Wing Force (ウイング.フォース) - 1993 A.I./ATLUS

[Ed Oscuro]

Goosebumps. To think I'm one of the first people to hear this in 22+ years. Thanks trap15/shou.

Edit: This boss music is pretty incredible. Some of the composition isn't great, but a lot of it works really well with this instrumentation.

Edit: Adhn daymn, I just found the Mecha Ritz thread. :O So much aural gud. Anyway, the dance influence in the name entry track here is way more than expected! And the stage 1 melody is really pretty cool, even when it's teetering on the edge of just being totally random. Maybe it'll sound clearer in a later revision.

[Master O]

Uploaded a rip of the Wing Force soundtrack. Some of it might be a bit off, as I recorded from emu and I'm still not entirely sure about the OKI clock rate.

http://daifukkat.su/secret/wingforc_ost/wingforc_ost.7z

Sorry for OGG, was too lazy to get LAME for MP3 V0.

Judging solely by its music, it really is a shame Wing Force never got an arcade release. I think it could've done very well arcade-wise.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I don't know about Japan but 1993 was a bad year in the US for a new shooter. Everyone just wanted to play fighting games.

[Xyga]

1993 was one of the best years in the history of shmups, and also the last 'great' year for the classic/oldskool genre before the long transition period to 3D and bullet hell.

Layer Section, Raiden II, Batsugun, Winds of Thunder, Hyper Duel, Eliminate Down, V-Five, Mahou Daisakusen, etc.
Several very good, but also simply good or decent including stuff like Daioh, GunNail, Nostradamus, Thunder Dragon 2 ('trap' games), and more.

I believe they were busy playing Street Fighter II in Japan as well, but that didn't stop any other developers from making all kinds of games inclusing shmups.

[trap15]

Yeah 93 still saw a very large number of shooting games, so it's weird this never released. Especially since it's so high quality. It's very easy though, so that's my guess on why it didn't pass loctest.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

1993 was one of the best years in the history of shmups, and also the last 'great' year for the classic/oldskool genre before the long transition period to 3D and bullet hell.

Layer Section, Raiden II, Batsugun, Winds of Thunder, Hyper Duel, Eliminate Down, V-Five, Mahou Daisakusen, etc.
Several very good, but also simply good or decent including stuff like Daioh, GunNail, Nostradamus, Thunder Dragon 2 ('trap' games), and more.

I believe they were busy playing Street Fighter II in Japan as well, but that didn't stop any other developers from making all kinds of games inclusing shmups.

But none of those games were in arcades I went to in 1993, except for raiden 2, and it wasn't exactly making lines or common. I was a complete arcade junky at the time too because of street fighter 2.

[Xyga]

But none of those games were in arcades

Not in the 'west' indeed.

I was an arcade junkie as well (as far as my allowance permitted of course) and in Europe it was pretty much SFII/MK2 everywhere, quite a lot of MVS stuff, and a selection of a bit of everything, dedicated or not.
When the big fighting games grabbed all the coins the arcades stopped buying much new 'classic' games like shmups, so we were stuck with titles from the previous years for a long time, most arcades still showing some R-Types, Raiden, Aero Fighters, Truxton, or older, and really only from time-to-time some newer titles released not long ago in Japan and worldwide shortly after.
The stuff from 92/93 was seen only later with luck, before the end of the first 1/2 of the 90's.

At that age we already knew Japan got lots of incredible stuff we barely had a chance to play, right ?

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I wonder what the story was with the cancellation. I wonder sometimes with location tests how accurate they are with a tiny sample pool. Maybe Atlus was just like, stop this and bring me a fighter. Anyway I can't wait to try this out. It is like time warp magic to look at.

[Master O]

Yeah 93 still saw a very large number of shooting games, so it's weird this never released. Especially since it's so high quality. It's very easy though, so that's my guess on why it didn't pass loctest.

By easy, do you mean the default difficulty is easy?

[trap15]

None of the DIP switches do anything, and the only difficulty is... not hard. As in, 1-ALL in a couple of credits. You'll have 5 lives by the end of stage 2, and when you have a "wing" (Gatling, Laser, Missile, Wave) you get an extra hit (if you get hit, you lose the wing). The second loop is a pretty good difficulty though, and you only get one score extend (there's a secret extend in stage 2 in both loops), and the scoring + awesome graphics + awesome music means the first loop isn't just horribly boring. But it's something probably anyone can 1-ALL in a week or two.

[Xyga]

Good thing loop 2 shows some challenge then.

[donluca]

Sorry for OGG, was too lazy to record in FLAC.

Fixed that for you

[Master O]

None of the DIP switches do anything, and the only difficulty is... not hard. As in, 1-ALL in a couple of credits. You'll have 5 lives by the end of stage 2, and when you have a "wing" (Gatling, Laser, Missile, Wave) you get an extra hit (if you get hit, you lose the wing). The second loop is a pretty good difficulty though, and you only get one score extend (there's a secret extend in stage 2 in both loops), and the scoring + awesome graphics + awesome music means the first loop isn't just horribly boring. But it's something probably anyone can 1-ALL in a week or two.

Is that normal for arcade games in location tests to not have any difficulty DIP switches? I only ask because I do not know how location tests work in that particular regard.

That's not only directed at you, but anyone else on this forum who can answer that question.

[trap15]

Sorry for OGG, was too lazy to record in FLAC.

Fixed that for you

Actually I did record it in FLAC, but I don't want to hurt my bandwidth that way

Is that normal for arcade games in location tests to not have any difficulty DIP switches? I only ask because I do not know how location tests work in that particular regard.

That's not only directed at you, but anyone else on this forum who can answer that question.

My assumption is they wouldn't. From looking at the code, they literally overwrite the values they read from the coinage DIPs (and the lives DIPs) to always give 1 coin 1 credit, and default lives. They seem to record the difficulty and demo sound switches, but neither of them actually do anything.

[donluca]

Sorry for OGG, was too lazy to record in FLAC.

Fixed that for you

Actually I did record it in FLAC, but I don't want to hurt my bandwidth that way

I stand corrected then

Btw, bandwidth caps suck

[KAI]

Nice soundtrack. Thanks for sharing it Trap.

[trap15]

http://www.twitch.tv/trap0xf/v/33698360

Streamed a whole bunch of this a few hours ago. The sound in Luca's build is way off as well as the VSync rate, so here's a build with those fixed: http://daifukkat.su/secret/wingforcemame.7z

Dunno when the ROMs are gonna get distributed, but holy shit you guys all need to play this.

[fuse]

Just jumping in here quickly to post some appreciation for the efforts involved in acquiring/preserving this. Great, important work!

[rtw]

In the first stage there is a scene where birds fly out of trees... maybe Yagawa worked on this ?

[monouchi]

In the first stage there is a scene where birds fly out of trees... maybe Yagawa worked on this ?

Or maybe someone from the Gun Frontier (1990) crew, where Yagawa drew his inspiration from. (Lots of birds from the waterfall in stage 2.)

[trap15]

Nah, it's A.I crew the whole way. I'll post what I've found on the staff soon.

[Xyga]

You get a 1up for stopping the nuke, then next stage you destroy tons of civilian vehicles lulz.

Like the 'GATORADE' voice also.

Really cool game, I'm so glad it was saved, thanks again 'Indiana Shou' !

[emphatic]

Really like the look of this game, thanks for the video, trap15.

[jsjyqz]

nice game,but the game have no difficult dip switch,maybe needs check it

[Xyga]

I died on stage 3 (my excuse is that I was drinking wiskey with the neighbor at the same time) will play tomorrow when I'm sober. Silly neighbor.

[trap15]

nice game,but the game have no difficult dip switch,maybe needs check it

It doesn't have any. I wrote up info about the dips somewhere, but no dip switches actually do anything.

[jsjyqz]

nice game,but the game have no difficult dip switch,maybe needs check it

It doesn't have any. I wrote up info about the dips somewhere, but no dip switches actually do anything.

thank you for your reply,trap15,so maybe the Blaze On dip switch will be work as the game

[trap15]

Yes, the DIP switches are "supposed" to be the same as Blazeon, but the game overwrites the values it reads with 0. The only DIPs that function if you patch that out are coinage and starting lives.

[jsjyqz]

Yes, the DIP switches are "supposed" to be the same as Blazeon, but the game overwrites the values it reads with 0. The only DIPs that function if you patch that out are coinage and starting lives.

so if there be possible add the Blazeon DIP switches for the game,or other method？

[trap15]

No it's not possible to add any dip switches.