Thunder Force III overload !!! Old previews, reviews & more

[parallaxscroll2]

This is for Thunder Force III fans, and deserves its own thread. Every magazine article I could find from 1990 for the king of horizontally scrolling SHMUPs of the day.

Sure, you'll notice a mistake here and there, cause that was the norm for video game magazines.

I remember every one of these articles, and I included EGM's look at Thunder Force AC, plus a nice high-res image of its flyer.

Enjoy

Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 9 - April 1990


Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 10 - May 1990


Mega Play issue 1 - November/December 1990


Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 14 - September 1990




Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 16 - November 1990


Mega Play issue 2 - January/February 1991


Game Player's Sega Genesis Strategy Guide issue 1 - Fall 1990


Sega Visions issue 3 - Winter 1990


Video Games & Computer Entertainment - October 1990


GamePro issue 16 - November 1990




Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 19 - February 1991


Thunder Force AC arcade flyer


Japanese Megadrive and U.S. Genesis box covers



Japanese and U.S. promotional material



This is from Beep! Megadrive issues March & April 1990









From 'Official Sega Genesis Seal of Quality' print advert


Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 19 - February 1991

[mirkvid]

Awesome contribution, I love reading these old articles. I'll have to dig out my copy of the game this weekend.

[waiwainl]

Nice work!

[R2-2D]

Nice read! We need more of this.
Funny how almost all these reviews don't mention the sound in this game.
It was awesome! I used to rent this game and and crank the volume up to 11.

[louisg]

This is great stuff!

[parallaxscroll2]

Thanks guys. I loved putting that together.

Okay I have a strong suspicion that at least one of the regular multi-format issues of Game Players magazine has a full page look preview and/or review of Thunder Force III. It just seems almost impossible to find anything not yet scanned by Retromags (thank you for all your work guys!).

If anyone happens to have some of those Game Players issues from the back half of 1990, could you look to see if they have anything?

There was that page on TF2 & TF3 in their Fall 1990 Sega Genesis Strategy Guide, which I included.

I did just look through Game Players March 1990 - Winter CES coverage. They mistakenly wrote Thunder Force IV instead of III, but definitely described the Gorgon level's background effect: http://i.imgur.com/B1CGrdR.jpg
Issue cover: http://i.imgur.com/PgsGHFA.jpg

But obviously what I'm after is their proper coverage of TF3 which would've likely been in one of their Fall 1990 issues.

[louisg]

I remember Thunderforce III was the first game I got for my Genesis. When I got the Genesis, there was an offer for one free game. I remember Klax being one, and my brother said "naw, go for Thunderforce". The game blew my mind, though I could only get to stage 2 back when I first owned it. Keep in mind this was before Sonic 1 was out, so TF3's graphics at this point were some of the sickest ever.

BTW Game Players' mag-- that was my mag of choice then

[BrianC]

Thunder Force III was one of my first Genesis imports. I found it at a yard sale for a decent price along with Whip Rush, the better model of the official 6 button controller, and a HDG model 1 Genesis (which me and my dad added a region switch to).

[parallaxscroll2]

I remember Thunderforce III was the first game I got for my Genesis. When I got the Genesis, there was an offer for one free game. I remember Klax being one, and my brother said "naw, go for Thunderforce". The game blew my mind, though I could only get to stage 2 back when I first owned it. Keep in mind this was before Sonic 1 was out, so TF3's graphics at this point were some of the sickest ever.

BTW Game Players' mag-- that was my mag of choice then

I got my Genesis in mid April 1990, a couple weeks after EGM published their first TF3 preview. I also had an offer for one free game, and went for Forgotten Worlds. I'm not sure if TF2 was one of the choices and I passed it up. Anyway, I got TF2 later that summer, but the day TF3 came out I bought it from a Babbage's. store, and was instantly a Thunderforce fan. Indeed, TF3 came out well before Sonic 1.

MD TF3 in Japan: June 1990
Genesis Sonic 1 in NA: June 1991

Both were 4 megabits. TF3 was incredible.

I enjoyed all the magazines of the time, Game Players, EGM, VG&CE and even GamePro.

[PooshhMao]

Thank you for the scans - they're fun to read.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't help but think of TFIII as 'slightly overrated'?
The closest that series ever came to 'great' was the 4th installment, but despite looking and sounding marvellous (especially for the time), I've never been particularly impressed with the way they play.

[Vludi]

Thank you for the scans - they're fun to read.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't help but think of TFIII as 'slightly overrated'?
The closest that series ever came to 'great' was the 4th installment, but despite looking and sounding marvellous (especially for the time), I've never been particularly impressed with the way they play.

4 is great. 3 is fun but not on the same level of Konami or Irem horis imo.

[ACSeraph]

Awesome thread, thanks for posting this! I like that unashamed Sega fanboy speak in the first one.

[chempop]

Aewsome! I think I'm going to set up my genesis now

[Gamer683441]

Reading all this makes me feel both old and very nostalgic. I too read Gamepro , Video Games and Computer Entertainment , Egm , Sega Vision, Nintendo Newsletter before they became Nintendo power, all that stuff. I think though my favorite one was EGM. I remember Ed Semrad, Martin Alessi , all those old school EGM guys. Wonder what they're up to now??

[parallaxscroll2]

Reading all this makes me feel both old and very nostalgic. I too read Gamepro , Video Games and Computer Entertainment , Egm , Sega Vision, Nintendo Newsletter before they became Nintendo power, all that stuff. I think though my favorite one was EGM. I remember Ed Semrad, Martin Alessi , all those old school EGM guys. Wonder what they're up to now??

Same here, man.

Martin Alessi was a TF3 fanatic.

BTW guys, for that TF2 review thread I made, I'll work on making the images smaller over the weekend.

But as for this thread, I'd really like to keep everything as-is, hope that's okay.

[GGA_HAN]

Martin Alessi is actually a good friend of mine!

He's still involved in the gaming magazine industry, recently doing work for Retro magazine and also his own venture - Little Player. I'm doing some video capture for him on Little Player, which is a magazine intended for young gamers.

[Gamer683441]

Martin Alessi is actually a good friend of mine!

He's still involved in the gaming magazine industry, recently doing work for Retro magazine and also his own venture - Little Player. I'm doing some video capture for him on Little Player, which is a magazine intended for young gamers.

Cool!!! is he doing work you said on Retro gamer Magazine (UK based) or the American Retro magazine? I remember Martin Alessi's reviews as a kid. Ahhhh!! How nice and simple life was as a kid. Well tell him his name still gets brought up on these forums.

[GGA_HAN]

Martin Alessi is actually a good friend of mine!

He's still involved in the gaming magazine industry, recently doing work for Retro magazine and also his own venture - Little Player. I'm doing some video capture for him on Little Player, which is a magazine intended for young gamers.

Cool!!! is he doing work you said on Retro gamer Magazine (UK based) or the American Retro magazine? I remember Martin Alessi's reviews as a kid. Ahhhh!! How nice and simple life was as a kid. Well tell him his name still gets brought up on these forums.

The American one: http://shopreadretro.com/

I'll send him the link and let him know!

[Tregard]

Brilliant post, thank you. I read a lot of these magazines when I was growing up and wish I had kept hold of some of them.

Thunder Force itself passed me by back when I was rocking the Megadrive, but I've since come to discover and appreciate its charms through the wonders of emulation (boo, hiss).

[Gamer683441]

Since we're on the subject of magazines, I've always wondered about Retro magazine. I've been getting Retro Gamer Magazine (UK based) for years and its always been a high quality magazine. They get exclusive developer interviews. Also they get super deep in the subject matter and even the actual pages are good quality paper. You can tell they didn't cheap out. The only negative is that since its UK based, a lot of their coverage is about 8-bit British computers. My question is to those that may know. What is the quality of Retro Magazine? Are they on par? Do they go into great detail? I've kinda been on the fence about it after checking out their magazine one time.

[parallaxscroll2]

EGM's Quartermann on Martin Alessi / TF III.

http://i.imgur.com/Chpa8Mb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KR532i3.jpg

Martin Alessi's TF III High Score in EGM.

[GGA_HAN]

(RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE)

Bumping to see if anyone who loves Thunder Force III might be interested in something I've been working on with the aforementioned Martin Alessi, my good friend.

We are debuting our "preview" issue this weekend at Midwest Gaming Classic; the full issue will be coming in the summer and will be around 50 pages.

There is a free digital version of the preview in the link below, as well:

https://shopmassiveimpact.com/collections/retro-player

While most of you won't be learning anything new from the strategy guide section, the pixels look amazing in print. Here are some hi-res samples:

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

We hope some of you here on the shmups forum will check us out!

- Pete

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Can't wait for them figmas! Any news?

[FRO]

I'm a much bigger fan of 4 than 3, but this is great work, capturing all this stuff in good clean scans! I think I have the issue of VG&CE with the TF3 review, so that made me nostalgic for sure. It's interesting to see a couple of the lower scores, like one of the EGM writers who gave it a 7, which I thought was odd.

Anyway, now I need to know who Kanako and Kaoru are

[RockDF]

TF III is one of my all time favorites, thank you!

Enviado de meu SM-G950F usando Tapatalk

[MintyTheCat]

That looks lovely - I've bought a copy. Thanks for doing this. As it happens, I quite like TFIII and have spent some time with it over the years. I love it when shmuppers put printed materials together

[el_rika]

I used to beat the game every day on mania back then. It was the only game i played for like an year. By far my favourite Genesis shmup.

That credits song...man, such an amazing track.

[Gamer707b]

As was very late to the TF# party. I read about it in EGM back in the day, but just wasn't into shmups. I bought a Genesis copy last year and finished it for the first time. Amazing scrolling, music and the sound effects were off the hook. This game has not aged one bit. TIMELESS!!

[parallaxscroll2]

Here's the review from Computer & Video Games - August 1990 - Mean Machines column (which later got turned into its own magazine)

[MintyTheCat]

(RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE)

Bumping to see if anyone who loves Thunder Force III might be interested in something I've been working on with the aforementioned Martin Alessi, my good friend.

We are debuting our "preview" issue this weekend at Midwest Gaming Classic; the full issue will be coming in the summer and will be around 50 pages.

There is a free digital version of the preview in the link below, as well:

https://shopmassiveimpact.com/collections/retro-player

While most of you won't be learning anything new from the strategy guide section, the pixels look amazing in print. Here are some hi-res samples:

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

We hope some of you here on the shmups forum will check us out!

- Pete

Hello,
I pre-ordered this production some months back but when will it be released and posted out to people?