Star Force

Did You Know?

• In Japan, Game Machine listed Star Force as the fourteenth most successful table arcade unit of November 1984.
• Christopher Michael Baker of AllGame gave the NES version 1.5 out of 5 stars.
• Dave Frear of Nintendo Life gave the Arcade Archives release a 5/10 score.

Gameplay

You take control of a ship called the Final Star, blasting enemies and wrecking bases for points. Unlike later vertical shooters such as Twin Cobra, this ship only has two weapon power levels and no extra weapons like bombs or missiles. Every level is named after a Greek letter. Some versions include an extra stage called Infinity, shown with the infinity symbol, that appears after Omega and loops the game forever. In the NES version, beating the Omega boss brings up a black screen with Tecmo's logo, teasing the sequel Super Star Force. After that, the Infinity stage unlocks, repeating the same level and boss with no difficulty increase.

Legacy

Super Star Force: Jikūreki no Himitsu was released in 1986 for the Famicom, and Final Star Force for arcades in 1992. Hudson Soft ported and published Star Force to the MSX and Famicom in Japan in 1985, promoting sales through the first nationwide video game competition called a caravan, though Hudson had previously run a similar event for Lode Runner. The North American and European NES versions were published in 1987 with significant revisions, crediting Tecmo rather than Hudson. According to Keiji Yamagishi, the NES version was created separately at Tecmo and is distinct from Hudson's Famicom port, sharing much in common but with altered graphics, music, controls, and gameplay; several bugs were fixed, debatably making the NES version more difficult. Star Force was also ported to the SG-1000 by Sega and the X68000 by Dempa Shimbunsha. In 1995, the Famicom version was remade for the Super Famicom in the Japan-only Caravan Shooting Collection, and was included in Hudson Best Collection Vol. 5 in 2006. The original arcade version appeared in Tecmo Classic Arcade for Xbox and was released for the Wii's Virtual Console in 2009 as one of four initial Virtual Console Arcade offerings. Hudson Soft released Star Soldier in 1986, considered a spiritual successor. Hamster Corporation released the game for PlayStation 4 in 2015 and Nintendo Switch in 2018 as part of Arcade Archives.