1943: The Battle of Midway
1987 · Vertical Shooter · Arcade
Overview
1943: The Battle of Midway (1987) is Capcom's follow-up to 1942, in which a P-38 Lightning flies 16 stages to sink the battleship Yamato, with a fuel meter in place of lives.
Deep Dive
The player flies a P-38 Lightning through 16 stages to defeat the battleship Yamato. Instead of several lives there is a single large fuel meter. Shooting down formations of red planes releases power-ups, and there are six weapons and three special attacks.
Developer Story
Yoshiki Okamoto produced the game, Noritaka Funamizu designed it and Kumi Yamaga composed the music. Capcom released it in Japan in June 1987, and it was the second highest-grossing table arcade game in Japan that year. The NES version followed exactly a year later.
Did You Know?
- Okamoto said it drew protests from Japanese right-wing groups, who saw it as an insult to the war dead at Yasukuni Shrine.
- The NES version renamed its warships and battlefields with fictional names.
- An alternate arcade version, 1943 Kai, was released in Japan.
Sources & further reading
- 1943: The Battle of Midway — Wikipedia
