Flying Shark

Flying Shark
North American arcade flyer of Sky Shark
Developer(s)	Toaplan Banana Development Catalyst Coders Firebird Graftgold Images software kaneko Software Creations
Publisher(s)	JP Taito (original) JP Kaneko JP Ving NA Romstar (original) NA/EU Firebird EU Electrocoin (original) EU Model Racing (original)
Composer(s)	Tatsuya Uemura
Platform(s)	Arcade Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, FM Towns, MS-DOS, Nintendo Entertainment System, PC, X68000, ZX Spectrum
Release date(s)	March 1987 Arcade JP March 1987[1] NA 1987 EU 1987 Commodore 64 NA 1987[2] EU 1987[2] ZX Spectrum EU 1987[3] Amiga EU 1988[4] Amstrad CPC EU 1988[5] Atari ST EU 1988[6] Nintendo Entertainment System NA September 1989[7] MS-DOS NA 1989[8] PC NA 1989[9] X68000 JP November 22, 1991 FM Towns JP September 1993
Genre(s)	Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Cabinet	Upright
Display	Vertical, Raster, standard resolution

Flying Shark (飛翔鮫, Hishōzame) is a 1987 vertical scrolling shooter arcade game developed by Toaplan and published by Taito. It was later in the United Kingdom by Electrocoin and in Italy by Model Racing. It was published in North America by Romstar under the name Sky Shark.

In 1989, the game received a sequel titled Shark! Shark! Shark!.

Gameplay

Screenshot of the arcade version.

Piloting a biplane, the player takes out enemy land, air, and naval craft across various environments. Certain waves of enemy airplanes produce bonuses when shot down, such as powerups, point bonuses, and extra lives. Each stage begins and ends at a runway, and every time the player lands at a runway beyond the first takeoff, the amount of bombs multiply 3,000 points to the player's total score. The player gets 3 bombs at the start of each stage (or death). The game has five stages and then it loops from stage two indefinitely.

Ports

Front cover of the Amstrad CPC version.

This game was converted to the Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, X68000, FM Towns, and Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES version of the game was Tim Follin's first composed soundtrack on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Much of the ports were only released in Europe or North America, while few were released in Japan. Unlike this game, this game's sequel contains less home ports than this game does.

References

External links

• Flying Shark at the Killer List of Videogames
• Flying Shark at World of Spectrum
• Sky Shark reviews at Solvalou.com