1943 High Score

[SoulBlazer]

Wanted to share a high score I just racked up tonight while playing the arcade version of 1943: The Battle of Midway.

I don't have much time for gaming these days, so GameTap is popular with me. I love the service since I signed up for it a few months ago and they just released a new version with no adds loading with the game, the ability to play others online, and a new interface. 1943 was added in the last update (they update once a week on Thursday) so I decided to give the game a shot.

As some of you may remember, 1943 was always a favorite of mine on the NES and I did well in the game when it came up in the Classic Gaming contest here in 2005. My first couple of games I got used to the game again, trying to see how well I could do.

Tonight I ment to play another quick game and ended up playing for over 30 minutes! I did'nt take any breaks or anything and used a game controler with the game.

By the time I finished, I had reached the end of Stage 12 and got a score of 148,238.

Unforentuly, I can't prove it....I loaned my digital camera out to a friend and there's no way to take screen shots on GameTap. Still, I'm still quite happy with my score.

Anyone know what the world high score on this sucker is?

[shoes23]

Anyone know what the world high score on this sucker is?

According to Twin Galaxies the world record is 2,947,360! That means you would need to play for another 10 hours to reach the world record! Insane

[cyberfluxor]

I only have 1942 (NES) and 1945 (PS1). I want to get the others and so forth, but I wouldn't do GameTap. They do have 1943 at one of the arcades in my area, don't recall which one, and it's petty difficult because it's the quarter eatting machine.

[DreamTR]

100,000 on Stage 12 is a score reset after continuing.

You should have a bit over 1 Million by the time you reach that Stage. I've gotten a bit over 2 million at the game on one credit, and the Twin Galaxies record I have on there is slightly under 2,000,000. I should actually play the game a bit to try and beat that 3,000,000 score. It won't take 10 hrs by any means to get there.

Of course, I'm sure some Japanese guy can get 10,000,000 easily, but he just does not know about Twin Galaxies!

[XYXZYZ]

My personal best on the arcade game is 838,210- stage 8 in one credit. I play it on my MAME cabinet while waiting for spaghetti to boil and whatnot.

EDIT- I have since broken 1,000,000 on 1943. I posted about it in some other thread somewhere...

[TheDomesticInstitution]

Woo-hoo, bringing this one back. I don't really expect anyone else to chime in but what the hell... And jesus you guys have some high scores. Although this is a pretty well balanced game, and not just a bullet hell quarter muncher. I could see playing through on a quarter with a more practice... eventually.

I've been playing this one since repairing my monitor in the arcade I bought recently. And I managed to rack up 400,000 at one point in my third play-through. The game is actually pretty long with 16 stages. And I think it may be my favorite shooter.

I actually have 3 copies of it... the arcade PCB, the NES game, and the Capcom Classics collection on the XBOX.

The Arcade version wins, because of the controls. While the Xbox version seems to be a spot on emulation of the game, a D-Pad isn't an optimal way to control a vertical shooter. My 2 favorite weapons are the 4-way shot and the dual rapid fire shot. If you get a chance to pair the rapid fire with the 2 plane wingman upgrade, you can really tear shit up.

The NES version is, as you can imagine, really lacking in the graphics area. And again the D-pad wears out your thumb and isn't as smooth as an arcade stick. There's also quite a bit different power-up system, that doesn't give you the option of the best weapons from the get-go.

Anyway, I know 1943 isn't a very popular game, but does anyone else have a soft spot for it? What's your favorite version? Do you like any of the sequels (or 1943) better?

[Ed Oscuro]

Gah, I need to get my stuff together and learn the difference between 1943 and 19XX: The War Against Destiny.

Thankfully there's a guide by Zach Keene of Shmups:
http://arcanelore.net/ST/1943/index.html

Here's the Shmups High Score thread for the game, and the TG record mentioned seems very decent. 10M+ is like a score from 19XX - totally different! DreamTR's record would put him at #8 on that list, which isn't bad either.

I also would like to echo his comment that SoulBlazer's score is a reset one; while you can always leave a score after continuing on the original arcade machines, nobody compares these for competition (even semi-relaxed Forum competitions).

My highest (just now) is 388,630 in the third stage. I used autofire though (setting 4 in MAME Plus!).

Anyway, I know 1943 isn't a very popular game, but does anyone else have a soft spot for it? What's your favorite version? Do you like any of the sequels (or 1943) better?

Spending more time with it, I realized there's more going on here than I originally realized. After I triggered the first secret in the game (the bamboo shoot) I went looking for more...have trouble finding them, but it's nice knowing they're there. I prefer Flying / Sky Shark, but this is not a bad looking game. I find the weapon cycling to be a pain in the butt though, enough that I probably won't ever get seriously into the game (I also don't like trying to memorize the secrets).

If it weren't for a particular mechanic, I'd say I like 19XX better, but that's more like a conventional post-Toaplan, Post-Raizing, Post-Psikyo shmup. It's probably still my favorite of the whole series, although I stick by my guns in saying it has some "kind of bad" parts about it. Overall, I think 1943 is just average - it does what it sets out to more than competently, but the game mechanics are inherently not the best.

Also: It's not 1943, or even an official board, but the amazing Womble repaired a 1942 bootleg and provided the details (with pics of each step) here. A lot of fun to read and watch.

Unforentuly, I can't prove it....I loaned my digital camera out to a friend and there's no way to take screen shots on GameTap.

Really? I got quite a few GameTap screens from when I had it (back in late '06 - '07), although I am only confident that I got in-game screenshots from a Genesis title, possibly a NES one as well. I think I tried out 1942 or 1943 though.