MagMax
A horizontal scrolling shooter, players control the title hover ship in an attempt to completely construct the ship into a giant robot and to destroy any enemies attempting to stop it. The three-headed mechanical dragon found as a boss character in the game, known as Babylon, strongly resembles Mecha-King Ghidorah from the Godzilla franchise.
SCREENSHOTS
PHYSICAL
HISTORY
MagMax is a 1985 horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Nichibutsu for arcades. It was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, released in Japan on March 19, 1986, and by FCI in North America in October 1988. The game was also ported to the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC by Ocean Software and released on their Imagine label in 1987.
The three-headed mechanical dragon found as a boss character in the game, known as Babylon, strongly resembles Mecha-King Ghidorah from the Godzilla franchise. Hamster Corporation acquired the rights to the game alongside Nichibutsu's intellectual property, and released the game as part of their Arcade Archives series for the PlayStation 4 in 2015 and the Nintendo Switch in 2020. Hamster scheduled the NES version of MagMax to be re-released as part of Console Archives for the Nintendo Switch 2 and PlayStation 5.
Gameplay
Players control the titular spaceship in an attempt to completely construct the ship into a giant robot and to destroy any enemies attempting to stop it. The ship must avoid various obstacles while shooting enemies on a 3D field. After a successful transformation into the robot, the ship gains increased mobility, while the gameplay becomes that of a typical horizontal scrolling shooter.
Reception
In Japan, Game Machine listed MagMax as the second most successful table arcade unit of April 1985.
1CC RUNS
One-credit clears we point to as the benchmark for this game.
STORES
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SCORES
ACHIEVEMENTS 1 set
Tracked by RetroAchievements and earned in an emulator that reports to it. A game tracked on more than one machine gets a set for each, because they are different lists earned on different hardware.