1942 (history and reception)

Capcom released 1942 as an arcade game in December 1984. 1942-history/arcade-japan

Capcom's history and Akagi Masumi's list agree on the month; neither gives a day.

Cited by: 1942

By Akagi Masumi's list of arcade games, 1942 came out in the United States in July 1985, distributed for Capcom USA through Romstar. 1942-history/arcade-na

The list gives year and month only and names no source for its dates.

Cited by: 1942

Akagi Masumi's list also files a 1942, credited to Capcom, under Nintendo of America in July 1987, in the same month as Metroid and Konami's Rush'n Attack and Track & Field; it doesn't say which machine. 1942-history/arcade-nintendo

Read in the OCR text only: the printed page and the page image haven't been checked. Nintendo of America's arcade lines at the time were the Vs. System and PlayChoice-10, and the list doesn't say which this entry is.

Cited by: 1942

Capcom dates what it calls its first home video game, 1942 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, to December 1985. Since the NES cartridge came out in North America in November 1986, the December 1985 date reads as the Famicom release, an inference no source states. The Famicom cartridge is Capcom's CAP-19, and its title screen reads © 1985 CAPCOM. 1942-history/release-famicom

Capcom's English history names the NES for the December 1985 release; Nintendo of America's list puts the North American NES cartridge in November 1986 (1942-history/release-nes), so the 1985 game is the Famicom one. No source read gives the Famicom day.

Cited by: 1942

Capcom of Osaka published the Famicom cartridge itself. 1942-history/famicom-maker

Cited by: 1942

1942 came out for the NES in North America in November 1986, with Capcom as licensee. 1942-history/release-nes

Cited by: 1942

In November 1986 Computer Entertainer expected the first licensed third-party NES games, Capcom USA's 1942 among them, in stores by Thanksgiving at $29.95. It described 1942 as World War II aerial warfare whose object is to destroy Tokyo, in 32 stages of duels with fighters and bombers and of carrier take-offs and landings, and listed it for November. 1942-history/nes-announcement

The review aside "(This from the U.S. division of a Japanese company?!)" follows the Tokyo line.

Cited by: 1942

Chris Scullion's NES encyclopedia credits the NES version's development to Micronics, for publisher Capcom, in 1986. 1942-history/nes-developer

No credits from the NES cartridge or manual have been read.

Cited by: 1942

The Famicom manual says the cartridge was made almost the same as the arcade 1942. 1942-history/famicom-arcade

Cited by: 1942

On the Famicom the player flies a P-38 Lightning, steered with the control pad. B fires the machine guns forward, and A loops the plane to escape enemy planes and bullets, three times per round. 1942-history/famicom-controls

Cited by: 1942

Shooting down a whole formation of red planes brings out a Pow, whose six kinds raise the guns from two to four, destroy every enemy plane on screen, add wingmen on the P-38's left and right, add a plane, give points, or add a loop. Which Pow a formation gives depends on its flight path. 1942-history/famicom-pow

Cited by: 1942

The P-38 loses a plane when an enemy plane rams it or a bullet hits it. The Kuroden-kai that appear from the bottom and sides of the screen turn into Yashichi, a chance at bonus points. 1942-history/famicom-rules

Cited by: 1942

The Famicom game offers 1 Player, 2 Players taking turns, and Continue, which restarts where the last game ended. 1942-history/famicom-modes

Cited by: 1942

The Official Nintendo Player's Guide sets the NES game in 1942, the player and the top gun Super Ace flying to Tokyo to destroy the enemy's last aircraft, through 32 scenes over land and sea, taking off from and landing on moving carriers, looping, and shooting down Red Formations. 1942-history/nes-guide

Cited by: 1942

Capcom's U.S. division published 1942 on disk for the Commodore 64 and 128. Computer Entertainer reported in November 1986 that it had announced its first conversions of coin-op games for those computers, 1942 with Gunsmoke and Ghosts'n Goblins, and its availability list put 1942 under the Commodore 64/128 for November. 1942-history/c64-capcom

The booklet prints no year in the text read; the Internet Archive item dates it 1986, the uploader's date.

Cited by: 1942

Capcom USA's Commodore booklet has the player fly with Super Ace to reach Tokyo. A complete Red Formation shot down leaves a POW, which powers the plane up when flown over; the six POWs add two machine guns, clear the screen of enemy planes, bring allies on either side, give bonus points twice, and add a loop, and the space bar loops the plane to evade fire. Eliminating all six formations makes the player Super Ace. 1942-history/c64-booklet

The booklet tells the player to push button A to start and B to fire, and to wait for "the first street scene", wording that reads as carried over from another Capcom booklet. Its OCR text was not checked on the page images.

Cited by: 1942

Elite Systems published 1942 in Britain in 1986; its booklet carries copyright lines for Elite Systems (1986) and Japan Capsule Computers (U.K.) (1984). It gives loading instructions for the Spectrum on tape, the Amstrad and Schneider on tape and disc, the Commodore 64 and 128 on tape and disc, the Commodore C16, and the BBC and Electron on tape and the BBC on disc. 1942-history/elite-versions

Read in the booklet's OCR text, which is clean for these lines; the page images haven't been checked. The booklet is in English, German, and French. Loading instructions show the formats the booklet covers, not that each version shipped.

Cited by: 1942

Elite's booklet sets the game in the Pacific in 1942: the player flies a lone mission from a carrier over enemy territory, islands, and rough terrain, picking up "POW"er capsules for extra capabilities. The Spectrum and Amstrad versions roll the plane with keys 0 to 4, and the Commodore versions with the space bar. 1942-history/elite-booklet

OCR text only; not checked on the page images.

Cited by: 1942

Crash reviewed Elite's ZX Spectrum conversion, at £7.95, in October 1986. Its review describes thirty-two levels, each ended by a return to the aircraft carrier, a two-player option, rolls, and a white object in the air that works as a smart bomb. 1942-history/crash-review

"Author: Dominic Wood" on the page is the review's credit line, read by the scout as the reviewer's byline; Crash's credit line elsewhere names a game's programmer, so who Dominic Wood is stays open.

Cited by: 1942

Crash gave the Spectrum version 63% overall, with 70% for use of computer, 65% for graphics, 67% for playability, 68% for getting started, 61% for addictive qualities, and 64% for value for money. 1942-history/crash-score

{
 "review": "Crash",
 "of": 100,
 "scores": {
  "use of computer": 70,
  "graphics": 65,
  "playability": 67,
  "getting started": 68,
  "addictive qualities": 61,
  "value for money": 64,
  "overall": 63
 }
}

Crash rates each heading as a percentage.

Cited by: 1942

Crash's ratings box called it "a reasonable conversion of a game that wasn't very good to start with". One reviewer, expecting more from Elite after its earlier arcade conversions, found 1942 definitely lacking; another, a shoot 'em up fan, said it "doesn't really appeal to me"; the third called it one of the worst games to come out of Elite's offices in a long while, with extremely basic graphics. 1942-history/crash-verdict

The text layer doesn't hold the reviewers' names.

Cited by: 1942

Zzap!64 reviewed Elite's Commodore 64 version, at £9.95 on cassette and £14.95 on disk, joystick only, in its 1986 Christmas Special. It describes a mission in sections that grow harder, POW capsules dropped when a complete squadron is shot down, and a roll on the space bar that makes the plane invincible for a few seconds, three rolls to a life. 1942-history/zzap-review

Cited by: 1942

Zzap!64 gave the Commodore 64 version 58% overall, with 77% for presentation, 59% for graphics, 61% for sound, 78% for hookability, 57% for lastability, and 52% for value. 1942-history/zzap-score

{
 "review": "Zzap!64",
 "of": 100,
 "scores": {
  "presentation": 77,
  "graphics": 59,
  "sound": 61,
  "hookability": 78,
  "lastability": 57,
  "value": 52,
  "overall": 58
 }
}

Zzap!64 rates each heading as a percentage.

Cited by: 1942

Zzap!64's ratings box called it "an uninspiring conversion of a poor arcade game". One reviewer admitted to having hated the arcade version and now felt sorry for it, and wondered why Elite had bothered to convert such an aged shoot 'em up. 1942-history/zzap-verdict

Both comment quotes are from the same reviewer's box, signed PS on the page image.

Cited by: 1942

In June 1988 Computer Entertainer reported from the Summer Consumer Electronics Show that Capcom USA had discontinued 1942, with Trojan and Section Z, to make way for new titles. 1942-history/capcom-drops

The report doesn't say which formats it means; Capcom USA then sold 1942 on the NES and the Commodore 64.

Cited by: 1942

Elite put the Spectrum 1942 on Frank Bruno's Big Box, a compilation of ten of its earlier games, at £12.99 on cassette; Your Sinclair, reviewing it in February 1989, called 1942 a vertically scrolling coin-op and found the tape slightly overpriced as most of its games were out on budget labels. 1942-history/big-box

The compilation's clapometer score isn't in the OCR; the contents index reads it as 7. The rest of the 1942 entry hasn't been read.

Cited by: 1942

Chris Scullion's NES encyclopedia (2019) calls the NES version a port of the first of Capcom's 19XX vertically scrolling shoot 'em ups, set in the Pacific War, with a US pilot fighting through to Tokyo. It finds the port not the most accurate, its frame rate and sound effects much weaker than the arcade game's, but one of the best of its genre on home consoles at the time, with 32 lengthy stages that took a while to master. 1942-history/scullion-view

Cited by: 1942

Capcom followed it with 1943, released on the NES in North America in October 1988. Scullion calls 1942 successful enough in arcades that a sequel made sense, and says that where the NES 1942 was a straight, weaker port, the NES 1943 offers more than its arcade counterpart. 1942-history/sequel

Cited by: 1942