Fire Shark
Encyclopedia
Fire Shark, known in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 as , is a shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...

 arcade game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...

 developed and published by Toaplan
Toaplan
, sometimes written as Toa Plan, was a video game developer from Japan. They were responsible for the creation of a wide array of relatively famous scrolling shooters and arcade games, yet the company declared bankruptcy in 1994.-Games developed :...

. The player controls a biplane
Biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two superimposed main wings. The Wright brothers' Wright Flyer used a biplane design, as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing...

 and builds up a score by shooting a variety of military targets.

Gameplay

The mission is divided into ten stages, each possessing a different setting. Players must destroy every enemy that crosses their path between kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....

 enemy monoplanes and, land and sea vehicles. Like most vertical scrolling shooters, the player had no physical obstructions to face aside from the planes and zeppelins they all ready fought. Players can increase their bomb count, the speed via pick-ups. Players can hold up to ten bombs and can acquire extra lives from accumulating their score. The game has a checkpoint system that once a player dies, they have to restart at the closest checkpoint they passed. Once all ten stages are complete, the player is offered a chance to replay the game at a higher difficulty.

Plot

In the arcade version, one summer night in 1991, an enemy fleet known as the Strange Fleet approached a small island of the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

. When it arrived, very few saw the Strange Fleet. Two years later, while the Stranger Fleet expanded itself, it created a world war. It is unknown by everyone around the world who noticed the attacks of the Strange Fleet. As the Strange Fleet continues their assault, many against them cried "Fire Shark! Fire Shark! It's time to take off!! Beat them for our sake. Go! Go! Fire Shark!"

In the Sega Mega Drive / Sega Genesis
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...

 port, in the year 19X9, on an alternate Earth, a global super-power known as the S Corps, which specializes in a heavy industrial army, begins invading various countries. All seems lost when a phantom pilot flying a super-powered biplane called the Fire Shark flies in to save the world from domination.

Ports and related releases

Fire Shark was later ported to the Sega Mega Drive
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...

 in 1990 by Dreamworks. It is considered a sequel to Sky Shark, known in Japan as Hi Sho Zame or in Europe as Flying Shark.

Reception

The Mega Drive/Genesis version was well-received when it was released, earning a rating of 8.25 in Electronic Gaming Monthly
Electronic Gaming Monthly
Electronic Gaming Monthly is a bimonthly American video game magazine. It has been published by EGM Media, LLC. since relaunching in April of 2010. Its previous run, which ended in January 2009, was published by Ziff Davis...

.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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