In September 1989 Computer & Video Games reviewed an imported cartridge for Sega’s new 16-bit console and told readers to plug in their headphones. Thunderforce, as the magazine spelled it, alternated “eight-way scrolling bomb-the-base sorties” with “horizontally-scrolling megablast missions”, and its sound earned 94%. The game was Thunder Force II, and it came from Technosoft, a developer from Sasebo in the south of Japan that had been making games for Japanese home computers since the early 1980s. Over the next three years Technosoft’s Thunder Force III and IV became two of the Mega Drive’s best-known shooters, praised for their graphics and music and criticised, by the end, for doing the same thing again.
Fast facts
- Developer: Technosoft, whose name also appears as Tecno Soft and Techno Soft.
- First game: Thunder Force, for Japanese home computers; public sources date it to 1983 or 1984.
- Mega Drive: Thunder Force II (1989), III (1990) and IV (1992; Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar in America).
- Later: Thunder Force V (Saturn, 1997; PlayStation 1998); Thunder Force VI (PlayStation 2, 2008), developed by Sega.
- Ship controls: a choice of weapons, collected and switched in play, and adjustable speed.
From the X1 to the Mega Drive
The first Thunder Force was a computer game, first released for Sharp’s X1 and then for other Japanese machines, among them NEC’s PC-8801 and Fujitsu’s FM-7. Public sources disagree on the year: both the English and Japanese Wikipedia articles give 1983, and Sega Retro gives 1984. It was an overhead shooter in which the screen scrolled in any of eight directions, and the player hunted down targets on a large map rather than flying along a fixed course. None of the British magazines of the period reviewed it.
Thunder Force II came out for Sharp’s X68000 in 1988 and was converted for the Mega Drive in 1989, one of the first games on the console from a company other than Sega. It kept the overhead stages and added side-scrolling ones. Mean Machines described the official British release in October 1990: on each overhead level “you have to fly around the multidirectionally scrolling screen and blast four ground installations”, then fly a horizontally scrolling stage with “a big guardian at the end”, alternating like that through nine levels. Computer & Video Games had liked the import’s weapons (“wave beams, hunter missiles, megaflash or five way shots”) and its “funky music and raucous spot effects”, but thought there was not quite enough of it and gave it 80%. The same Mean Machines review passed on a piece of news: Technosoft was already working on Thunder Force IV.
Thunder Force III and IV
Thunder Force III (1990) dropped the overhead stages for good. The player picks which of five planets to attack first, then fights through three more stages into the enemy’s headquarters. Computer & Video Games trailed its review of the import in August 1990 as “what is possibly the best-ever console shoot-em-up”. Technosoft and Sega turned it into an arcade game, Thunder Force AC, the same year.
Thunder Force IV (1992) was twice the size. “Where II and III were four megabit carts,” Mean Machines explained in September 1992, “Thunderforce IV is eight.” The extra space went on more levels and more weapons, and on a playfield taller than the screen: the view scrolled up and down as well as along, “to reveal a massive playfield, packed full of enemies”. The reviewers found the graphics “state of the art” but noted that the hordes of sprites made the game slow down at times. They agreed that it was the best shoot-’em-up on the Mega Drive and gave it 86%, but complained of “a complete lack of originality”; one called it “a Thunderforce III re-spray”. In America it was renamed Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar, a misspelling that Wireframe was still pointing out in 2022.
The ship starts each game with two weapons, the Twin Shot, which fires straight ahead, and the Back Shot, which covers the rear. Others are picked up along the way: in Thunder Force IV the Hunter’s “heat-seekers that are drawn to on-screen enemies”, the Free Way’s missiles fired diagonally and straight ahead, the Snake, the Railgun and the Blade. Claws, small drones that circle the ship, add extra shots. Choosing the right weapon for each stretch of a level is the heart of the game.
Saturn and after
Technosoft moved to Sega’s Saturn, where it released the Mega Drive games on two Thunder Force Gold Pack compilations in 1996 and a new game, Thunder Force V, in 1997. Thunder Force V used polygons for its backgrounds but kept the side-on view; Edge found the 3D “relegated to cosmetic use only” and the game “far too short”. A PlayStation version with extra modes followed, and outside Japan only that version was released, in the United States.
Technosoft stopped making games in 2001, when, according to Sega Retro, it was bought by the pachinko maker Twenty-one. The series came back once more: Thunder Force VI, originally planned for the Dreamcast, was made by Sega and overseen by Tez Okano, and came out in Japan for the PlayStation 2 in 2008. Sega Retro records that Sega acquired the rights to Technosoft’s games, Thunder Force among them, in 2016.
Sources
- Computer & Video Games issue 94, September 1989, p. 102: Thunderforce (Mega Drive import) review by Paul Glancey (graphics 77%, sound 94%, overall 80%).
- Mean Machines issue 1, October 1990, pp. 86–87: Thunderforce II review (overhead and side-scrolling levels, nine levels, the weapons; Thunderforce III on import and IV in development).
- Computer & Video Games issue 105, August 1990, p. 5: contents (“possibly the best-ever console shoot-em-up”).
- Mean Machines issue 24, September 1992, pp. 104–106: Thunderforce IV import review (eight megabits, the vertical scrolling, the weapons, the first four stages selectable, slowdown, 86%).
- Sega Visions, February 1993: Lightening Force.
- Wireframe issue 65, August 2022: “the hilariously misspelled Lightening Force (better known elsewhere as Thunder Force IV)” on the Mega Drive Mini 2.
- Retro Gamer issue 19, 2005: import feature on Thunder Force V (Saturn and PlayStation versions; only the PlayStation version released outside Japan, in the United States; the bosses of III and IV).
- Edge issue 60, July 1998, p. 100: Thunder Force V review.
- Retro Gamer issue 54, 2008: news of Thunder Force VI (originally destined for the Dreamcast; handled by Sega, overseen by Tez Okano).
- Wikipedia, “Thunder Force (video game)”, and Japanese Wikipedia, “サンダーフォース” (web, secondary): the first game’s year and machines, and its eight-way scrolling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_Force_(video_game)
- Sega Retro, “Technosoft”, “Thunder Force II”, “Thunder Force III”, “Thunder Force IV”, “Thunder Force AC”, “Thunder Force V”, “Thunder Force V: Perfect System” and “Thunder Force VI” (web, secondary): founding in Sasebo, spellings of the name, release years (including the 1998 PlayStation version of V), Thunder Force II among the first third-party Mega Drive games, the stage select of III, the purchase by Twenty-one in 2001, Thunder Force VI on the PlayStation 2 in 2008, and Sega’s acquisition of the rights in 2016. https://segaretro.org/Technosoft