(Banpresto / Psikyo 1993)
SH201B




Screenshots:
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photo donated by PaCrappa

Hardware

Psikyo's debut game Sengoku Ace (aka Samurai Aces) is a weird shooter that takes place in Japan's ancient mythologies and features many strange vehicles, weapons and enemies. Wooden tanks and shooting moths are here as real a fighting spider-house. Technically Sengoku Ace begins, where the games of the former company Video System ended. To be correct, I'm not entirely sure if the whole Psikyo team came out of that company, but the similarities between early Psikyo Shooters and the Aero Fighters / Sonic Wings series are that close, that a coincidence is hardly possible.

The game starts with a selection screen, where the player choses from six vehicles of a wide variety: Bird-like things, that well known WWII prototype with it's tail rotor, ancient flying machines or even a modern Jet-fighter are ready for taking off.

Each plane has it's individual weapons; upgradable in size and strength by collecting power-ups. Like in Aero Fighters, the final weapon upgrade lasts only for a short time, until it has to be reconfirmed by collecting another power-up item. Repetetive tapping the [A] button makes the main weapon shooting, while holding the same, turns it into a slower but more powerful charge shot. With the second button you can drop a limited number of smartbombs. To refill the bomber stock, you should collect the B-symbols.

In order to finish Sengoku Ace, you have to play each stage twice. The second round features minor color palette changes and harder gameplay. The different color palette btw. is another feature we already know from Aero Fighters.

Sengoku Ace has not much of a scoring system. No multipliers or any other upgradable score systems spotted. Shoot enemies and collect coins for points. It's mainly "Old-skool" classic with a touch of modern gameplay.

1993 was also the year of Mahou Daisakusen (Raizing's debut shooter), and Batsugun, the last shooter of old-skool godfather 'Toaplan'. I would call that age a bridge between old-skool and the mothern shmup.
- [the sheep] in 2002




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