Thunder Force II

Thunder Force II is a 1989 scrolling space shoot 'em up game, developed by Technosoft. The Mega Drive version is a port of a 1988 game for the X68000.

Plot
The planet Reda, which boasted the highest level of defense, suddenly exploded... and disappeared... It was found out the cause was an attack of highly concentrated energy from the newest weapon of ORN, the battle fortress "Plealos". Plealos was a terrifying new weapon which replaced the Dyradeizer that once plagued our Federation.

I'm Reid A. Jupiter, commonly known as Rai. I belong to a Federal unit and have the title of Ace. I've just had a fight against ORN's fighters with my buddy Diana and took down six of them. Though she is a woman, she's got a good aim and have saved my life several times. I'm quite strong myself, but she's a good partner I can count on. As soon as we returned to the base ship, we got called to a strategy meeting with other members. Our leader, Edra N. Fern, called us for a special operation. It was called "Thunder Force II Strategy", with the aim of destroying ORN's battle fortress Plealos.

The fortress Plealos is now in the sixth underground layer of the planet Nebula. Our mission is to reach that point with the fighter-bomber "Exceliza" and destroy the fortress's only weak point, the central nucleus...

"We need volunteers for the mission!"

Everyone took a deep breath after hearing this story. We all knew that volunteering to such a mission was the same as a death sentence.

Planet Nebula, my homeplanet... It was now under the control of our nemesis ORN. 18 years ago, when an ORN attack killed my mother, my father entrusted me to his best friend Fern and died inside of ORN's mothership. If we could destroy the fortress Plealos, ORN would receive a hard hit. And Nebula is my homeplanet after all. Would I want to liberate it? "I'll do it Fern!", I screamed with enthusiasm.

"Heat resistant field irradiation penetration angle OK!" The ship's instruments go into red level. There's no turning back now. Let's go!

Gameplay
Stages in the game, unlike the previous Thunder Force, are now split into two formats: the free-directional scrolling, overhead stage format from the previous game (referred to as "top-view stages"), and horizontal forward-scrolling stages (referred to as "side-view" stages) which would become the series mainstay. Each stage begins in the top-view perspective, where the player has to locate the cores of a certain number of major enemy bases named Defenser and destroy them. After this is accomplished, the stage continues from the side-view perspective, which plays like a traditional horizontal scrolling shooter. After the boss of the side-view sub stage is defeated, the player moves on to the next stage.

Building upon its predecessor, Thunder Force II introduced a weapon system that would become the staple for the rest of the series. The player's ship now has default arsenal of weapons which include a twin, forward firing shot (the "Twin" shot), a single forward, and single backward firing shot (the "Back" shot), and a bomb shot in the top-view stages. By collecting certain items, the default weapons can be upgraded to more a powerful level. Also, the player could obtain a certain number of new weapons with various unique abilities by collecting the weapon's corresponding item (the "Hunter", a signature weapon of the series, debuts in this game).

Once obtained, the weapons can be switched between at the player's desire, but if the ship is destroyed, all weapons are lost except for the defaults. The top-view and the side-view stages have different sets of weapons; losing weapons in the top-view stages do not affect the weapons equipped in the side-view stages and vice versa.

Thunder Force II also introduced the CLAW add-ons; small pods which revolve around the ship. The function of the CLAWs is to block weak incoming bullets, and to provide extra firepower by firing single, normal shots. The player may acquire up to two CLAWs at a time, but will lose them upon ship destruction. Exclusive to this game is an item which temporarily increases their orbit speed, making them more likely to block bullets.