''Skull Fang'' is a 1996 vertical-scrolling shooter developed and published in arcades by

Data East , also abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game, pinball and electronic engineering company. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, and released 150 video game titles. Its main headquarters were located in Suginami, Tokyo. The Am ...

. ''Skull Fang'' is the third and final entry in a loose trilogy of games beginning with 1989's ''

Vapor Trail Contrails (; short for "condensation trails") or vapor trails are line-shaped clouds produced by aircraft engine exhaust or changes in air pressure, typically at aircraft cruising altitudes several miles above the Earth's surface. Contrails ar ...

''. It was released for the

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...

in 1997.

Gameplay

Players choose from one of four jets set among the flying aircraft carrier Skull Fang, as well as a pilot to fly the jet and attack the enemy's squadrons and battalions worldwide.

Release

''Skull Fang'' was later ported by both Data East and Aisystem Tokyo to the

in 1997. This port adds several new features, such as a trial mode, a boss rush mode, a tutorial video and an additional speed mode which has two settings rather than five. Occasionally, the sprites suffer from flickering. Some arranged versions of songs from ''Vapor Trail'' are also included in the game disc as redbook audio. On February 26, 1996,

Pony Canyon , also known by the shorthand form , is a Japanese mass media publishing company founded on October 1, 1966. The company publishes mainly physical home media on compact discs, including music, films and TV shows and video games. It is affiliate ...

and Scitron Label added the arcade version's

background music Background music (British English: piped music) is a mode of musical performance in which the music is not intended to be a primary focus of potential listeners, but its content, character, and volume level are deliberately chosen to affect behav ...

of ''Skull Fang'' with the background music of another Data East MLC System title, ''

Avengers in Galactic Storm is a 1995 fighting arcade game developed and published by Data East. It features a single or two-player story mode or multiplayer head-to-head mode, and was the first modern fighting game to feature assistant characters commonly referred to by ...

'', both into an album titled ''Skull Fang / Avengers in Galactic Storm'', which was released exclusively in Japan. This version also includes two exclusive arranged versions of the songs "Skull Fang" (Stage 1 theme) and "Over Boost" (Stage 2 Boss theme). On July 21, 2010,

TEAM Entertainment A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to infor ...

added the background music of the arcade version with the background music of the first two ''Kuuga'' games, plus three other Data East shooting games (''

Darwin 4078 is an arcade game released by Data East in 1986. The game is a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up like ''Xevious'', but as the title indicates, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is incorporated into the gameplay. Setting and design The game ...

'', '' SRD: Super Real Darwin'', and '' Act-Fancer: Cybernetick Hyper Weapon''), into one album titled ''Data East Retro Game Music Collection'', which was distributed exclusively in Japan by Sony Music Distribution.

Reception

A '' Next Generation'' reviewer, while acknowledging that the chase mode and back and side thrusts are variations in the shooter formula, concluded ''Skull Fang'' to be "a shooter in the most generic sense." He scored the arcade version two out of five stars. In an article on the Saturn port, ''

Sega Saturn Magazine ''Sega Saturn Magazine'' was a monthly UK magazine covering the Sega Saturn, a home video game console. It held the official Saturn magazine license for the UK, and some issues included a demo CD created by Sega, ''Sega Flash'', which included ...

'' called ''Skull Fang'' "a classic example of over hyped nonsense", and explained that "With two players on screen at once, multiple power-ups and even an original arcade mode (requiring you to turn your TV on its side, '' Raiden''-style), ''Skull Fang'' begins to sound fairly impressive. However ... appalling slowdown, unimpressive power-ups and nagging pauses during gameplay are all good reasons for Saturn owners to steer well clear."

Notes

References

External links

*{{KLOV game, id=9562 1996 video games Arcade video games Cooperative video games Data East video games Scrolling shooters Sega Saturn games Video games about terrorism Video games developed in Japan Data East arcade games