Battle Wings

by Data East

1984 · Arcade

Battle Wings, known in Japan either as B-Wing (ビー・ウィング) or B-Wings (ビー・ウィングズ), is a vertically scrolling shooter first released as an arcade game by Data East in 1984. The game was ported by Data East to the Family Computer in 1986, and was Data East's very first home release for this platform. The game consists of 45 levels (30 in the Family Computer version), and no background story or plot is given. The player controls a ship called the FX-1, and collects power-up parts (called a "wing") to progress through the levels and ultimately defeat the Gobunasu armored mobile fortress in the final level. The game consists of two different top-view screen levels, where the player can press the second button to descend to the ground whenever they do not have a power-up. The player is unaffected by attacks from airborne units while they are playing on the ground level, but the ship is automatically brought back into the air after a certain period of time. The player can still be hit by attacks from ground units while they are on the ground level, and can also lose their ship by crashing into obstacles. The 8-way joystick controls the player's movements, and one button is used for shooting, and the other is used for descending to the ground (or un-equipping wings). The background image continues infinitely when the player scrolls in the horizontal directions. Completing the final level of the game causes the score counter to increase to 9,999,999 points, which the player can enter as their high score. The player can also score cheap points by equipping and un-equipping their power-up. Pressing the button twice while the un-equipping animation is occurring cause the player to gain 2,000 points. The player gains an extra life every 40,000 points, so it is possible to gain lives almost infinitely. If the player gains over 10,000,000 points in this way before completing the final level, the counter takes over 20 minutes to increase to 99,999,999 points.