Ozma Wars

Ozma Wars

released on Dec 01, 1979
by SNK

Ozma Wars

released on Dec 01, 1979
by SNK

Ozma Wars is a 1979 fixed shooter arcade game, and the very first game developed and published by SNK, who were still known as "Shin Nihon Kikaku" at the time. The game is also known as the second ever vertical shoot 'em up game, after Taito's Space Invaders (which ran on the same arcade hardware), but is also additionally known as the first game with disparate "levels". The game is also notable for being the first action game to feature a supply of energy, resembling a life bar, a mechanic that has now become common in the majority of modern action games. The game allowed the player to refuel energy between each level, and it featured a large variety of alien enemies. The player controls a space craft which must fend off UFOs, meteors, and comets. Instead of lives, the player is given an energy reserve that is constantly diminishing; getting hit by the enemy causes gameplay to stop momentarily and a large amount of energy is depleted. Every so often, a mothership will appear and dock with the player's spacecraft, allowing the energy to be refilled. There are 3-4 recognizable stages as the game progresses and new enemies begin to appear. After these, the mothership will appear, and the cycle starts over; this continues indefinitely until the energy reaches zero. There are two known bootleg versions of this game called Space Phantoms and Solar Flight. In Space Phantoms the player's ship looks like an angel, and the enemies appear as different types of insects. Due to the game being monochrome and a conversion kit for Space Invaders, many Ozma Wars monitors still utilized the Space Invaders color overlay.


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Another game similar to “Space Invaders”, but that now has several differences in the gameplay. It has vivid and more colorful graphics, different patterns of enemies and stages, besides having a “life bar” in each stage. To be honest, I didn’t find it as fun as “Space Invaders” or even “Galaxian”, maybe the enemy patterns aren’t very interesting to me, but that’s something more personal. The technical advances that this game had are undeniable.

This left my brainspace as soon as I stopped playing.

É um jogo bem surpreendente pra época que lançou definitivamente. Esse foi um dos primeiros SHMUPs com vertical scrolling (talvez o primeiro, não sei se consideraria Sky Raider um SHMUP), e é genuinamente bem interessante como ele se aproveita das ideias de seus antecessores para chegar a esse resultado. Ozma Wars puxa bastante da ofensividade de Galaxian, porém traz para o contexto de vertical scrolling, dando bastante foco na relação de risco X recompensa que está presente em todos os levels (por sinal, mais uma ideia que surgiu com esse jogo). É bem legal ver os passos a mais que esse jogo toma para chegar aos SHMUPs modernos.

Despite being an obvious Space Invaders lookalike, it manages to stand out by having intricate, somewhat gaudy pixel design and a progression system that feels pretty solid. Still, the thing I like the most about it is that very deliberately apes for a Space Battleship Yamato aesthetic.

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A pesar de su parecido obvio a Space Invaders, el juego logra destacarse por un diseño intrincado un poco hortera, y por un sistema de progresión bastante sólido. Aún así, lo que más me gusta es que imita deliberadamente a Space Battleship Yamato.