Fire Shark at its surface seems like a typical shmup from the late 80s. You got your WW2-esque military presentation that was common at the time, intensified with a kicking soundtrack and nice visuals to wrap around its straightforward core gameplay of piloting a biplane that goes down in one hit, but with the ability to collect various powerups and speed boosts to even the odds against the enemy forces.
If you're playing either the localized or home console Mega Drive release, then that is what you mostly get, a fun little shmup with a decent variety of enemies and stages with just a dash of jank that was to be expected of hardware limitations at the time.
What makes Fire Shark special however is its original Japanese arcade release from March 1987, named with the more energetic title 'Same! Same! Same!' which translates to 'Shark! Shark! Shark!'.
(Moving forward as well, I'll refer to the game as Same x3 to differentiate it from the Mega Drive and localized release Fire Shark).
Arcades were putting pressure on developers to create games that would keep the credits coming, which of course translates to designing games with nearly unfair difficulty balance and other kinds of bullshit. This resulted in Same x3's developer Toaplan ditching their intended balanced difficulty and having the arcade release start at a later loop which meant everything is amplified and harder by default.
Now it's easy to dismiss this game as well of just being another game during an era where games were designed with high difficulty to compensate for their usually short runtime. But Same x3 just somehow manages to strike a balance between complete bullshit and genuine challenge and ends up creating a strangely compelling game.
To start things off, Same x3's original arcade release uses a checkpoint system, whereupon death you're reset into an earlier part of the stage and with all your powerups and speed boosts stripped out, similar to other shmups like Gradius and R-Type. This of course makes recovery a challenge, and a large potential of chain deaths can immediately end runs. Even if you use a credit to continue, you're still faced with the same dilemma of being put into a bad checkpoint where it's just frustrating to climb back up from.
If that wasn't scary enough, powerups and speed boosts are all deliberately programmed to move randomly, inviting you to potential scenarios where you can collide head-on with a stray bullet.
The game even limits the amount of bullets that can come out from your ship, whether you're using autofire or tapping like a maniac. What this means is if you go over the maximum shot limit, you'll create gaps between your curtain of bullets that will create blind spots that enemies can potentially slip through and survive long enough to hit a surprise bullet at you point blank.
Then you also have large hitboxes, where it feels like your entire plane's sprite is vulnerable to any sort of projectile, on top of that, your bombs don't even give you the luxury of invincibility periods, on top of having a delay before they explode.
Enemy bullets are also notoriously fast despite their low density. If that wasn't evil enough, enemies as well can fire at you even before or after they appear from the screen. Expect to get sniped by a tank that just left the screen a few frames ago.
All this with 10 stages to boot, which can easily take upwards of 40 minutes in total for just a single loop clear. Finally, if you die, you don't even die immediately, as your plane goes up in flames first as you flail around and at least try to shoot down the same enemy that shot you down first, which while it gives you an opportunity for one last revenge hit, also rubs in your own mistake.
Despite all of this sounding like a recipe for just pure frustration, there's still a lot of the core gameplay mechanics that make Same x3 shine and still have a completely routable game that can be finished under a single life.
Bombs may not give invincibility, but they are powerful and will clear everything on the screen and some even above it. This encourages deliberate and strategic bombing in advance for certain parts of the stages to minimize risk for the player. Balancing this part however is that bombs in stock create a large multiplier for the player's score, and more score means more lives which means further chances of clearing the game. The player is then given a choice whether to stockpile bombs and take the risk for more lives later or spend their bombs and try to wing it towards the next stage.
You also have a few powerups to pick and choose from. The one you want to avoid is the awful green powerup that gives you a green linear shot (which is also completely common and stays onscreen the longest). The ones you want to stick to is the default blue wide spread shot and the red flamethrower shot that fires a consistent linear line and more power-upped versions provide side options that widely moves left and right (which is the only rapid-fire shot in the game you can hold without the tapping rapidly or using autofire). The latter two have their specific uses, and players who optimize their routes may try to deliberately switch between the two depending on the stage and part of the stage.
Despite the sheer brutality of the game, each stage is designed in a distinct and varied manner, with enemies having unique formations and patterns either on the ground or in the air, which creates interesting and memorable parts that not only complements the game's charm but helps in memorizing routes and strategies better due to how well defined they are. Stages also take place in different environments which are appreciated in giving personality even more throughout its large 10-stage set.
The game gets more thrilling and enjoyable as you get further with full powerups, as one mistake can mean a large setback in not only retreating to an earlier part of a stage but also recovering from your powerful state. This then extends to the satisfaction of completing the game even with continues, as the checkpoint system still provides a genuine point of difficulty that you can't credit feed yourself out from.
Going back to the game's presentation, it really looks good for a game of its time, where despite its typical military aesthetics, the background and enemy designs look good with an attractive color palette that manages to pop, alongside some nice animated effects for surfaces such as water. There are even cute little sprites of people whenever you land at hangers at the end of the stage. All of this is coupled with some of Toaplan's catchiest tunes.
Overall it does feel like a testament to the developer's core design that despite its deliberate frustrating difficulty, it still manages to put out one hell of a shmup that's unique with its own kind of challenge.
I can't easily recommend Same x3 to everyone, as it is a real test of patience and dedication, but to those who seek a humbling and interesting experience, it's worth at least a bit of your time just so you can experience the crazy allure of it all yourself.
If you're playing either the localized or home console Mega Drive release, then that is what you mostly get, a fun little shmup with a decent variety of enemies and stages with just a dash of jank that was to be expected of hardware limitations at the time.
What makes Fire Shark special however is its original Japanese arcade release from March 1987, named with the more energetic title 'Same! Same! Same!' which translates to 'Shark! Shark! Shark!'.
(Moving forward as well, I'll refer to the game as Same x3 to differentiate it from the Mega Drive and localized release Fire Shark).
Arcades were putting pressure on developers to create games that would keep the credits coming, which of course translates to designing games with nearly unfair difficulty balance and other kinds of bullshit. This resulted in Same x3's developer Toaplan ditching their intended balanced difficulty and having the arcade release start at a later loop which meant everything is amplified and harder by default.
Now it's easy to dismiss this game as well of just being another game during an era where games were designed with high difficulty to compensate for their usually short runtime. But Same x3 just somehow manages to strike a balance between complete bullshit and genuine challenge and ends up creating a strangely compelling game.
To start things off, Same x3's original arcade release uses a checkpoint system, whereupon death you're reset into an earlier part of the stage and with all your powerups and speed boosts stripped out, similar to other shmups like Gradius and R-Type. This of course makes recovery a challenge, and a large potential of chain deaths can immediately end runs. Even if you use a credit to continue, you're still faced with the same dilemma of being put into a bad checkpoint where it's just frustrating to climb back up from.
If that wasn't scary enough, powerups and speed boosts are all deliberately programmed to move randomly, inviting you to potential scenarios where you can collide head-on with a stray bullet.
The game even limits the amount of bullets that can come out from your ship, whether you're using autofire or tapping like a maniac. What this means is if you go over the maximum shot limit, you'll create gaps between your curtain of bullets that will create blind spots that enemies can potentially slip through and survive long enough to hit a surprise bullet at you point blank.
Then you also have large hitboxes, where it feels like your entire plane's sprite is vulnerable to any sort of projectile, on top of that, your bombs don't even give you the luxury of invincibility periods, on top of having a delay before they explode.
Enemy bullets are also notoriously fast despite their low density. If that wasn't evil enough, enemies as well can fire at you even before or after they appear from the screen. Expect to get sniped by a tank that just left the screen a few frames ago.
All this with 10 stages to boot, which can easily take upwards of 40 minutes in total for just a single loop clear. Finally, if you die, you don't even die immediately, as your plane goes up in flames first as you flail around and at least try to shoot down the same enemy that shot you down first, which while it gives you an opportunity for one last revenge hit, also rubs in your own mistake.
Despite all of this sounding like a recipe for just pure frustration, there's still a lot of the core gameplay mechanics that make Same x3 shine and still have a completely routable game that can be finished under a single life.
Bombs may not give invincibility, but they are powerful and will clear everything on the screen and some even above it. This encourages deliberate and strategic bombing in advance for certain parts of the stages to minimize risk for the player. Balancing this part however is that bombs in stock create a large multiplier for the player's score, and more score means more lives which means further chances of clearing the game. The player is then given a choice whether to stockpile bombs and take the risk for more lives later or spend their bombs and try to wing it towards the next stage.
You also have a few powerups to pick and choose from. The one you want to avoid is the awful green powerup that gives you a green linear shot (which is also completely common and stays onscreen the longest). The ones you want to stick to is the default blue wide spread shot and the red flamethrower shot that fires a consistent linear line and more power-upped versions provide side options that widely moves left and right (which is the only rapid-fire shot in the game you can hold without the tapping rapidly or using autofire). The latter two have their specific uses, and players who optimize their routes may try to deliberately switch between the two depending on the stage and part of the stage.
Despite the sheer brutality of the game, each stage is designed in a distinct and varied manner, with enemies having unique formations and patterns either on the ground or in the air, which creates interesting and memorable parts that not only complements the game's charm but helps in memorizing routes and strategies better due to how well defined they are. Stages also take place in different environments which are appreciated in giving personality even more throughout its large 10-stage set.
The game gets more thrilling and enjoyable as you get further with full powerups, as one mistake can mean a large setback in not only retreating to an earlier part of a stage but also recovering from your powerful state. This then extends to the satisfaction of completing the game even with continues, as the checkpoint system still provides a genuine point of difficulty that you can't credit feed yourself out from.
Going back to the game's presentation, it really looks good for a game of its time, where despite its typical military aesthetics, the background and enemy designs look good with an attractive color palette that manages to pop, alongside some nice animated effects for surfaces such as water. There are even cute little sprites of people whenever you land at hangers at the end of the stage. All of this is coupled with some of Toaplan's catchiest tunes.
Overall it does feel like a testament to the developer's core design that despite its deliberate frustrating difficulty, it still manages to put out one hell of a shmup that's unique with its own kind of challenge.
I can't easily recommend Same x3 to everyone, as it is a real test of patience and dedication, but to those who seek a humbling and interesting experience, it's worth at least a bit of your time just so you can experience the crazy allure of it all yourself.