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スターフォース
©1985 Tehkan Ltd. And Hudson Soft
Release: 1985-06-25 (¥4900)
Cartdridge HFC-SF
Shooter/vertical
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Released in America as
STAR FORCE
( NES-FO-USA )
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Released in Europe as
STAR FORCE
( NES-FO-XXX )
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Star Force is a vertical shooter by Hudson Soft and conversion of
Tecmo's arcade game originally released in 1984. In the year 2010, a mysterious
planet named Gordess threatens the peace and stability of the cosmos. A fearless
pilot on board the futuristic Final Star space fighter decides to take on the
dangerous mission to defend humanity against the approaching menace. The goal of the game
is to destroy the incoming enemy ships, ground structures and the countless bosses from each
area. The Final Star essentially has only one weapon called the Star Beam. It
starts out rather weak but can be upgraded along the way - the player can combine with another
ship called the Purser and transform the Final Star to dramatically enhanc
e and speed up the Star beam. Large ships called Alpha Targets appear at the
end of each area and must be annihilated in order to move along to the next stage. This
feature is at the core of the gameplay and stages can't be cleared without destroying
these bosses. Smaller fortresses such as Larios also appear throughout the game
and skillful shooting is necessary to take them down on time for the highest possible score.
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The American NES version of Star Force was released two years
after its Japanese counterpart. Because of this, significant differences
can be found between the two - the soundtrack and the sound effects were
enhanced and some of the graphics were altered. This was most certainly part
of an attempt to make the port feel closer to the arcade.
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The original arcade game Star Force (aka Mega Force in the
west was released by Tecmo (known as the time as Tehkan)
in 1984. The game was then ported to popular Japanese systems such
as the Sharp X68000 (1984), Famicom (1985),
MSX (1985) and the Sega SG-1000 (1985).
The game was also included in 1995 with the
Caravan Shooting Collection for the Super Famicom along
with Star Soldier and Hector'87. In 2006, Hudson
Soft released Hudson Best Collection Vol. 5 - Shooting Collection
for the Game Boy Advance which featured the same games.
Tecmo released two sequels to Star Force :
Super Star Force: Jikūreki no Himitsu (famicom, 1986)
and Final Star Force (Arcade, 1992).
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Star Force was the first game to be featured at Hudson Soft's Caravan
Festival. See Star Soldier for more information about the festival.
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Teaser test from the American version:
Moving in the darkness of the
cosmos is a evil and mysterious
planet named GORDESS.
Everyone game up fighting
against GORDESS because it's
awesome power, until one day a
soldier riding a space patroller
challenged GORDESS to fight!
Join forces with STAR FORCE
and travel across the galaxy in
order to defeat GORDESS.
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G
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Japanese Guidebook
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Japanese Guidebook
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Click on picture to enlarge |
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
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Star Force's problem can be summed up in two
words : difficult and repetitive. In a nutshell, the game's design
is dead simple. Shoot and destroy countless waves of random
alien ships as you try again and again to survive long enough
to move to the next level. It is a raw and brutal shooter. I feel
compelled to offer a few words in the game's defense though - the
real objective of Star Force is to get the highest score.
Somewhere in our history, gamers have completely forgotten about
this concept of playing for a score - but if you put
Star Force back in this context, then you may appreciate
it under a new and quite favorable light. But in that respect, I think
Star Soldier was a better accomplishment. Nonetheless,
Star Force is a solid shooter and, let's not forget, was
an monumental milestone for Hudson Soft's Caravan Festival.
But, I feel, it doesn't really hold much water in the long run today...
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