1943 Kai

~ 1943 KAI ~

Naxat Soft / Capcom

HuCard

1991

I'd psyched myself up for 1943 more than I should have. The screens I saw were solid, the reviews were enthusiastic, but I probably should've known better than to get all pumped up for a vert that hails from the Sky Shark era. I ended up gravely disappointed with the repetitive gameplay, lackluster soundtrack, lame enemies, and dull scenery. A trip back to the shooter stone ages wasn't what I'd had in mind, but that's what I got, with little pink planes and bland warships to fight and boring seas to soar over.

To be fair, things do get better. Eventually. After I'd played through countless primitive lookalike levels, a little "cinema" took place showing my plane being reoutfitted. When gameplay resumed, I was immediately hit with loud drums and a heck of a lot more bullets and large craft to deal with.

The action picks up significantly, the visuals make quite a leap, and the repetition is alleviated somewhat once you reach Kai's "new" stages (levels that aren't in the original arcade game). Trains and neat little gunboats break up some of the jets-and-ships tedium. Scenery thankfully strays from dull waters with caverns and lava flows.

Sadly, the game tends to drag on even after you've reached the "good stuff." This certainly has something to do with all the doldrums boards that must be endured prior to that point. But while projectile counts run high, the challenges still fail to indicate that any actual thought had been put into them. Ingenuity is absent in the enemy designs/formations and level constructions. There's a lot of dodging to do with nothing really worth remembering.

Old stages:

Exciting intermission:

New stages: