Played this game via the Capcom Arcade Collection. Just like most arcade shooters/shmups, this is a coin muncher that gets increasingly difficult and unfair the more you progress through the game. The difficulty and frustration rely mostly not on the amount of enemy projectile (like some "bullet hell" games out there) but rather on the enemy plane speed and enemy projectile speed, making dodging enemy fire very difficult (despite very precise controls).

For being a 1987 game, the game looks very good but unfortunately the backgrounds and sprites get old very quickly. All levels (rounds) feature the same backdrop with basic water, some clouds, and sporadic small islands. Understandably, this game is about a battle in the Pacific Ocean so you would expect a lot of water backgrounds but I feel like the developers could have at least tried featuring different times of day and weather effects to add some visual variety.

Gameplay is interesting featuring a fuel meter (acting as health) that gets depleted as you get hit and as you use special powers, making the player think hard before employing the bigger 'clear screen' weapons. Bosses at the end of each round are pretty cool but get repetitive since they are variations of the same machinery.

The original 1942 video game was, in most ways, pretty much what you would expect from a scrolling shooter from 1984. It had fun enough shooting mechanics, along with features that weren’t typically seen in games from this genre at the time, but not only was the game way too long for what it offered, but it also didn’t really do anything too special aside from taking the setting of a typical shmup and changing it to on Earth. Despite that though, it was a good game, and it was successful enough to where it would become Capcom’s mainstay shmup franchise from that point onward, even though they would still develop plenty of other separate shump games alongside them. So, about three years after the release of that original game, they would then release the sequel, 1943: The Battle of Midway…. which is a pretty confusing title, because the Battle of Midway actually took place in 1942, and speaking of which, The Battle of Midway was also the main setting and conflict of the last game, but whatever.

Just from glancing at this game, you wouldn’t assume that much out of it. You would probably think this would be a similar situation to that of Space Invaders Part II, where it would just be a revamped version of the original 1942, with some changes implemented, but the game would still remain largely the same. Well, there, my friend, is where you are wrong!.......... or at least, you would be partially wrong. For this sequel, there were actually quite a bit of changes made to it, some that you would expect, and some that were quite unique for the genre, especially in 1987, making this what I would consider the superior game over the original. Of course, it does have its issues, and I wouldn’t say that the game is that much of an improvement over the original, as they are largely very similar to each other, but for what we did get here, I would say it is a solid follow up.

The story is pretty much the exact same as the original, being about WAR, even giving us a slight history lesson at the end to show us how much Capcom really loves America, the graphics are pretty much the same as the previous game, with no significant improvements with the main gameplay, but there are some nice screens to look at like the ending screen and the mission results screen, there is actually music to be heard this time, and for the most part, it is what you would expect to hear from a game like this, but hey, it is better than just annoying-ass plane sounds the entire time, the control is also about the same as last time, but thankfully, I didn’t have any issues with the speed of the plane, so that is an improvement, and the gameplay is pretty similar to that of the original game, but with plenty of changes that definitely makes this the superior version to play.

The game is your typical scrolling shooter, where you take control of the same plane from the previous game, go through a set of 16 stages that will either have you fighting in the skies or down below above the sea, shoot down every single enemy pilot that you see while dodging all of the bullets that will be flying towards you, gather plenty of different powerups to either change up your arsenal or assist you in your attack, and take down plenty of big ships and bigger planes that will throw everything at you with the kitchen sink to take you down. For the most part, it is what you would expect from a scrolling shooter, but there are still plenty of changes that do make the game better than the original overall, including ones that you typically didn’t see that often from scrolling shooters then.

Of course, like with many different scrolling shooters, there are the typical inclusions that you would expect, including the many different powerups that you can acquire, such as a shotgun shot, a 3-way shot, and a shell shot, with all of these working extremely well in the right conditions. That being said though, there are obviously power-ups that I do prefer to use over others, such as 3-Way being my preferred way to go (stop laughing), while I barely ended up using Shotgun at all. In addition to this, there is of course the screen nuke attacks, which eliminates most things in the way, and there are different variations of them for whenever you are in the air and over the sea, so that is pretty neat.

And finally, there is one more change that makes this game much better than the original in my eyes: the health bar. Rather then getting multiple lives per credit, this time around you get a health bar, which will be constantly draining over the course of a stage, but you can fill it back up with powerups that you grab along the way, and it will allow you to take multiple hits before you die. While that may not be everyone’s preferred way to handle health/lives in a shooter, it is one that I welcome with open arms, since I am so prone to swaying right into enemy fire a lot of the time in these games. Not to mention, as you keep going, your health bar gets bigger, giving you a sense of progression throughout while not decreasing the difficulty at all.

But, with all that being said, there are still problems that this game does suffer from. First off, like with the last game, it is a little too long. There are much less stages this time around, with there being 16 rather than 32, which is nice, and each stage is relatively short, but they do last long enough to where the game does feel like it drags a little bit throughout. It doesn’t ruin the game perse, but it is still something to take into consideration. And secondly, while the amount of powerups you get are pretty cool, one thing that drags them down quite a bit is how they are all limited-use. Whenever you grab a powerup, you have a timer that appears below your health bar, and when that timer goes away, so does the powerup. Thankfully, you can grab multiples of the same powerup to increase the amount of time you have with it, but even still, the fact that they are all limited use does kinda suck. Then again, I guess that keeps you from being too overpowered, but trust me, the amount of bullets flying your way do that job already.

Overall, despite the limited powerup usage and the ever persistent problem of the game lasting too long, I would still say that this is an improvement over the original game in just about every way, and if I were to ever choose to come back to one of these games, this one would definitely be the one I pick every time. I would definitely recommend it for those who either loved or hated the original 1942, as well as those who love shmups, because while this may not be the best one out there, it is sure to still provide you and a friend a good time while it is there. And hey, thankfully, the next game in the series won’t be taking place during The Battle of Midway this time! Nah, instead, it will take place before the first game in… 1941. Well, that naming convention definitely doesn’t make any of this confusing.

Game #409