1942 | Code Like It's 198x

1942 is a hard game with almost nothing in it. One small plane flies up a scrolling screen of blue sea and scattered islands, and enemy aircraft come at it in formation, wave after wave, for 32 stages. There are few power-ups and fewer changes of scenery. Its one trick is a loop-the-loop that carries the plane out of danger, and the player gets only three of those per life. Yet this austere game, released in December 1984, is the one that, in Edge’s words, “made the company’s name” for Capcom, and its formula carried a series for more than twenty years.

Fast facts

Developer: Capcom, arcade, December 1984.
Designer: Yoshiki Okamoto.
Setting: the Pacific war; the player’s plane is modelled on the American P-38 Lightning.
Length: 32 stages.
Special move: a loop-the-loop, three per life.
Home versions: Famicom (Capcom, December 1985); Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC (Elite, 1986–87).
Sequels: 1943: The Battle of Midway (1987), 1941: Counter Attack (1990), 19XX (1996), 1944: The Loop Master (2000), 1942: Joint Strike (2008).

Okamoto’s first Capcom hit

Capcom had released its first arcade video game, Vulgus, only that May. Yoshiki Okamoto had come from Konami, where he had worked on Time Pilot and Gyruss, and joined Capcom in 1984 with Tokuro Fujiwara. Edge later called Okamoto “the driving force behind” 1942, and Retro Gamer: The Ultimate Retro Companion wrote that by creating it he “caused an instant upturn in fortunes” at Capcom. Retro Gamer also noted that most of Capcom’s early hits, 1942 among them, came from Okamoto and Fujiwara, who worked with “a friendly sense of competition” between them.

In the arcade

British players read about it in May 1985. Computer Gamer’s arcade column found it “loosely based on the Battle of Midway”, which struck the writer as “rather an odd subject for a Japanese arcade manufacturer to take up — considering that it was the battle when the Americans started beating the Japanese in the last war”. The screen was “a plan view of various islands, which only provide a backdrop”. The player’s plane, a twin-boomed fighter that the magazine called a “lightning fighter”, starts at the bottom of the screen, and “Japanese fighters and bombers come down the screen and you shoot at them”.

The column noticed a detail that most later accounts skip. As well as the usual high score, the machine kept a record of the best hit ratio, the percentage of enemy fighters shot down: “A good percentage is around 70%.” It also told readers to “watch out for the graphically excellent loops”.

The loop is the game’s signature. At the press of a button the plane climbs into a loop-the-loop, and while it loops it cannot be hit. Enemy formations sometimes carry a “POW” capsule, released when a whole squadron is shot down, which upgrades the guns or brings two escort fighters alongside the player. In the arcade the player kept these until they lost a life.

Looking back in 2008, Retro Gamer’s Stuart Campbell found the game’s lasting popularity “something of a mystery”. Most of it is played “against a backdrop of plain blue sea”, with “practically no variation in enemies or attack wave patterns”, and the loop, “limited to a measly three uses”, often left the player in as much trouble as before. That, he decided, was the appeal: “this is a test of stamina as much as co-ordination”.

Home versions

Capcom’s own Famicom version, released in December 1985, was the company’s first home game. Retro Gamer found the NES version “pretty faithful”.

In Britain the game belonged to Elite Systems, which held Capcom’s home-computer licence after its successful Commando. Elite demonstrated 1942 on its stand at the Personal Computer World Show in 1986, “another addition to the Capcom conversion series” in ZZAP!64’s words, and released it for the Spectrum at £7.95 that autumn. The reviews were mixed at best.

Spectrum: CRASH gave it 63% in October 1986, calling it “a reasonable conversion of a game that wasn’t very good to start with”. One reviewer found it “one of the worst games to come out of the ELITE offices in yonks”. Sinclair User was kinder: “1942 has the magic ingredient — you’ll always be coming back for more”. So was Computer and Video Games, which found it a “satisfying and very playable bit of arcade action”. Retro Gamer later credited the Spectrum version to the developer Syrox, and noted that it made the player’s plane a sixth of the screen’s width, against a ninth in the arcade, took away all power-ups at the end of each stage, and dropped almost all the sound.
Commodore 64: ZZAP!64 gave it 58% in its Christmas 1986 issue (£9.95 on cassette, £14.95 on disk). The reviewer called it “a boring shoot em up” that would “only appeal to those who mindlessly rush out and buy arcade conversions”. The roll, pressed with the space bar, made the plane “invincible for a few seconds”.
Amstrad CPC: AMTIX! gave it 35% in March 1987: “Little more than a repetitive shoot ’em up”.

Computer Gamer explained one reason the home versions felt wrong. The arcade screen “was higher than it was wide”, while the official conversions used the usual wide computer screen: “This means that you don’t get enough warning” of approaching planes. The magazine made the point in February 1987 while reviewing ’43: One Year After, an unofficial Commodore 64 imitation that it preferred to Elite’s “extremely disappointing” official version.

The series

Capcom kept the name and changed the game each time. Retro Gamer’s 2008 history of the series describes the sequels:

1943: The Battle of Midway (1987) replaced lives with an energy bar that drained over time, and added big “event” bosses. It was converted widely; the NES version was a different game with 24 stages and a charge-beam weapon. A Japan-only remix, 1943 Kai, followed.
1941: Counter Attack (1990) cut the game to six stages and added horizontal scrolling through canyons and factories.
19XX: The War Against Destiny (1996) left the Second World War and offered a choice of three planes.
1944: The Loop Master (2000) went back to a single Lightning and made the loop part of a charged attack. Retro Gamer: The Ultimate Retro Companion records that Capcom made it with the shoot ’em up specialists Raizing.

1942: Joint Strike, made by Backbone Entertainment for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network in 2008, reworked the original with a two-player “Joint Strike” attack. Retro Gamer found its multiplayer “excellent”.

Sources

Capcom, “Corporate History”, Capcom investor relations (web, secondary): Vulgus (May 1984), 1942 (December 1984), the Famicom 1942 (December 1985). https://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/company/history.html
Edge issue 108, March 2002, p. 77: Capcom profile, 1942 “made the company’s name”.
Edge issue 181, November 2007, p. 17: interview with Yoshiki Okamoto, “the driving force behind Gyruss, Time Pilot, 1942”.
Retro Gamer: The Ultimate Retro Companion, volume 2 (Imagine Publishing, 2008), p. 137: Okamoto joins Capcom from Konami in 1984 and creates 1942; 1944: The Loop Master made with Raizing.
Retro Gamer issue 18, 2005, p. 63: Capcom’s early hits traced to Fujiwara and Okamoto.
Computer Gamer issue 2, May 1985, pp. 26–27: arcade column (Midway, the plan view, the “lightning fighter”, the hit-ratio table, the loops).
Retro Gamer issue 48, 2008, pp. 30–35: Stuart Campbell, the 194X series (the arcade 1942, the loop, the Spectrum version and Syrox, the NES and C64 versions, 1943, 1943 Kai, 1941, 19XX, 1944).
ZZAP!64 issue 18, October 1986, p. 83: PCW Show preview of Elite’s 1942.
CRASH issue 33, October 1986, p. 24: Spectrum review, 63%.
Sinclair User issue 55, October 1986, p. 33: Spectrum review (Elite, £7.95).
Computer and Video Games issue 61, November 1986, p. 23: Spectrum review (Elite, £7.95).
ZZAP!64, Christmas Special 1986, p. 193: Commodore 64 review, 58%.
AMTIX! issue 17, March 1987, p. 82: Amstrad review, 35%.
Computer Gamer issue 23, February 1987, p. 41: ’43: One Year After review (the aspect ratio of the official 1942).
Retro Gamer issue 55, 2008, p. 87: 1942: Joint Strike review (Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, Backbone).
See Capcom and Elite Systems for the licensing arrangements.