Star Force (released in North America by Video Ware in the arcades as Mega Force) is a vertical shoot 'em up arcade video game made in 1984 by Tehkan (now known as Tecmo). In Japan, it is considered to be a monumental work among shooting games. There have also been caravan tournaments for the game in Japan.
In the game, the player pilots a starship called the Final Star, while shooting various enemies and destroying enemy structures for points. Unlike later vertical scrolling shooters, like Toaplan's Twin Cobra, the Final Star had only two levels of weapon power, and no secondary weapons like missiles and/or bombs. Each stage in the game was named after a letter of the Greek alphabet. In certain versions of the game, there is an additional level called 'Infinity' (represented by the infinity symbol) which occurs after Omega, after which the game repeats indefinitely.
In the NES version, after defeating the Omega target, the player can see a black screen with Tecmo's logo, announcing the future release of the sequel Super Star Force. After that, the infinity target becomes available and the game repeats the same level and boss without increasing the difficulty.
Star Force was ported in 1985 to the Nintendo Famicom and MSX home computer by Hudson Soft (likely because Tecmo would become a licensee of Nintendo only in 1986). The North American version for the Nintendo Entertainment System was developed and published in 1987 by Tecmo with different graphics, music, and control over the Famicom version. Despite the U.S. arcade version being titled Mega Force, Tecmo decided to release the NES version under the original name of Star Force. It was also ported to the Sega SG-1000 by Sega, Sharp X68000 by Dempa Shinbunsha and mobile phones by Tecmo. In 1995, along with two other NES shooters, the Family Computer version of Star Force was remade by Hudson Soft with minimal upgrades for the Super Nintendo as part of the Japan-only release of the Caravan Shooting Collection. The same version was also included in Hudson's compilation of NES shooters in 2006 in Hudson Best Collection Vol. 5. The original arcade version was later added to the compilation titled Tecmo Classic Arcade, which was released for the Xbox. In 2009, the arcade version was made available for download on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console for 500 points as four of the initial offerings for the 'Virtual Console Arcade' category (the other three being Namco titles).
More details about this game can be found on
Wikipedia.org.
Find digital download of this game on
GOG
or
Steam.
Videogame Console:
This version of Star Force was designed for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which was an eight-bit video game console manufactured
by Nintendo in the years 1983 - 2003. In that time, it was the best-selling video game console for which more than 700 licensed games and a number of non-licensed
games were created. Worldwide, approximately 62 million units of this console were sold at approximately price $ 100 per unit. More information about the
NES console can be found here.
Recommended Game Controllers:
You can control this game easily by using the keyboard of your PC (see the table next to the game). However, for maximum gaming enjoyment, we strongly recommend using a USB gamepad that you simply plug into the USB port of your computer. If you do not have a gamepad, buy a suitable USB controller on Amazon or AliExpress or in some of your favorite online stores.
Available online emulators:
6 different online emulators are available for Star Force. These emulators differ not only in the technology they use to emulate old games, but also in support of various game controllers, multiplayer mode, mobile phone touchscreen, emulation speed, absence or presence of embedded ads and in many other parameters. For
maximum gaming enjoyment, it's important to choose the right emulator, because on each PC and in different Internet browsers, the individual emulators behave differently. The basic
features of each emulator available for this game Star Force are summarized in the following table:
If you like Star Force you'll probably like also some of the similar games in the overview below. The games you see here
are selected based on title similarity, game genre, and keywords. However, the list is generated automatically and can therefore be very 'subjective'
especially for some specific games. To find a particular game, please use our search form.
This website is NOT sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Atari, Sega or by any other video games company.
RetroGames.cz makes no claim to the intellectual property contained in the individual games.
Text content of RetroGames.cz
is available under the
Creative Commons 3.0 License. You can copy it freely, but indicate the origin and keep the license.
This version of Star Force was designed for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which was an eight-bit video game console manufactured
by Nintendo in the years 1983 - 2003. In that time, it was the best-selling video game console for which more than 700 licensed games and a number of non-licensed
games were created. Worldwide, approximately 62 million units of this console were sold at approximately price $ 100 per unit. More information about the
NES console can be found 
