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Megablast

メガブラスト, AKA: Arcade Archives Megablast

Megablast (メガブラスト) is a 1989 Horizontal scrolling shooter arcade game released by Taito in Europe and Japan. One or two players could control space fighters assigned to deal with an alien invasion using incredible firepower through eight stages. The game is somewhat parodical as many of the game’s mini-bosses resemble previous Taito game characters and the ending theme consists of a Beethoven song. In the future, Earth has achieved a state of global peace, but one problem has arisen: a wholesale disappearance of young women. A top-secret planetary protection organization investigates the strange disappearances and discovers that the women are being abducted by aliens. The aliens hail from the planet Zancs, where a rampant disease has sterilized the entire female population. Unable to mate with their own kind, the people of Zancs have found the perfect reproductive substitutes in the women of Earth, abducting them to keep the planetary population steady. Two fighter pilots - Downson and Bogey - are ordered to rescue the women of Earth, including one of the pilot's significant others, by flying to Zancs and eliminating any threats the inhabitants pose.

Year

1989

Developer

Taito Corporation

Publisher

Taito Corporation

Orientation

Horizontal

SCREENSHOTS

HISTORY

MegaBlast is a 1989 multidirectional shooter video game developed and published by Taito for arcades. It was released in Japan in November 1989 and in Europe the same year.

The game was re-released for the PlayStation 2 as part of Taito Memories II Gekan in 2007. Hamster Corporation released the game as part of their Arcade Archives series for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in June 2023.

Gameplay

Unlike most scrolling shooters, the player's spaceship is equipped with four turrets that can fire in multiple directions. The turrets can be individually empowered by touching and collecting orbs. The levels occasionally alternate between horizontal scrolling and vertical scrolling. Many of the minibosses humorously resemble previous Taito game characters.