Capcom Classics Collection -- Day 2

Capcom released 1942 in 1984 for both Japan and North America. You control a W.W.II style military aircraft in a vertically forced scrolling shooter against other military aircraft. It's the standard scenario of the era. Shoot enemies to get power ups to shoot more enemies to get more points. 1942 has thirty-two levels taking place in the air over land and sea. You can loop your plane three times per level. Looping your plane allows you to escape being boxed in and certain death. The planes come in from all angles, including behind you. Every few levels there is a boss battle at the end of a level against a giant flying fortress type bomber aircraft. It was a hit back in the day because of the graphics and the military theme. The game is insanely hard and borders on impossible. This should end up being the clearest example of how frustratingly hard some games were in this era.

Exed Exes was released in 1985 on Z80 based arcade architecture. It's another vertically forced scrolling shooter. This one futuristic in nature. You control space ship invading the planet of Exed Exes in an attempt to wipe out your enemies. A race of insects. The enemies are mostly insects, with a few turrets and ground based systems to take out. The deal with this one is your firing range varies with your position on the screen. The further back you are towards the bottom of the screen, the less range you have. The further forward you are toward the top of the screen, the more range you have. There are power ups that increase your range, and give you an extra beam, and one that lessens your range. You also have a crash bomb that will take out all the enemy shots currently on screen. At the end of each stage you'll face a flying fortress type boss as well as waves of enemies. The bosses are made up of multiple targets. Each target has to be taken out to take out the boss. The enemies again come from all directions, and fire in all directions. There is an amazing amount of enemy fire on screen at one time.

Section Z is also based on Z80 arcade architecture and was released in 1985. This is a forced scrolling shooter. It's broken up into twenty-seven lettered sections. You can move in eight directions within the scrolling field. One button fires, the other turns your character who is a man with a jetpack. You can face left or right. The enemies come at your from all four sides. You're essentially always surrounded and have to move and turn this way and that to stay alive. The field scrolls from left to right for sections A to E. There is a boss battle at the end of section E. Section F scrolls vertically until you fight the boss at the end of section J. The game then starts scrolling right to left until you defeat the boss at section O. The game will then start scrolling downward, and so on until the boss at the end of section Z. This game is surprisingly fun. There are some interesting gauntlets you have to run.