To mark the discharge of Toaplan Arcade Storage: Flying Hearth Shark on Western eShops on twenty ninth August 2026, we’re republishing our unique import evaluation from Could 2022.
Please observe that the textual content beneath refers back to the Japanese launch and there could also be variations between the variations and DLC accessible in your native eShop.
M2’s ShotTriggers sequence has been an ongoing pilgrimage of preservation for a number of the biggest shoot ’em ups in arcade historical past. Hishou Identical! Identical! Identical! combines an early Toaplan sequence of two: Hishouzame and Identical! Identical! Identical!, identified within the West as Flying Shark and Hearth Shark, respectively.
Each unique arcade titles are introduced right here with a wide range of modes, accurately maintained side ratios, display settings, and a library of bonus options and choices to tinker with. Regional variations are additionally current, since they’ve slight alterations in general issue. After an initially lengthy load, the opening menu display blasts you want a Van Halen energy ballad with a terrific association of Flying Shark’s ‘In opposition to The Assault’ — regrettably unavailable as an in-game audio possibility.
Flying Shark (1987) and its sequel, Hearth Shark (1989), are quasi-World Battle-themed shoot ’em ups, sending up biplanes with hefty ordnance in opposition to futuristic, cannon-bristled tanks, battleship-patrolled seas, enemy bases and muted mountain ranges. Graphically, these titles are a product of their time, and all of the extra endearing for it, peppered with land-based particulars like runway strip airmen pointing you to glory, or the trailing aircraft that crashes on take-off, its pilot mendacity inert in a smouldering pit.
Toaplan sought to broaden their shoot-’em-up horizons with a quicker, extra expansive expertise within the Shark titles, ploughed with secrets and techniques, bonuses and layered scoring components. Anybody who assumes that the trendy bullet hell format is the summit of shoot-’em-up issue doesn’t perceive the broadness of the style.
In bullet hell, 90% of fireside is pure periphery, obfuscating paths by means of tiny hitboxes. Conversely, Flying Shark and Hearth Shark are absolute destroyers of worlds, with singular aimed bullets zipping in from each path. To ease the ache, M2 supplies a finger-sparing auto-fire button — one thing the unique arcade launch didn’t have by default. Sadly, it’s locked at 10hz pace, which is about double what it needs to be, and in consequence there may be some break-up within the price of fireside.
Like most shoot ’em ups, powering up is a matter of urgency, and doing so requires you to know the opening levels intimately. Flying Shark is the simpler recreation, with simply 5 levels in a loop, and extra restricted weapon choices and methods. It’s related in really feel to Tiger-Heli, although much less punishing, and a few could favor its brevity and relative simplicity. Extra straightforwardly structured, you swat biplane formations and accrue power-ups till you’re laying out a formidable barrage. It’s a particularly fulfilling studying course of, and getting by means of even the primary 15-minute loop is extremely gratifying because of its incremental nature and superior, driving soundtrack.
Hearth Shark, comparatively, is a protracted, 10-stage stint that’s soul-crushingly powerful from its opening gambit to its snowy ultimate third. On the identical time, this was a revolutionary shoot-em-up launch, not only for Toaplan’s output, however for the style total. It performs quicker and looser however no much less exactingly, requiring razor-sharp reflexes and heroic resolve. It established many trendy idiosyncrasies that proceed to echo in at present’s vertical scrollers, and is taken into account a extremely influential work.
On the identical time, it’s unashamedly brutal, with bewildering bullet speeds in its latter half. That mentioned, the second-player ship has a a lot simpler journey, aware about each barely slower bullets and way more further lives, and is a broadly most well-liked different amongst even seasoned shoot-em-up fans.
The issue is, deciding on the second participant ship, whereas doable, is ridiculously convoluted, not like the PS4 model the place it’s merely a case of a fast option-screen adjustment. We don’t know why that is, and it’s primarily inconceivable to do in handheld mode, making it a uncommon high quality lapse from the normally dependable M2.
In each video games, colored icons bounce across the display, some offering power-ups to your weapon meter, further bombs, or upping your ship’s pace. Hearth Shark affords three weapon varieties, together with the dreaded inexperienced laser: a robust however ineffectively slim shot sort that normally has you avoiding its circling icons along with a hail of bullets.
Nonetheless, construct the blue unfold shot or the finally dwarfing pink laser flamethrower and also you’re immediately extra in management. It’s nice enjoyable in each titles to get your early power-up routines down pat: the primary milestone on a highway to many potential victories. However realizing when to hug the underside fringe of the display to demolish incoming gunboats earlier than they’ll hearth on you, or these tight horizontal pictures that soar dangerously throughout your aircraft’s nostril, is of the utmost significance.
Whereas the issue stage throughout each video games is steep, it’s additionally an artwork type. You might be unkempt metallic, pitted and warped, like that from the wing of a battle-worn Spitfire, and the battle will mood you over days, weeks, months or years, till you’re factory-curved and polished to a shine. Dedicating your self to studying both of the compilation’s titles is to decide to mastery. You want to keep in mind what’s coming and when; methods to cope with particular formations on the fly, and sudden curveballs within the type of a measured amount of RNG.
Both approach, you’ll be able to count on to be pipped out of existence 1000’s of instances, stripped of energy and despatched again remorselessly to the final restart level till you study to show the tide. Preventing your approach by means of tens of more and more troublesome loops is akin to wrestling an precise shark — if that shark had been buttons and directional inputs — however there’s real elation in overcoming the problem.
For individuals who drill down into the core, there are many scoring methods and secrets and techniques to mine, too. In another way colored enemy planes are available waves, seemingly dependent in your efficiency, and, whereas there are a variety of random components in Toaplan’s early video games — and it’s nonetheless not clear precisely what produces the white 1up-carrying biplanes — there may be nonetheless some technique to the insanity. To assist break this down, the now acquainted M2 devices, which offer info on what’s occurring beneath the sport’s floor, supply a mini-map and show panes detailing bullet pace, weapon ranges, and even the color of upcoming formations.
Within the occasion all of it will get an excessive amount of, a Tremendous Simple Mode affords a welcome, informal diversion. That includes auto-bombing and plenty of further lives, it’s each an thrilling and enjoyable strategy to spend a day. Elsewhere, Customized Mode and Arcade Problem — the latter a observe space the place you will get granular with recreation parameters — supply different time-sinks.
A number of house ports of the video games are additionally on board, however sadly locked behind DLC limitations. Realistically, we expect they need to have been included, at this worth, within the base recreation — however if you happen to can solely purchase one, make it Hearth Shark’s very good Mega Drive port. It affords a console-friendly tackle the arcade recreation, cracking audio, and a extra affordable issue curve, making it each encouraging to clear and a blast to try to grasp.
And, ought to you end up in a match of gnawing rage and completed (quickly) with taking pictures issues, Toaplan’s Wardner, a enjoyable side-scrolling fantasy platform recreation, can be accessible as a (considerably random) DLC further.
Conclusion
Toaplan Arcade Storage: Hishou Identical! Identical! Identical! is great, historic stuff, preserving two superbly designed roadmaps for the longer term succession of the style. Vintage, but savagely trendy of their viciousness, there are few titles that brew with as a lot vitality beneath a late-’80s classic aesthetic, pushed intrepidly by Tatsuya Uemura and Masahiro Yuge’s unimaginable soundtracks.
Regardless of this, it might be deceptive to quote the package deal as one thing for everybody. It’s an ideal addition for folks gathering M2’s sequence, and for these with an curiosity within the preservation and absolute best illustration of notable arcade titles. As shoot-em-ups, Flying Shark and Hearth Shark require a particular strategy and methodology, and gained’t essentially be to all tastes. Should you revel within the thrill of old-school hardcore gaming, it’s a duo that probably affords years of service. For everybody else, they might really feel a bit samey, samey, samey.
