Tokyo (Arcade, PS2, Taito, 1986)

[Randorama]

The new year brings a "new" review that I am presenting in "reduced" form, since the first release is in the squib thread of mine. This review focuses on the arcade and PS2 versions of the game: Sturmvogel Prime has reviewed the Arcade Archives version in this thread. You will also find a link to Malc's original review at the end of this entry. Be sure to play the game regardless of the version of choice: it's a classic, modulo some serious zeerust that has accumulated over the game from 1986 onwards. Please enjoy! (2169 words, or 5.1 pages in times new roman, size 12, single space; the usual disclaimers apply).

Tokyo/Scramble Formation (Taito, 1986) is a TATE/vertically oriented shmup in which a mysterious red biplane fights against an army of futuristic vehicles invading the Japanese capital. The game follows the Xevious template: the plane shoots aerial bullets against jets, and terrestrial missiles against tanks, ships and cars. However, the game also adds an “options” mechanic: small drone-like planes accompanying the biplane and fulfilling a variety of attack functions. Players must thus fight waves of different types of enemies and periodically challenge a mysterious “Black Plane” vaguely resembling a B-2 bomber, flying over Tokyo’s landmarks during these fights. This shmup offers a gritty urban setting mixed with a “retro-futuristic” approach to vehicles’ design, and a droning, hypnotic musical theme. Wave-based action is intense and offers interesting if simple scoring opportunities. Players can thus enjoy this game as a time capsule from the 1980s that elaborates several shmup mechanics in original manners.

It would be challenging to condense the historical context in which the game appeared, but I will briefly mention some key aspects of the time, in the way I remember them. Shmups in 1986 were still a genre with vague contours, but classics like Namco’s Xevious and Capcom’s 1942 suggested two possible ways forwards for the genre’s core game mechanics. The first title differentiated between aerial and terrestrial fighting “layers”; the second title placed all enemies on the same layer. Capcom’s Gun Smoke and Side Arms also suggested that players could shoot in different directions via different buttons; Irem’s R-Type and Taito’s Darius were about to further revolutionise Hori shmups. Tokyo may therefore appear as a brief, minor chapter in shmups’ history, but the goal of this squib is to suggest that this chapter is an interesting and important reading for a proper education in shmups’ lore and appreciation.

Tokyo and its plot and world setting are, once more, rather simple. Mysterious aliens with superior technology invade Tokyo and it is up to a red biplane plus its seemingly endless red drone helpers to save the city. The red biplane takes off from the Diet building and then flies over 10 landmark places around the city while obliterating the alien forces. Once players clear a place from terrestrial and aerial enemies, the action moves at altitude as the biplane dives into the clouds. Cloud intermezzo sections thus feature only against aerial-only intercept forces. After clearing all 10 places from the invaders’ presence, the players start a new loop by flying once more over the Diet building. Though the game seems to loop indefinitely, players may 1-CC a single loop in roughly 30 minutes of play, with sections lasting between 20 and 120 seconds of fast-paced action.

The game mechanics may appear simple to 21st century players but, in my experience, it was highly innovative for 1986. The A button is the attack button: players can either tap or hold the button to shoot an attack whose type depends on the attack formation set via the B button. The B button is the formation button: when players collect the “red drone” icons, they will add up to four drones as option-like helpers. The default formation for the drones/helpers is the “Line” formation: the four drones align behind the main plane. When holding this formation, the plane shoots a double aerial shot and one terrestrial missile. Aerial shots obviously destroy airborne crafts but travel the whole screen’s length, whereas missiles only travel two thirds of a screen’s length and can only destroy terrestrial crafts, if they reach them. The Line formation thus allows players to use mixed attacks.

After pressing the B button once, the “Diamond” formation appears. The drones form a diamond (i.e. rhombus-like) formation around the main plane, and each drone shoots a terrestrial missile. However, the drones will not shoot any aerial bullets, thus leaving themselves and the plane defenceless again aircrafts. A further B button pressure will trigger the “Triangle” formation: the drones form a pseudo-triangle around the plane and only shoot aerial bullets, thus becoming defenceless again terrestrial enemies. A third pressure of the B button resets the formation cycle, as drones take the Line formation again. When holding the A button in the Line formation, the plane maintains a slow auto-fire rate (no more than 5 hertz). The diamond and rhombus formations involve slightly faster auto-fire rates, but tapping or other auto-fire options offer better fire rates. Point-blanking enemies to quickly reduce on-screen bullets does indeed help, due to bullets numbers’ limitations.

If players push A and B simultaneously, the drones act as suicide units and explode upon colliding with enemies. The explosion releases a colourful gem-like object moving in a spiral trajectory and acting as a shield from bullets and enemies. Any bullet and item hitting one of these objects disappears. The objects may thus act as bullet-cancelling items long before Takumi and other companies active in the 2000s developed whole games centred on this mechanic. Once the plane has four drones under its control, any further drone icons will increase the stock of disposable drones (up to 99). A full-fledged drone attack uses up to four drones, and enemies destroying drones will also cause the appearance of objects and the immediate respawning of a drone, if in stock. Thus, drones can also act as weapons with multiple and highly flexible uses.

An interesting aspect of the game that also inspired various successors (e.g. the Ray’z series) is the use of the diamond formation and its land attack. The game offers a peculiar approach to “stage design”. The biplane moves back and forth sections crossing banks of thick clouds, and sections visiting one of Tokyo’s iconic landmarks. When the biplane is close to surface enough to engage land enemies, it becomes possible to destroy several enemies with one sweep of the land attacks. For each destroyed enemy, the game awards chain points based on a power of 2 multiplied by 1k points. Thus, five terrestrial enemies destroyed via a single diamond formation attack can bet 24*1k=32k points. Although most points come from destroying enemies’ waves in their entirety, chain occasions can provide good boosts to overall scores and offer a quick, efficient way to clear trickier passages.

Before we fully address score aspects (or facets) of the game, we may discuss in fuller detail the game’s audiovisual presentation. Tokyo is a 1986 game so you should expect 8 bit-like graphics, if we wish to summarise the game’s visual style. Certainly, the chromatic choices summon a drab atmosphere: the cloud stages feature shades of white and grey, and the street level stages only add darker hues and some beige. Landmark places are highly stylised and not in scale: Tokyo Disneyland and the Diet Building only vaguely resemble their real-life counterparts. The game nevertheless has relatively well-animated sprites and an intriguing contrast in the futuristic enemies and the retro-themed biplane and drones. Mix embryonal Dieselpunk design undertones often featured in Miyazaki’s early works and Clamp’s city views of Tokyo in their early manga and anime, and you will get a feeling of Tokyo’s overall deeply 1980’s atmosphere.

The OST, apparently by Hisayoshi Ogura/OGR (i.e. the Zuntata founder), is interesting in its simplicity. Before readers acquainted with the game will visit me with a Scythe and elegantly lop off my head screaming with justified outrage, please allow me to explain. The game features a simple tune that roughly last thirty seconds. The “Black Plane”, the recurring boss appearing in cloud intermezzo stages, has a short theme that stops after the boss’ demise. Only these two short themes alternate as the game progresses, the main theme playing most of the time. Though the idea of listening to the same short tunes ad nauseam may sound like torture, both themes have their own minimalist charm. Both themes also quickly fade in the background once stages become more action-packed. Add some quintessentially 1980s loud and basic sounds effects, and a sensorial time capsule is ready.

After this brief celebration of Tokyo’s austere and simple beauty (somehow), we can move to a discussion of difficulty. As always, I assume that my readers may feel a degree of nausea by the sheer mention of Facets by now, but the link may be a good refresher for those who need it. I always believed that Tokyo is a relatively easy game, if players learn to handle two core facets: the formation mechanics, and enemies’ waves. Level/section design comes down to waves of different enemies and strategies to handle them that involve a third, weak interactional facet: an optimal approach to the final stanzas of the game. I thus suggest that the first two facets each attract 20 out of the 50 total points, and the third facet attracts 10 points. The values I propose for these facets in the game are as follows.

The formation mechanics may require some practice and patience to master. The Line formation allows players to destroy both types of enemies but requires precision; the Diamond and Triangle formations are useful for sections only having either type of enemy. The use of drones as suicide attackers and their ability to cancel bullets when hit certainly come handy in more hectic sections: mastering these techniques also requires some time, though. However, once players master all these aspects, they should have an easy time quickly disposing of enemy waves and collecting dozens of extra drones. Furthermore, once players have a good stock of drones, even latter sections and enemy waves become almost trivial via a careful use of drone suicide attacks. Thus, I propose that the five single facets sum up and motivate a 5/20 score: formation mechanics are not a particularly difficult facet of the game.

Enemy waves contribute in a more relevant manner to difficulty, but mostly due to their sheer numbers. The game provides four types of aerial enemies and four types of terrestrial enemies. Although their numbers increase and their formations change as the game proceeds, players should learn their basic attacking patterns already after the first few minutes of a play. Terrestrial enemies, one aerial enemy type and the Black Plane shoot anti-air rockets that require a split second to reach the plane’s altitude. Learning how to dodge these delayed attacks also quickly becomes a quickly acquired skill out of necessity. Players who can master how to control and obliterate enemy waves of any size could potentially 1-CC the game simply by adopting the right tactic against the right enemy wave ad nauseam. Add a quick method to kill the Black Plane, and we have 8/20 difficulty points assigned to this second facet.

The third weak facet involves the latter quartile of the game in which players turn back from their trip around Tokyo to the Diet Hall building. The last two or three terrestrial sections involve relatively high amounts of aerial and terrestrial enemies. For these sections, players can certainly benefit from a bit of memorization of enemies’ placement and the aggressive use of suicide drones to quickly destroy attackers. Tokyo is an old school shmup, so clearing the screen from enemies before they can shoot becomes a necessary tactic to master. Only two or three passages near the end of the loop require 20 seconds or so of moderately challenging ro(u)te learning: they thus justify another 2/10 points of difficulty added to the total. Overall, I would suggest that Tokyo sits at 15/50 points of difficulty (i.e. middle intermediate difficulty): add three points each loop, until difficulty and stamina max out.

In conclusion, Tokyo is a vertical/TATE shmup released by Taito in 1986. The game features interesting and somewhat unique mechanics for the time, minimalist but evocative audiovisual design, and fast-paced dual-layer action. Players guide a red biplane and use the plane’s drones and their suicide attacks against mysterious alien spaceships invading Tokyo. The game lacks fully distinct stages but features 10 landmark places as fighting locations, and in which they destroy waves of enemies. The game has been influential enough that Cave’s Ketsui homages Tokyo in the first stage (i.e. the “Scramble Formation” advertisement and the drones/pods’ mechanic). Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours players may also enjoy using Murakumo as a Silver Hawk-esque version of the biplane, together with the red drones’ quartet. Players who want to uncover a perhaps unpolished 1980s cult game may therefore enjoy Tokyo as a compact, brief shmups history lesson.