1942 (Revision B) - Arcade Complete Playthrough #127【Longplays Land】
171942 is a vertically scrolling shooter made by Capcom that was released for the #arcade in 1984. It was the first game in the 19XX series. It was followed by 1943: The Battle of Midway.
#1942 is set in the Pacific theater of World War II. Despite the game being created by Japanese developers, the goal is to reach Tokyo and destroy the entire Japanese air fleet. The player pilots a Lockheed P-38 Lightning dubbed the "Super Ace". The player has to shoot down enemy planes; to avoid enemy fire, the player can perform a roll or vertical loop. During the game, the player may collect a series of power-ups, one of them allowing the plane to be escorted by two other smaller fighters in a Tip Tow formation. Enemies included: Kawasaki Ki-61s, Mitsubishi A6M Zeros and Kawasaki Ki-48s. The boss plane is a Nakajima G10N.
The game was ported to the Famicom in 1985 in Japan, North America in 1986, (developed by Micronics), MSX, NEC PC-8801, FM-7, Sharp X1, and Game Boy Color. It was ported by the European games publisher Elite Systems to the Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, and Commodore 64.
The music of the Commodore 64 version is based on the main verse of Ron Goodwin's 633 Squadron movie score, with arrangement by Mark Cooksey.
1942 was Capcom's breakaway hit, eclipsing in popularity the company's preceding three titles: Vulgus, Sonson, and Pirate Ship Higemaru. In 1987, it was number-one on Euromax's UK arcade chart (followed by Wonder Boy at number-two).