Sixth version of Thunder Force 1 found

[blue lander]

Being a big fan of the Thunder Force series, I've always been curious about the original Thunder Force. What little information I could find about it in English basically said it was released for the MSX, Sharp X1, and NEC PC-8801. So doing a little more research, I discovered there were five versions of the game. There is no MSX version, but there are versions for the Sharp X1, NEC PC-8801, NEC PC-6001, Sharp MZ-1500, and Fujitsu FM-7. I managed to hunt down boxed copies for the PC-8801 and FM-7. I also discovered there was a Thunder Force construction set. Basically the same game, except it featured an engine for designing your own levels. There's at least three versions of it, I own the PC-8801 port.

So today in the mail I got an IBM PC JX from Japan. It's basically the Japanese version of the PC Jr, but slightly more powerful. I thought I was getting one game with it, some silly 3D golf game, but when I opened the box I found a stack of disks for other games! And among them was...

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1659/tfjx0pe.jpg

A PC JX version of Thunder Force 1! It came with a manual, too. Judging from the manual, this one includes the construction set. The manual also shows that you control the game with the keyboard rather than a joystick, just like the other versions (unfortunetly.)

It'll take me at least a day to get the JX up and running, as I need to create an adapter to hook it up to a monitor. Once I do, I'll take some screenshots. Most versions of the game play the same (except for the FM-7 version, which doesn't let you move diagonally), but maybe this one will look better than the others.

Edit: I managed to get the JX up and running and ran Thunder Force. It actually looks quite different than the other versions. The colors are more garish and the resolution is a little lower. The scrolling's quite choppy, too.

However, I can't play the game yet because the keyboard doesn't work. I popped the thing open and found a leaking battery damaged the cable connector board. I'll probably have to rebuild the board, but hopefully that won't take too long and I'll be able to play the game.

Anyways, tomorrow I'll get a digital camera and take some screenshots.

[roushimsx]

Wow, that's pretty neat.

Is that just a standard 768kb floppy? Can you run the game in DOSbox on a normal PC or is it dependent on the bios of the PC JX?

[blue lander]

I can't get it to read on an XP based PC, but I didn't really try hard. Japanese PCs and semi-PCs like the FM Towns use a density other than 720k or 1.2mb (I forget the specifics), and this might be one of them. So it may be impossible to read it on an Western PC. Also, the disk boots directly without booting DOS first, so it might have some proprietary format rather than standard DOS.

But I seriously doubt it'll run on DOSBox. It *might* run on Tand-Em, a Tandy 1000 emulator. But the JX isn't 100% compatible with the PC Jr., and the PC Jr. isn't 100% compatible with the Tandy 1000. If I can get a disk image, I'll try running it on my PC Jr. too.

[Fighter17]

Luckly find. ;)

I don't really care for TF 1 or 2 that much (just because of those dumb top-scrolling levels).

[diskoboy]

NIIIIIIIIIIIICE!!!!!

Screenshots, perchance? I was waiting for the day someone found an actual copy of this game. You're the first person I know of.

Excellent find.

[Graham Mitchell]

It never even occurred to me that I had never heard of a Thunderforce 1. I'm super excited to see some screenshots!

[blue lander]

Here are the five other versions of Thunder Force 1...

http://osf1.gmu.edu/~ccollet/TF_SC.jpg

That's PC-6001 on the upper left, PC-8801 in the upper right, FM-7 in the lower left, and MZ-1500 in the lower right. Here's a picture of the Sharp X1 version...

http://www.rit.edu/~pcb8058/crap/tforce2.PNG

I'll get a PC JX screenshot as soon as I get my hands on a digital camera. Of course, those other screenshots are from emulators so they're much sharper than the JX picture will be.

Personally I own Thunder Force 1 for the FM-7 and PC-8801, plus Thunder Force Construction set for the PC-8801 and now the PC-JX. The reason why I hunted down two versions for the PC-8801 because the "normal" Thunder Force 1 is on cassette tape and the construction set is on floppy, which loads much faster. All the boxes look the mostly the same except the PC-6001 version (and maybe the JX for all I know). This is what it looks like...

http://osf1.gmu.edu/~ccollet/thunderforce.jpg

[Graham Mitchell]

So I take it TF 1 has no side-scrolling sequences, huh?

[blue lander]

Nope, it's all overhead levels. The game's pretty good if you give it some time, but I hated it at first. Probably because it wasn't what I expected from the Thunder Force series.

[Graham Mitchell]

Nope, it's all overhead levels. The game's pretty good if you give it some time, but I hated it at first. Probably because it wasn't what I expected from the Thunder Force series.

Well, TFII was so heavy in the overhead scenes that the side-scrolling areas seemed like an afterthought (gorgeous as they were). But just like you say, if you spend some time with it, the overhead stuff is quite enjoyable. It's like what Raid on Bungeling Bay should have been if they had given you something to do other than watch your aircraft carrier blow up and get lost all the time.

[diskoboy]

YIKES!! No wonder why most people have never seen TF1!

Looks like VIC-20 graphics. Still a damn good find, though!

[Daniel Thomas]

That's an impressive find. The best I could do was to find a couple ancient web pages and one screen shot. I know at least one of these old computers was emulated, and someone once packed TF1 with it so everyone could play. Never could get the thing to work, however. I've assumed it plays a lot like their first Herzog - promising, but choppy and unattractive.

Great catch, eh.

[Ed Oscuro]

PC-JX? I'll have to keep an eye out for that one...so many systems to keep track of...great find!

[Ulticron]

I am SEVERLY JEALOUS! That's an awesome find! BTW if you can find a 98 PC you might be able to give your game a whirl.

[rbudrick]

Great find, man! Some versions of this are pretty rare. Is it at all possible to back them up? Cassettes and floppies aren't the most reliable things in the world, and any versions of TF1 are very difficult to find. It would be cool to have the images backed to a more modern PC.

With the amount of versions you have, it would be cool if you started a web page dedicated to it showing the differences in more depth. :)

I've always wanted to play TF1 with a pad rather than the keyboard (along with many other games on various platforms)....I'll just never get used to using a keyboard arrows for controlling videogames. I'd bet it would be pretty easy to hack a pad to the 4 arrows on any of these machines, but there's always risk of damage when you do this, of course.

-Rob

[blue lander]

I've assumed it plays a lot like their first Herzog - promising, but choppy and unattractive.


If you look at it from the perspective of the rest of the Thunder Force series, I'd agree. But if you look at just this game by itself and in the context of what was around in 1984, it's actually a pretty good game. Nobody would remember it if it didn't inspire such a great series, but it's still enjoyable.


PC-JX? I'll have to keep an eye out for that one...so many systems to keep track of...great find!

I wouldn't put it high on your priority list. Very little is known about it, it's apparently obscure even among the Japanese. And it *looks* like most of the games are just ports of games available on computers like the PC-88. And the graphics aren't that great. Bright colors, little shading, and low resolution compared to the PC-88. What'd you'd expect from a Tandy 1000.


I am SEVERLY JEALOUS! That's an awesome find! BTW if you can find a 98 PC you might be able to give your game a whirl.

I'm going to try to dump it with a more sophisticated program than just popping it in the drive and doing "dir A:". It probably isn't DOS formatted and it may not even be a standard 720k format, but it's worth a shot.


Is it at all possible to back them up? Cassettes and floppies aren't the most reliable things in the world, and any versions of TF1 are very difficult to find. It would be cool to have the images backed to a more modern PC.

It's relatively easy to back up a PC-88 diskette on a PC if you use the right program on a windows 98 machine equipped with a 5.25" drive. I've done it before with other games, but it's extremely twitchy. I had to try 5 different floppy drives before I found one that'd read at least a couple disks without reporting bad sectors. Beyond that, the utilities are all in Japanese so who knows if I'm even doing it right. And many of the utilities out there will only work with DOS/V (Japanese version of DOS) and many of them will only work with PC-98's or FM Towns computers.

As for the cassette tapes, I know there are programs out there but I haven't played with them yet.


With the amount of versions you have, it would be cool if you started a web page dedicated to it showing the differences in more depth.

I'd like to do that. I already contributed some information to the Thunder Force Wikipedia web page, but there's still a lot of misinformation out there. And there's a lot I still don't know. For instance, I thought I knew every version of Thunder Force, yet I discovered another one completely by accident. Even now if you do a google search for サンダーフォース (the Japanese name of Thunder Force) and IBM-JX and run the results through Babelfish, you won't find anything even hinting of its existance. So who knows what other versions might be out there.



I've always wanted to play TF1 with a pad rather than the keyboard (along with many other games on various platforms)....I'll just never get used to using a keyboard arrows for controlling videogames.

I *HATE* using arrow keys rather than joysticks. It's probably because the game needs two action buttons (one for bullets, one for bombs), and most old Japanese computers only support one button joysticks.

[blue lander]

Here we go! Sorry for the blurriness. If I can get it running on an emulator I can get some better screen grabs.

http://www.geocities.com/haohmaruus/TFJX1.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/haohmaruus/TFJX2.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/haohmaruus/TFJX3.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/haohmaruus/TFJX4.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/haohmaruus/TFJX5.jpg

[Ed Oscuro]

PC-JX? I'll have to keep an eye out for that one...so many systems to keep track of...great find!

I wouldn't put it high on your priority list. Very little is known about it, it's apparently obscure even among the Japanese. And it *looks* like most of the games are just ports of games available on computers like the PC-88. And the graphics aren't that great. Bright colors, little shading, and low resolution compared to the PC-88. What'd you'd expect from a Tandy 1000.
Ah, alright...I wanted an X1 of the variety with a built-in PC-Engine, anyway LOL

[blue lander]

The JX is super ugly, too. It looks like a typical IBM PC or cash register from 1990 or so. The X1 is at least cool looking.

[Dimitri]

Judging from the manual, this one includes the construction set.
I'd imagine so, since the disk says "Thunder Force: Construction" on it. From the screens you've posted, it looks better than at least the PC-6001 and PC-8801 versions.

Amazing find -- the early history of those little Japanese companies that eventually becamse well-known (or not!) is something that's really sparsely documented and needs people finding things like this. Look at how many Irem arcade games from the late '70s are undumped, for example...

[blue lander]

Yeah, the PC-8801 version is very... monochromatic. But it moves faster and the scrolling is far smoother. I'm going to try a few more tactics to dump the disk today, and if I do I'll put it up for download somewhere. It certainly isn't the best version to play, but it'll at least give people an idea of what the game is like.

[googlefest1]

whats the sound like?

[blue lander]

The FM-7 and PC-8801 versions just have crude explosion sounds, no music at all. Which sucks because the PC-88 has terrific music capabilities. I haven't rigged up a speaker with the JX yet so I don't know what it sounds like, but I imagine it's more of the same.

[Captain Wrong]

I know it's been mentioned, but this is really cool.

Thanks for sharing all this with us.

[rbudrick]

Wow...it seems to be the best looking of all the versions, and no one ever heard of it. So strange.

-Rob

[blue lander]

I know it's been mentioned, but this is really cool.

Thanks for sharing all this with us.

My pleasure! I'll also take some screen grabs of the other JX games I got. There's another shooter, and a couple RPG/Adventure games by Micro Cabin.

I've tried a few programs like Teledisk and dsk2img to dump this TF disk, and nothing works. I'm pretty sure now that it uses one of those weird in-between Japanese densities. I'll try reading it with, say, my MSX or FM Towns and see if they have better luck.

[rbudrick]

Is it possible to somehow network it with another PC platform (MSX, or whatever) and transfer the files over? From an MSX, files are pretty easily transferred to a modern PC.

-Rob

[idrougge]

The FM-7 and PC-8801 versions just have crude explosion sounds, no music at all. Which sucks because the PC-88 has terrific music capabilities. I haven't rigged up a speaker with the JX yet so I don't know what it sounds like, but I imagine it's more of the same.

I don't think the PC-88 had such terrific music capabilities when Thunderforce was released. The evolution of the PC-88 (and to a lesser extent X1 or the MZ series) is almost as convoluted as the IBM PC.

[Spartacus]

Never figured I'd get a chance to play Thunder Force 1 because it wasn't out on any system I own, but as a fan of the Thunder Force series it was nice seeing the screenshots. Very nice find!

[blue lander]

Woo! Finally got the disk to dump using Teledisk. I'm not sure what to do with it now that I've dumped it, but here it is in case anybody's interested: http://www.geocities.com/haohmaruus/TF1.zip