Sky Shark

Overview

Sky Shark is a vertical-scrolling shooting game in which the player takes command of a biplane and shoots enemies in the sky and ground as they approach. It was developed by the company Toaplan and published by Taito in 1987 for Arcade. It was previously called Flying Shark in its native Japan, but was released under the name Sky Shark in the US and was licensed to Romstar for distribution. It was also converted to the Amiga, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, FM Towns, and Nintendo Entertainment System.

There was a sequel, Fire Shark. It was released for the Sega Mega Drive and Arcade in 1990 and is called Same! Same! Same! ("Shark! Shark! Shark!") in Japan.

Gameplay

Sky Shark puts the player in control of a biplane and has them take out enemy planes, turrets, tanks and other land bases. The game starts the player off with three lives and three bombs. For every one thousand points they earn the game rewards them with an extra life. If the player makes it to the base where they land their plane, the base racks up the player's points and if they haven't used any bombs it rewards them with an extra one.

The game also consists of special power-ups. The player can find these power-ups by destroying a formation of enemy planes which come at the player in a V-shape formations or criss-cross style. If the player manages to destroy the entire formation they release an S power-up that allows the player's plane to fire extra bullets. If the player manages to destroy a formation of yellow enemy planes, they are given an extra 1000 points.