Flying Shark

Flying Shark
256px North American arcade flyer of Sky Shark.
Developer(s)	Toaplan Banana Development Catalyst Coders Firebird Graftgold Images software kaneko Software Creations
Publisher(s)	NA/EU: Firebird
Composer(s)	Tatsuya Uemura
Platforms	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 Commodore 64 ZX Spectrum Amiga Amstrad CPC Atari ST Nintendo Entertainment System MS-DOS PC X68000 FM Towns
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), released in North America as Sky Shark, is a 1987 vertical scrolling shooter arcade game developed by Toaplan and published by Taito in Japan, Electrocoin in the United Kingdom, Model Racing in Italy, and Romstar in North America.

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

Gameplay

File:Flying Shark.png

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

File:Flying Shark Cover.jpg

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.

External links

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