Flying Shark (Toaplan/Taito, 1987)

[Randorama]

In this review we discuss a venerable standard of the shmup genre, Flying Shark. The game’s immense popularity entails that there have been dozens of ports across the decades (see the discussion in the wiki). The M2 “Shot Rigger” ports represent modern faithful renditions of the game on PS4 and Nintendo Switch, however. The game is notable for being a subtle but pervasive seminal influence in the genre, along with other fellow Toaplan shmups. Tsuneki Ikeda from Cave, among many other videogame designers, grew up playing this title and Slap Fight, for instance. The game comes into various revisions and regional versions (e.g. Hishou Zame is the game’s name for the J(a)P(an) version), which differ in various minor details. We have various threads and a classic review here, so my review aims to be concise. Readers who are interested in my subjective experiences of the game can read the longer squib here

Flying Shark (Toaplan, 1987, with Taito handling the distribution) is a (ro)TATE shmup that pits Rudo Schneider and its blue biplane against a veritable legion of enemy planes and tanks. The game is notable for being one of the first shmups introducing a “bomb” attack and for having a great OST. More controversially, it is also notable for introducing the complex type of enemy positioning and Stage design that evolved into the modern ”Bullet Hell” genre. This latter aspect of Facet hinges on the fact that Stages become “busy” with enemies and bullets early on, and once players loop the game, careful positioning strategies become indispensable. The goal of this review is to provide players with evidence supporting this claim. The goal of this review is also to convince players that 1-CC’ing the game (well, at least a loop) is a perhaps a central achievement for any fan of the genre.

Summarising 1987 for the arcade scene and Toaplan’s early years in a single paragraph would be almost “hobbyist malpractice”, I know. Throughout this and further Toaplan-dedicated reviews, I will attempt to sketch a minimal context nevertheless. Toaplan was an intriguing little company that, in the memories of Masahiro Yuge, had a “wild party” atmosphere and some unhealthy work practices. Arising from the ashes of Orca, Toaplan produced simple platformers/puzzle games like Performan on hardware allowing modest audio-visual presentations. Pilferers and innovators in equal parts, Toaplan programmers were smart designers with powerful ideas who established themselves with shmups such as Slap Fight in 1986, Kyukyoku Tiger/Twin Cobra and Flying Shark in 1987, and Truxton/Tatsujin in 1988. Toaplan shmups looked modest, but presented players with remarkably creative design ideas and a feeling of smooth, fast-paced action that could almost match contemporary legends like Taito’s Darius, Irem’s R-Type and Konami’s Gradius II.

Before we turn to the finer Facets involving game mechanics, a brief mention of the plot will help us in framing its minimal world setting. The story pits an unnamed fighter, nicknamed the “Flying Shark” or “Sky Shark” depending on the game’s version, against the enemy forces in an undefined Pacific Ocean war theatre. Our hero must fly behind enemy lines and rescue fellow pilots and prisoners of wars. It is a though mission, but somebody must do it and obviously our hero is the best choice. Readers may wonder why these forces fight with biplanes in WWII, or why and how a single biplane may rescue these aforementioned prisoners. These are details to simply set up a cool battle with biplanes in the Pacific, really. The identity of the “Flying Shark” as Romu Schneider originates in Batsugun!’s, Toaplan final game, which suggests that this story takes place in an alternate version of Earth.

Let us now discuss the minimalist game mechanics. Players control Rudo’s biplane in eight directions with the joystick. The A button shoots two central shots, and can upgrade to 12 relatively wide shots after collecting five “S” power-ups, obtained by shooting down formations of six to eight red planes. The B button controls the bomb attack. When pressed, a bomb briefly travels forward from the plane position, and then detonate in a spiralling explosion that cancels bullets and damages/destroys enemies in its range. Collect “B(omb)” icons from destroyed tanks; each bomb in stock is worth 3k points as an End-of-Stage bonus. The bomb stock replenishes at three bombs, if players have less units after clearing a Stage. Shoot down yellow and silver biplane formations to collect 1000 extra points and one extra life, respectively. Players start with two lives and extend at 50k plus every 150k points, in most versions.

The audio-visual presentation is also minimal, though far from basic. The game is set in the Pacific theatre of WWII, and thus features luscious jungle backgrounds, battles over azure seas. Assaults to military bases involving steel grey buildings, brownish grounds and other colour from a simple, realistic palette. Enemy tanks and biplanes come in a few colour combinations but are well-animated and realistically designed. Bosses have massive sprites: the bombardier from Stage five occupies most of the screen, and the battleship from Stage three is several screens long. Mid-size enemies are also bulky and aggressive, and enemy formations often offer a choreographic if threatening feeling about their positioning. Toaplan designers did not have powerful hardware at their disposal. However, had a firm grasp on how to convey the feeling of a single man against an army comparable to other classics of the time (e.g. Seta/Taito’s Thundercade, Capcom’s 1943).

Masahiro Yuge’OST offers a strong argument for Toaplan’s designers being gifted with sheer ingeniousness in the face of modest hardware. Yuge infused the OST with his love for Progressive Rock and especially British band Yes, though it definitely could access basic synthetisers and software to create this music. Stage one’s Asia opens the game with a medium paced, relatively dramatic theme; Stage two’s Against the Attack moves to a more upbeat tempo for some ocean-based action. Stage three’s Water Front switches to a dramatic riff, and Stage four’s Behind the Bush leads with an almost hard rock-styled anthem. It is Stage five’s Last Fighter exhilaratingly dramatic theme that plays the closest to Yes’s classic works, with its notes perhaps echoing South Side of the Sky from The Fragile. Sound effects are almost 8-bit console-like in simplicity, but the OST is a synthetized prog rock-like cavalcade framing Rudo’s fight with epic and dramatic flair.

Now that we have a framework for the aesthetics Facets, we can discuss the game’s difficulty. I propose that the difficulty in this game comes from game mechanics and Stage design/layout, which in turn corresponds to Enemy wave/formations and their layout. First, players must master use of the main shot: even at maximum power, it covers roughly half of the screen. The numbers of shot waves on screen have a limit, so players should also learn to point-blank enemies to increase shooting frequency. Certainly, use of auto-fire options across ports can help players to overcome that lingering subjective feeling that firepower is sometimes insufficient. However, players who aim to play the game in its arcade form need to master this ability. Therefore, they need to learn to dispose of larger enemies and bosses in a brutal, aggressive and efficient manner, while also learning to dodge quick attacks with precision.

Second, bombs require some practice for players to use them as secondary weapons, their intended function. Bombs do not denotate immediately, but must undergo half a second of so of “dropping animation” (with matching sound effect). Once they hit the surface, they create a spiralling whirlwind of fire that cancel bullets and damages enemies and last around 1.5 seconds. The radius of the explosion is roughly half of the horizontal axis, a fact entailing that bombs do not cover the entire screen, on the vertical axis. Thus, bombs can be a good defensive measure against sniper enemies on the horizontal axis or attacks from behind the plane/the bottom of the screen. If enemies are shooting from the top side of the screen, they might even be useless due to their limited reach. Their use must thus be tactical, as “panic bombing” may often result in untimely deaths.

If we divide the total 50 points into two halves of 25 points, then the game mechanics motivate a 3/25 difficulty score. Players should potentially master these Facets with little effort and a clear understanding of their basic principles. While game mechanics may be an easy obstacle to overcome, enemy/Stage layout/formations provide the main source of difficulty in the game. Two sub-Facets provide the key sources of difficult, within this sub-Facet. First, enemies mostly aim in eight directions, but also aim their shots by using simple “baiting” strategies. A formation of biplanes can enter the screen and aim their single shots at Rudo’s biplane, forcing players to move in e.g. the up-right direction. Sniper tanks may then appear and shoot at the biplane’s expected position, taking the plane down. This strategy, in combination with a sapient positioning of enemies, forces players to memorise enemies’ placement and potential trap attacks.

Second, Stage layout provides a “macro-source” of difficulty, building atop of enemies’ formations “micro-source”. The game has five Stages, and loops indefinitely though the score should max out at 9999990 points; loops start from Stage two, however. Each Stage is divided into “areas”, i.e. mini-sections that establish the spawning points after death. Each area acts as a mini-puzzle or maze in which players must understand what is the best order(s) of enemy formations to destroy, for survival purposes. Biplanes, tanks and small ships shoot fast, aimed flashing bullets; bigger planes shoot pattern-based bullets (e.g. three-way shots); bosses use bulkier attacks of various types. Players thus can focus on solving each area as a mini-maze, then “connect” this solution to the next area, and so on. This approach is virtually necessary for survival purposes, also because players must learn how to survive after death when entering each re-spawning point.

Overall, players should develop general strategies involving carefully timed movements to dodge bullets and destroy enemies as soon as possible. For Stages and areas, players can develop specific tactics such as the tactical use of bombs upon respawning or to shorten boss fights. Combining these pieces together leads to a veritable resolution of the “maze game” underpinning Flying Shark. I thus propose, for simplicity, that each Stage is worth three points of difficulty: one for the Stage itself, one to learn its harder respawn points/areas, and one for the Bosses. At 15/25 difficulty points, this Facet offers a considerable challenge for all players. The total thus becomes 18/50 points, close to the Shmup difficulty Wiki score. Add two points per loop, as enemies become more aggressive and have more H(it)P(oint)s. Flying Shark is a top-tier challenge for intermediate players, but multiple loops can reach grandmaster (i.e. 40+ points) difficulty levels.

It is time to summarise, as we now have a fuller view of the game. Flying Shark is a (ro)TATE shmup pitting Rudo Shneider as the “Flying Shark”, a lonesome biplane fighter against hordes of enemies on a mission to rescue prisoners of war. The game offers modest but well-designed graphics, a great OST and an early approach to the genre that features complex, maze-like handling of enemy formations, fast bullets, and massive bosses. The game also offers a moderate but solid challenge for players who want to clear at least one loop, and ever-increasing challenges for players who pursue multiple-loop clears. The game represents a core chapter of the genre, together with other Toaplan games and has shaped entire generations of successors (e.g. Raiden and its ilk, but also Cave games). As a synchronous lesson of history and a great shmup, any proper shmup player should play it and enjoy it to its completion.