1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 19XX

[Sketcz-1000]

Spanning pretty much the entire war, an extensive look at Capcom's 194X series of vertical shmups.

www.hardcoregaming101.net/19XX/19xx.htm

[lanceboyle94]

Finished reading it and it was quite good.

There's one problem, though. The 19XX text is incomplete for some reason (it ends at "Unfortunate, despite its quality,")

[starscream]

Port additions:
- 1942- There is unsurprisingly also a port for the Sharp X1, as far as I remember it didn't look different compared to the PC-88 version.


- 1942 and 1943 exist for J2me (i.e. Cellphones), 1942 also for the BREW standard (for which I've never seen a game image or even a shop anywhere, and have no idea if it's emulatable).

- There was also a compilation release for Windows called" Capcom Arcade Hits Volume 2" containing emulations of the two games and apparently featuring also versions for Windows Mobile PDAs - I'm not sure if this applies to 1943. 1942 was released as a standalone game for Windows Mobile (it's also just emulated).

PDA games aren't in general very well documented, but it's possible to use programs for both Windows Mobile as well as Palm OS devices on Desktop PCs, thanks to official emulators, much like Android.

[ReyVGM]

Just in case, there is a 1942 for both the MSX and MSX2. Incredibly, the MSX2 version looks worse than the MSX version.

www.generation-msx.nl/msxdb/softwareinfo/706

www.generation-msx.nl/msxdb/softwareinfo/707

[vnisanian2001]

The MSX versions weren't made by Capcom. They were made by ASCII. Ditto the MSX version of Higemaru Makaijma.

Also, can someone please answer this question for me:

1943 Kai was released in June 1988, but has a 1987 copyright date. Did Capcom produce it in 1987, and decided to hold-off from releasing it for a whole year?

[starscream]

I'm guessing since it's more of an update, the copyright of the original 1943 still applied from Capcom's point of view.

[Weasel]

19XX is probably my favorite arcade shmup of all time. The charged homing shots and the ability to charge your bombs is really awesome, and the bosses are huge and really impressive, even though most of them are just giant planes and battleships.

[nickz]

May 8, 2012 13:43:47 GMT -5 lanceboyle94 said:

Finished reading it and it was quite good.

There's one problem, though. The 19XX text is incomplete for some reason (it ends at "Unfortunate, despite its quality,")

It should be "Unfortunately, despite its quality, 19XX was never ported to any home consoles and remains an arcade exclusive to this day." I'm sorry for the incomplete sentence. I saw it too and wondered what I was thinking.

[jorpho]

I could have sworn there was a game with a title of 194X. Am I thinking of something else?

Also, "did historically bad arcade to console conversions" – is that supposed to be "hysterically" ?

[Weasel]

Nah, I think "historically" works in that context, as in the company already had a reputation for bad ports, looking back. Though I think the sentence could be better structured as "Historically speaking, they did bad arcade to console conversions, and this is no exception." That's just me, though...

[BulletMagnet]

A few other things I'd add:

- The second PS2/XBox Capcom arcade collections are titled "Capcom Classics Collection Volume 2" not "Reloaded" - that's only the PSP edition.

- Someone will have to confirm this for me, but if memory serves only the PS1 and Saturn "Capcom Generation 1" home ports offer the option to play in "tate" (vertical screen) mode: if this is the case it's probably worth mentioning someplace in there.

- In the 19XX section you devote some space to discussing the charge-able bombs, but don't explain the even more important "lock-on" shot and the homing missiles it utilizes, which sort of leaves the references to the "homing" stat in the plane bios high and dry.

- Might also be worth nothing that reaching certain "ranks" in 19XX is how you get extra lives, making that particular scoring aspect extra important.

[splatter]

Nice! 1941 and 1943 Kai are two of my favorite verts.

The type of bomb attack depends on what section of the level you're in. If you are flying high in the sky, lightning will strike all enemies on screen. If you are flying low, near the ocean, a huge tsunami douses all enemies beneath it.

There's third attack, a quick flash that neutralizes enemy bullets. You'll see it if you bomb when very near a bullet.

The original game only had one background tile set, while this one has three

It has four, which I think of as morning, noon, sunset, and night. The change from morning to noon is more subtle than the change to the last two backgrounds, but if you look at a round 1/5/9 screenshot next to one from round 2/6/10 you'll see the difference.

there are also a few new weapons, including lasers and spread guns

The laser was in regular 1943, though it didn't show up in the POW cycle; you got it from those secret cats. Also, the "spread gun" is just a powered-up shotgun. You'd need to collect the shotty several times in regular 1943 for it to reach that state, but it's maxed-out from the beginning in 1943 Kai.

Another one of the more memorable parts is the final boss, a clearly alien spacecraft

Surprisingly, it's a real aircraft.

its biggest contribution is the addition being able to select your fighter

You could kind of do this in 1941. If you played from the left side of the cab you'd fly the Lightning, and from the right side you'd fly the Mosquito. There was very little difference between them in 1941, though, compared to in 19XX.

I think Varth: Operation Thunderstorm is worth a short segment. It's kind of the spiritual successor of 1941, with a similar graphical style and some of the same bosses. Pretty good game, too, though shares the problem with some 1942 games of being too long to play comfortably.

[ReyVGM]

No mention of the different MSX 1942 versions?

[nickz]

I'll see about getting pictures of the versions I missed. As for the Horten Ho 229, I have never seen that before. That is awesome! I guess the reason I've never heard of it is because I focus more on The Pacific Theater when reading up on World War II.

Varth may just deserve its own article. It plays more like its own game and is not set during World War II. There's also some kind of cool hidden stuff too, like a cameo of Ryu from Steet Fighter.

Edit: The mobile phone stuff was pretty easy to find. I got pictures of both 1942 and 1943. MSX2 was a bit harder to get, but I got pictures of that too. It looks closer to the Arcade version of 1942, but the controls are jerky and unresponsive.

I found 1942 in the Sharp X1 database. That's pretty much all I can find about it. I'm still going to be working to find possibly the oldest home ports of this thing. If anything, it's getting me a lot more interested in the Sharp X1.
www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ITTO/x1/softdb.html

[nickz]

I got screenshots of 1942 and 1943 on mobile. 1942 seems to have a screwed up resolution for some reason while 1943 looks okay. I got a picture of 1942 on the MSX2 also. It looks closer to the arcade version, but it plays kind of jerky and has bad controls. I researched the Sharp x1 version and could not find any dumps or screenshots. I was very disapointed. Oh well. On the upside, while researching, I found that 1942 had a version on FM-7. It's terrible, but I grabbed a few screenshots anyway. Thank you, everyone for helping out.