Arcade Archives: Master of Weapon (PS4|5 - Switch)

[Sturmvogel Prime]

DANGER ZONE (PART LXXVI)
...AND THIS WORLD WILL BECOME A BATTLEFIELD



The "Danger Zone" series of reviews so far.
DANGER ZONE VOL. I

Spoiler

I: REVVIN' UP YOUR ENGINE, LISTENIN' TO HER HOWLIN' ROARING - (E.D.F.: Earth Defense Force)
II: IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF FUN, MAV? - (Binarystar Infinity)
III: PLAYING WITH THE (ARCADE ARCHIVES) BOYS - (Arcade Archives: Thunder Dragon 2)
IV: THAT'S RIGHT! ICE...MAN. I AM DANGEROUS (SEED) - (Arcade Archives: Dangerous Seed)
V: THE ELITE. BEST OF THE BEST. WE'LL MAKE YOU BETTER. - (Super E.D.F.: Earth Defense Force)
VI: GONNA TAKE YOU RIGHT INTO THE DANGER ZONE - (Star Hunter DX)
VII: IT TAKES MORE THAN JUST FANCY FLYING - (Earth Defense Force 4.1: Wing Diver The Shooter)
VIII: INSTRUMENTS OF DESTRUCTION - (Devastator by Radiangames)
IX: ¿WHO'S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD TUBES? - (Arcade Archives: Tube Panic)
X: SWIMMIN' IN THE FLOODS, DANCIN' ON THE CLOUDS BELOW. I AIN'T WORRIED 'BOUT IT - (Arcade Archives: Fighting Hawk)
XI: PULLING A RABBIT OUT OF THE HAT - (Arcade Archives: Rabio Lepus)
XII: WINGS OF SILVER, NERVES OF STEEL - (Arcade Archives: Darius)
XIII: FULL SCALE ASSAULT - (Arcade Archives: Assault)
XIV: WE'RE GONNA NEED A DIFFERENT KIND OF BUGSPRAY - (Arcade Archives: Gaplus)
XV: DOWN THE ALIEN SECTOR - (Arcade Archives: Baraduke)
XVI: WHEN YOU'RE DRAWN TO THE GROUND BY THE DRAGONS - (Arcade Archives: Dragon Spirit)
XVII: SOME RETICENT GODDESS PUT THE CHILDREN TO SLEEP - (Arcade Archives: Metal Black)
XVIII: I SHOT THE WILD LIZARDS - (Arcade Archives: Gun Frontier)
XIX: HOW WE GONNA GET THIS MUSEUM PIECE IN THE AIR? - (Arcade Archives: Galaxian)
XX: SHATTERED KAWAII SKIES - (Arcade Archives: Ordyne)
XXI: ENTER THE DRAGON (SABER) - (Arcade Archives: Dragon Saber)
XXII: SEEMS LIKE WE'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES HOLDING ON TO OLD RELICS - (Arcade Archives: Galaga)
XXIII: OLD WARBIRDS, RETRO ARCADE ACTION - (Arcade Archives: USAAF Mustang)
XXIV: ARCADE STYLED HELICOPTER BATTLEFIELD - (Arcade Archives: Metal Hawk)
XXV: CLASH OF THE GODS - (Arcade Archives: Phelios)
XXVI: BACK IN (METAL) BLACK - (Metal Black S-Tribute)
XXVII: NAMCO'S TAKE ON THE NBA - (Arcade Archives: Grobda)
XXVIII: DOUJIN SHMUPPING "GM" STYLE - (Graze Counter GM)
XXIX: MIXED AND REMIXED - (Raiden IV x Mikado Remix)
XXX: EXPLICIT DIFFICULTY - (Arcade Archives: Gradius III)

DANGER ZONE VOL. II

Spoiler

XXXI: HAVING THE EARTH IN MY SIGHTS - (Layer Section & Galactic Attack S-Tribute)
XXXII: FAST, FURIOUS AND DANGEROUS - (Arcade Archives: Turbo Force)
XXXIII: CHORUS AND CHORES - (Chorus)
XXXIV: SAVE THE SUN - (Sol Cresta)
XXXV: NAMCO WHISPERS IN OUR EARS AND SAYS THAT "YOU ARE IN NAVARONE" - (Arcade Archives: Navarone)
XXXVI: A SHORT (ASTEROID) BREAK TIME - (Space Scavengers by Xitilon)
XXXVII: GIVE ME A "REZON" TO HOLD ON TO WHAT WE'VE GOT - (Arcade Archives: Rezon)
XXXVIII: A COSMIC TROUBLESOME GANG - (Arcade Archives: Cosmo Gang The Video)
XXXIX: WHAT'S THE PLAN? SAVE THE MOON, SAVE EARTH - (Arcade Archives: Moon Cresta)
XL: A HERO FOR THE EARTH - (Arcade Archives: Terra Cresta)
XLI: BACK TO THE '88 - (Arcade Archives: Galaga '88)
XLII: SUPER ROBOT SMASH - (Arcade Archives: Mazinger Z)
XLIII: FREEDOM FIGHTERS OF THE FUTURE - (Arcade Archives: Thunder Dragon)
XLIV: HAMSTER SAID "IT'S SHARK WEEK ON ARCADE ARCHIVES" - (Arcade Archives: Mad Shark)
XLV: MESSED UP NETWORK - (RayCrisis)
XLVI: AN INC-RAY-DIBLE COLLECTION - (Ray'z Arcade Chronology)
XLVII: AN INC-RAY-DIBLE COLLECTION II - (RayStorm x RayCrisis HD Collection)
XLVIII: 99 NAMCO BALLOONS GO BY (Arcade Archives: King & Balloon)
XLIX: ATTACK ON BOSCONIAN - (Arcade Archives: Bosconian)
L: MIXED AND REMIXED II - (Raiden III x Mikado Maniax)
LI: ALLUMER'S TOON SQUADRON - (Arcade Archives: Zing Zing Zip)
LII: GO STRIKE! - (Arcade Archives: Strike Gunner S.T.G)
LIII: A THING CALLED TUNA SASIMI - (Arcade Archives: Darius II)
LIV: RAIDER ZONE: YOU KNOW, IT IS WHAT IT IS - (Arcade Archives: Raiders5)
LV: COMET OF DESTRUCTION - (Arcade Archives: Halley's Comet)
LVI: FORCE AND BURN: NO FLY ZONE - (Arcade Archives: Burning Force)
LVII: THE SHENANIGANS OF SHENANDOAH - (1993 Shenandoah)
LVIII: GREAT, JUST LIKE A KING - (Arcade Archives: Daioh)
LIX: THE TIMELESS CLASSIC - (Arcade Archives: Gradius)
LX: A NINTEN-SIVE ARCADE PORT - (Arcade Archives: VS. Gradius)

DANGER ZONE VOL. III

Spoiler

LXI: THE (LIFE) FORCE AWAKENS - (Arcade Archives: Life Force)
LXII: THE TIMELESS CLASSIC RETURNS - (Arcade Archives: Gradius II)
LXIII: HEARTFUL TRIGGERHEART (Triggerheart Exelica - Switch Re-release)
LXIV: RETURN OF THE AERO FIGHTERS - (Arcade Archives: Aero Fighters)
LXV: THE POWER OF THE (TASK) FORCE - (Arcade Archives: Task Force Harrier)
LXVI: THIRTY MINUTES (AND MANY HOSTILES) OVER TOKYO - (Arcade Archives: Scramble Formation)
LXVII: THE HAMSTER EDGE: ARCADE ARCHIVES BLASTS OFF XEVIOUS - (Arcade Archives: Xevious)
LXVIII: HIGHWAY TO THE SECTOR ZONE - (Arcade Archives: Seicross)
LXIX: THE GALAXY'S LOUDEST HEAVY WARHEAD CRUISE - (Arcade Archives: Space Cruiser)
LXX: STRATO FIGHTER: THE (OUT OF THIS) WORLD WARRIOR - (Arcade Archives: Strato Fighter)
LXXI: WE'RE MESSIN' UP IN SPACE - (Arcade Archives: Nova2001)
LXXII: (MEGA)BLASTED AWAY - (Arcade Archives: Megablast)
LXXIII: DRIVE OR FLY? - (Arcade Archives: Silk Worm)
LXXIV: A (GUN)NAIL ON THE RISK COFFIN - (Arcade Archives: Gunnail)
LXXV: JALECO AND HAMSTER'S EXCELLENT EXERION ADVENTURE - (Arcade Archives: Exerion)

Time to check another Taito entry on the Arcade Archives, and this time they're throwing us into the post-apocalypse with Master of Weapon.




Is this what it means to be a new era ace pilot...?

If you've played Namco's Xevious or F/A / Fighter & Attacker and Taito's own Scramble Formation/Tokio, you'll be instantly familiarized with Master of Weapon's basic controls. Your ship is equipped with an frontal long ranged shot for air-to-air enemies and a short ranged air-to-ground vulcan for, obviously, ground-based targets. Unlike Dragon Spirit and Dragon Saber, you are given a sight to know where's your air-to-ground weapon aiming. But back in 1989, one thing was certain: While basic weaponry is OK, it needed to be powered up, and this game follows the same path as Dragon Saber by adding not just power ups for increase the ship's firepower from single shot to 5-way spread fire, but to change its special weapon. While pressing both Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground firing at the same time, you'll fire the third "Option Weapon", which is the second Air-to-Ground "Special Weapon" which has limited ammo, but with unlimited reloads, allowing you to use it as much as you want as long as you let the gauge bar to reload itself.




Take a look to the devastating weapons at your disposal.
Are you Master enough to use'em wisely? Reckless pilots are the least thing we need.

Before starting your mission, you've better take a look to the weapons that will make you a "Master of Weapon" indeed.

FIRE (F): The main power-up of your ship. It adds one bullet to the firing width until your firing becomes a 5 bullet spread shot.
SPEED UP (S): This is a whole new type of Speed Up item because it not just increase your ship's speed, it turns your exhaust into a rear-firing machine gun for a while. You can pick a total of four speed ups to max out your speed.
PIERCING (P): Your default weapon, this one fires a missile to the spot where the sight "locked" on allowing you to pick other targets while the missile heads to its target. Like Xevious, you can take down two buildings with one shot if you fire the missile in between them.
LASER (L): This is a short ranged beam that causes great damages to ground targets, but with the same short range as the Air-to-Ground Vulcan. This is the most powerful ground weapon of the game.
WIDE (W): The Wide is a burst weapon of some sorts. As the bullet is fired, it will split in multiple shots depending on how fill the Option Weapon bar was before firing. For instance, a "Level 4" shot will split the main shot in 8 bullets, making it good for both Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground attacks.
GUIDE (G): A homing variation of the Wide. The same conditions apply on the Guide with the main difference that the bullets will chase your enemies, making it ideal for agile enemies.
HYDROGEN (H): This is more of the Special Weapon than the rest of the Option Weapons. It clears the screen of enemies and after firing it you'll return to the weapon you've previously had before picking the Hydrogen bomb.




Urban Dogfighting

Now that you know what differs Master of Weapon from Xevious, you'll probably think "What about speed?, that game was quite slow and boring" You've thought Xevious was boring because it was "slow" for you? Well, Master of Weapon answers that by increasing the combat speed to more modern paced. For a 1989 game and its simple basic patterns such as enemy three way volleys, the speed was fast enough to make them deadly. Sounds crazy, but that's what makes old mid-late 80's shmups awesome, they made challenge not from massive spray patterns, but from the enemy speed and the way these are placed across the levels. Challenge from the levels themselves.

Another key factor of Xevious was the hidden bonus features that granted you extra points. Master of Weapon retains that aspect but reducing the random crypticness, yet requiring special conditions to unlock them such as getting the Guide weapon and blast a full charge shot to a circle of enemies in Act 2. Learning about these conditions is a must in this game if you want to rack up a high score and making some serious progress in the game since the default score conditions are quite high than anything else. An unexpected feature of this game was the introduction of Normal and True Endings. While most shmups were either endless or had one ending, Master of Weapon introduced a True Ending format requiring the player to complete the game without continuing once in order to fight the mutant "N" and defeat him once and for all. Failing to comply this requirement will send you to a normal ending telling you that Yukiwo is still fighting.

In terms of homeporting, Its only port during the 16-Bit era was on the Sega Genesis, which was developed by Kindle Imagine Development (Burai Fighter, Summer Carnival 92' Recca, G.I. Joe NES games and FM Towns Raiden Trad), but it was a butchered down version of the game which is disappointing for those who know KID's arcade-like quality before. To begin with, the Speed Up drastically reduces the firing range of the ship's exhaust, the soldiers at the start of Act 1 were removed (Censorship?), the shadow effect of the buildings looks more like a glitch bar covering a part of the stage and the colors went a little astray from what we saw on the arcade version. Act 3 lost its 3D effect of the wall-climbing sequence and the zooming head boss was nerfed due to the lack of the dropping altitude effect of the game, being the music the only "decent" thing of the game, but it could be much better if KID pulled a better effort on homeporting. Maybe these factors were the reason it was never released outside of Japan. Another Japan exclusive release of Master of Weapon was on the PlayStation 2 as part of Taito Memories 2 Gekan in 2007 which was the first "Arcade Perfect" port of the game. It was until 2024 when Taito and Hamster released the first worldwide port of the game as part of Arcade Archives, where along with the traditional extra modes of Hi-Score and Caravan, you can toggle auto-fire for both weapons an fire both simultaneously with one button. Something that I've noticed is that the Air-to-Ground weapon's "Turbo firing rate" varies after picking your first F-item. When you start the game or respawn, firing the ground weapon will be like "Ooooooo" and after powering your shots once will drop to "O o o o o". I don't know if that's an emulation issue or if its a game calibration, but is a curiosity of the game that was worth to mention. You can also select the option of playing with a ship or a flying bike via switch adjustments and carry that option in the Hi-Score and Caravan Modes in a similar way to the "play as 1p or 2p" option in Thunder Dragon 2 or Aero Fighters.




These guys definitely put the phrase "Go Big" in practice.

Graphically, while is not as colorful and vibrant as Darius and its sequel, it is a major step over Scramble Formation/Tokio, as we have a much better color palette that improves over the gray and dull colors used there. There's parts in the game which are reminiscent of Scramble Formation, mostly when you're flying above the streets between buildings and the cloud layers that act as in-betweeners for the acts. During Act 3 the game will change the ground with a 3D-ish transition effect as you and your enemies climb a cliff wall and change back into the streets. The visual effect was simple, but surprising back in '89 since it was mostly used on Sega's 2.5D simulator-shmup Thunder Blade, but not on a 2D vertical scroll shooter. With the Post-apocalypse setting, your enemies are not just alien machinery, but mutants. These green-ish blue crawling monstrosities that move with very smooth animations are quite surprising and the enemy machinery with Sanskrit-like symbols which add not just an alien feel, but a mystic one. Speaking of mystic stuff, some of the bosses are stone heads which makes us think of mythology as if the battle was more of "Man VS Gods", nodding the "God System" Supercomputer which went rouge due to a mutant infection.

For a game based on the "Post-apocalyptic Earth" as theme, the soundtrack is very optimistic and upbeat. Act 1's is quite tribal with the drumming that accompanies the escape sequence and is on Act 2 where the optimistic music appears with electronic wailing, feeling like a Kraftwer-esque tune. The first boss theme retains the wail-trumpet as the key instrument but in a more suspenseful way filling the red atmosphere that engulfes the battle scene. Act 3 and 4 in the other side is more percussion based and a bit more mysterious on its initial notes as a preview to the battle on this quite long level, so it will loop for a few times until you reach the second and third bosses which uses the second boss theme based on less and low notes in the style of a suspense movie of the early 80s as if you're watching someone entering an abandoned graveyard or a ghost house. Act 5 returns to the speed again with a slight bit of the Darius space-oddity as you're chasing the large ship and bombing the large base. The boss theme in this level is more suspenseful and more horror-like rather than Sci-Fi-esque. Act 6 is a bit more relaxed than the previous level themes, slightly breaking the premise of bringing the best tunes for the final part of the game. But to be fair, the music is far better and more original than Megablast.


MASTER OF CURIOSITIES



That's WO-nderful. A bonus that grant you half a million points.

- The hidden bonus kanji-like symbol in Act 2 is actually the now obsolete (i.e., no longer having any phonemic function in the language) vowel-only mora katakana "ヲ" (wo).
- This was the first Taito game developed by Takenaba Senba, famous for the trinity of titles known as the "Senba Trilogy" (Gun Frontier, Metal Black and Dino Rex).
- This game predates Metal Black's "Post-apocalyptic Earth" premise, along with the use of hopeful music contrasting with the desolated landscapes.
- Master of Weapon's first title was Yukiwo, which was named after the programmer Yukiwo Ishikawa (A.K.A. Yukio Abe).
- Speaking of Yukio Abe, Master of Weapon was an influence for his later shmup RayForce.
- The game's events take place on September 11, which makes it quite disturbing for today's audiences, along with that some buildings are similar to the World Trade Center. It's surprising that Taito and Hamster didn't censored that.
- Master of Weapon was released at the same time as Sega's Tetris. Due to its commercial failure, Taito converted most Master of Weapon boards (along with some of Rastan Saga II/Nastar Warrior) into Tetris on their locations, resulting in an audiovisually different port from the Sega System-16 version.
- Along with the name change from Yukiwo to Master of Weapon, the game was originally inteded to feature simultaneous co-op 2 player game, but it was ditched along with the original name.
- Master of Weapon borrowed some elements from Compile's Aleste such as the idea of using beams by vertically stacking sprites, fast stage visuals simulating heights through layers and the use of made-up Kanjis and Sanskrit symbols.
- The alternate hoverbike and game design was influenced by the 80's motorbike popularity.
- Treasure's Ikaruga also features Sanskrit symbols.



Master of Weapon or Retaliator?

- One of the american arcade marquees depict the player's jet as the concept design of the F-22 used in DiD/Ocean's simulator F-29 Retaliator.
- The 2020 game Project Wingman takes place on a post-apocalyptic world where the Earth cracked the continents after a tectonic disaster known as the Calamity. This nods the "Earth cracks" of Master of Weapon's introductory narration.
- The Arcade Archives version release is the third overall home port, second arcade perfect port and first port on a Nintendo console.
- Hamster's website says that "N" is the supercomputer while in the official Taito lore it is the God System infected by the mutant called "N".




Just surviving the apocalypse, and cancelling it with N's death.

Despite being another addition to their B-Tier list of shmups, Master of Weapon takes what Taito learned on Scramble Formation as a Xevious clone and puts the speed on the mix, making this an blazing fast and challenging shoot out experience meant for expert players with the victory conditions which were unique.




Master of Weapon also proved to be the Master of Positive Results in the Eda Scale.