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tepidsnake) wrote2024-10-04 08:28 am
Arcade Archives: Moon Shuttle
This week's Arcade Archives release is... Moon Shuttle (Nichibutsu, 1981)
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Only one ROM is included, and there are no extra Preference Settings.
In the depths of space, the Moon Shuttle makes its dangerous journey! Unyieling in its mission, it can only move up, down and forward (either at a standard speed or a little faster) but both deadly meteor showers that shift and move and alien ships armed to the teeth are in the way. Fortunately, the shuttle is equipped with a Wave Motion Gun (borrowed from the Space Battleship Yamato, of course) to blast through the meteor storms and take on hostile ships, but there's a limit of three on-screen at a time, so try and make your shots count. Good luck, and never give up!
Excellent, our first Arcade Archives post here on Dreamwidth and we get to mention Nichibutsu's obsession with the moon! They released so many games with the word Moon in the title- the most famous is of course Moon Cresta (part of a series that more recently had a revival in the form of Sol Cresta) but there's also Moon Trek, Moon Quasar, Moon Raker, Moon Alien Part II... When it comes to Nichibutsu, the moon's where it's at! At least until they hit on the idea of making strip mahjong games forever. Anyway, Hamster owns the entire IP library of Nichibutsu, so inbetween the bigger games from the likes of Namco and Taito, we get smaller releases like this, from the 'golden age' of early arcade games, and they're usually pretty interesting, especially since a lot of them are new to me! Like this one, I hadn't played before this release but it's neat, with the meteor shower scenes requiring precision aiming (and, as you advance between scenes, they become increasingly dangerous with different 'lanes' of meteors moving in different directions) and the alien encounter scenes demanding quick reflexes to avoid getting blasted and different enemy types showing up as you get through the waves. It's certainly got presentation on its side- this looks pretty nice for a 1981 game, and it's even got some deeply-crunchy voiceclips telling you "NEVER GIVE UP!" and "GOOD LUCK!" depending on your performance in the meteor shower scenes. How charming!