A shooter released in 1987 by Toaplan, ported to the west as either "Sky Shark" or "Flying Shark" varying on region. The player takes control of a biplane attempting to regain control of island bases in a world war 2 inspired setting. Hishousame is notable for a it's gameplay structure and stage design, as well as it's use of bombs and enemy formations, which were incredibly influential to games such as the Raiden series, and Vertical shooters in general.
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if i show up for some Shooting Games and you start calling early toaplan, gradius, darius or r-type "Dadshmups" I'm stealing the balltop from your fucking Seimitsu LS-32!!!
It's not a hard 1cc but certainly is an annoying one until you really learn how the game is played. because of fast enemy bullets and slow ship speed you CANNOT change your mind about the direction you are going in or stall in place for 1 second because you will get met with instant death.
It's hard to overstate what a massive step forward this feels like for the shooter genre, which until this point may be fun in parts but often feels extremely punishing so it can wring quarters out of you until you've memorized exactly where the enemies are coming from for the game's length. Toaplan's Flying Shark! is a a difficult, but completely playable, vertical shooting game, and it's more often than not pretty fun to actually play. If Tiger-Heli was a rudimentary version of the Toaplan model, this is a complete core model that the future vertical games would be built off of. Really disappointing that the Toaplan Arcade garage games aren't coming Stateside, because I'd love to own this on the Switch without having to import it.
Got gaslit by 5 different people from 5 different continents that I suffer from "skill issue".