game left in this series to show you and that is 1943 which will appear in the next review.
1943: The battle of Midway (1943: ????????) not only taking a look at the arcade version but also the TG16/PCEngine, C64, Nes, Amstrad CPC versions of the game. All thanks to 15 minutes Youtube video!
Comments
I've always liked this series though I've spent most time on the original 1942. Its rock hard and hats off to anyone who can 1CC it.
There's one game that seems to be missing from your reviews that I thought I'd mention and that's 1942: Joint Strike which came out a little while ago on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. In case you missed it, I wanted to mention it, and while it wasn't quite developed by Capcom, it does fit into the series.
What I find fascinating about this series in particular is the historical context. Japanese vs. (the USA?) in WWII. It seems a politically charged topic for a developer of any country, but the fact that it's Japan putting these out really makes me wonder what's going on. Why would Japanese children enjoy playing a game where you must destroy the Japanese fleet? I mean, WTF??
Can anyone explain this to me?
There's only one game in which you actually target the Japanese fleet. In the others it is a virtual country in a virtual WW II. How that came to be is beyond me right now.