''1942'' is a

vertically scrolling shooter A vertically scrolling video game or vertical scroller is a video game in which the player views the field of play principally from a top-down perspective, while the background scrolls from the top of the screen to the bottom (or, less often, from ...

game made by

Capcom is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

that was released for arcades in 1984. Designed by

Yoshiki Okamoto , sometimes credited as Kihaji Okamoto, is a Japanese video game designer. He is credited with producing popular titles for Konami, including '' Gyruss'' and '' Time Pilot'', and for Capcom, including ''1942'', ''Gun.Smoke'', ''Final Fight'' and ...

, it was the first game in the ''194X'' series, and was followed by '' 1943: The Battle of Midway''. ''1942'' is set in the Pacific Theater of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and is loosely based on the

Battle of Midway The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under ...

. Despite the game being created by Japanese developers, the goal is to reach

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and destroy the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

air fleet; this was due to being the first Capcom game designed with Western markets in mind. It went on to be a commercial success in arcades, becoming Japan's fifth highest-grossing table arcade game of 1986 and one of top five highest-grossing arcade conversion kits that year in the United States. It was ported to the

NES The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

, selling over copies worldwide, along with other home platforms.

Gameplay

The player pilots a Lockheed P-38 Lightning dubbed the "Super Ace". The player has to shoot down enemy planes; to avoid enemy fire, the player can perform a roll or vertical loop. During the game, the player may collect a series of

power-ups In video games, a power-up is an object that adds temporary benefits or extra abilities to the player character as a Game mechanics, game mechanic. This is in contrast to an Item (game), item, which may or may not have a permanent benefit that ca ...

, one of them allowing the plane to be escorted by two other smaller fighters in a Tip Tow formation. Enemies included:

Kawasaki Ki-61 The Kawasaki Ki-61 ''Hien'' (飛燕, "flying swallow") is a Japanese World War II fighter aircraft. Used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service, it was designated the "Army Type 3 Fighter" (三式戦闘機). Allied intelligence initially b ...

Mitsubishi A6M Zero The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" is a long-range carrier-based fighter aircraft formerly manufactured by Mitsubishi Aircraft Company, a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and was operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 to 1945. The A6M w ...

s and

Kawasaki Ki-48 The Kawasaki Ki-48 ( ja, 九九式雙發輕爆擊機, shiki-souhatu-keibaku, shortened to 'Sokei', Army Type 99 Twin-engined Light Bomber), was a Japanese twin-engine light bomber that was used during World War II. Its Allied reporting name was ...

s. The boss plane is a

Nakajima G10N The Nakajima G10N ''Fugaku'' (Japanese: 富岳 or 富嶽, " Mount Fuji") was a planned Japanese ultra-long-range heavy bomber designed during World War II. It was conceived as a method for mounting aerial attacks from Japan against industrial ta ...

. The game has "a special roll button that allows players to avoid dangerous situations by temporarily looping out of" the playfield. In addition to the standard

high score In games, score refers to an abstract quantity associated with a player or team. Score is usually measured in the abstract unit of points (except in game shows, where scores often are instead measured in units of currency), and events in th ...

, it also has a separate percentage high score, recording the best ratio of enemy fighters to enemies shot down.

Development

The game was designed by

. The game's main goal was to be easily accessible for players. This is why they decided to use a

theme. ''1942'' was also the first Capcom game designed with Western markets in mind. That was why they decided to have the player pilot an American P-38 fighter plane, to appeal to the American market. The game is loosely based on the

, which was a turning point in the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...

when the Americans began defeating the Japanese.

Ports

The game was released to the MSX,

NEC PC-8801 The , commonly shortened to PC-88, are a brand of Zilog Z80-based 8-bit home computers released by Nippon Electric Company (NEC) in 1981 and primarily sold in Japan. The PC-8800 series sold extremely well and became one of the three major Japane ...

FM-7 The FM-7 ("Fujitsu Micro 7") is a home computer created by Fujitsu. It was first released in 1982 and was sold in Japan and Spain. It is a stripped-down version of Fujitsu's earlier FM-8 computer, and during development it was referred to as th ...

, and

Sharp X1 The , sometimes called the Sharp X1 or CZ-800C, is a series of home computers released by Sharp Corporation from 1982 to 1988. It is based on a Zilog Z80 CPU. The RGB display monitor for the X1 had a television tuner, and a computer screen co ...

. It was released to the

Famicom The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redes ...

in 1985 in Japan and North America in 1986. The Famicom version was developed by

Micronics Micronics (マイクロニクス Maikuronikusu) was a Japanese video game developer in 1980s and 1990s. It mostly ported arcade games to the Nintendo Entertainment System. Like many video game developers, Micronics didn't credit itself in its games ...

. A

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

version was also released in North America in May 2000 and the PAL region in the year 2001. The European games publisher

Elite Systems Elite Systems is a British video game developer and publisher established in 1984 as Richard Wilcox Software. It is known for producing home computer conversions of popular arcade games. Elite also published compilations of games on the Hit-Pak ...

later released versions for the

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

, and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

. The music of the Commodore 64 version is based on the main verse of Ron Goodwin's ''

633 Squadron ''633 Squadron'' is a 1964 British / American war film directed by Walter Grauman and starring Cliff Robertson, George Chakiris, and Maria Perschy. The plot, which involves the exploits of a fictional World War II British bomber squadron, wa ...

'' movie score, with arrangement by Mark Cooksey.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''1942'' on their January 1, 1985 issue as being the fourth most-popular arcade game for the previous two weeks. It went on to be Japan's seventh highest-grossing table arcade game during the first half of 1986, and the overall fifth highest-grossing table arcade game of 1986. In the United States, it was one of the top five highest-grossing arcade conversion kits of 1986. In the United Kingdom, it was the top-grossing arcade game on the Euromax arcade charts for five months in 1987, from July through November. The NES version sold over copies worldwide. ''1942'' was Capcom's breakaway hit, eclipsing in popularity the company's preceding three titles: ''

Vulgus is a vertically scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Capcom in Japan in 1984 and released in North America by SNK the same year. The game was Capcom's first video game. The game is included in '' Capcom Classics Collection'' ...

'', ''

Sonson is an arcade video game by Capcom released in July 1984. It is loosely based on the Chinese novel '' Journey to the West''. The player assumes the role of a monkey boy (who is patterned after Sun Wukong from the story) and fights their way from ...

'', and ''

Pirate Ship Higemaru is a maze video game by Capcom originally released in 1984 as a coin-operated arcade game. The gameplay is similar to that of the 1982 Sega arcade game '' Pengo'', but with the arctic theme replaced with that of a pirate ship. The game was l ...

''. Mike Roberts reviewed the arcade game in the May 1985 issue of British magazine ''

Computer Gamer ''Computer Gamer'' was a video game magazine published in the United Kingdom by Argus Specialist Publications, covering home gaming from April 1985 to June 1987. It was a colourful relaunch of the failing magazine '' Games Computing'', a mor ...

''. While noting the game's scenario was "an odd subject for a Japanese arcade manufacturer" to take up, he said it has "very nice graphics" especially the "graphically excellent loops" and had an "original" gameplay feature in the form of the percentage high score. Retrospectively, Brett Alan Weiss of ''

AllGame RhythmOne , previously known as Blinkx, and also known as RhythmOne Group, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel. Blinkx was founded in 2004, went publ ...

'' called it "a fondly remembered" shooter and praising the special roll button, "perfectly balanced gameplay, colorfully detailed graphics," and "nifty" power-ups, making "the game a true classic."

Legacy

''1942'' was the first Capcom title to spawn a successful series of sequels, with five titles in the ''19XX'' line released from 1987 to 2000. Many of Capcom's other vertical shooters featured very similar gameplay, such as '' Varth: Operation Thunderstorm''. It was re-released in '' Capcom Generations 1'' for the PlayStation and Saturn consoles. It was featured in the ''

Capcom Classics Collection is a compilation of arcade games released by Capcom for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox on September 27, 2005 in North America and in 2006 in Japan. It was developed by Digital Eclipse Software (then Backbone Entertainment), Sensory Sweep, and its ...

'' for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

and

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

, as well as '' Capcom Classics Collection: Reloaded'' for the

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...

. The arcade version was added to the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Unix ...

in Japan on December 21, 2010, the PAL and North American regions in January 2011. It was also re-released for

Windows Mobile Professional Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

. '' 1942: Joint Strike'' was released for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network in 2008. ''1942: First Strike'' was released for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

in 2010. The game series has sold a total of 1.4 million units worldwide as of December 31, 2019, and stands as Capcom's 18th best-selling franchise.

References

External links

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