DECO cass. published 45 years ago:

Astro Fantasia (c) 1981 Data East Corp.

This is a "Galaga" style vertical shoot'em up with a few unique twists that make it interesting. You pilot a single fighter ship against an armada of enemies (sound familiar?). There are 2 different play screens that alternate.

The opening screen uses pseudo 3-D graphics and has a large red bit of what appears to be machinery (or perhaps part of a very large spaceship) as background on the bottom half of the screen. You can move your ship around anywhere on the red background, but the black area beyond is off limits.

The game opens with a large mothership craft visible at the top of the screen, but your shots cannot reach it at this point. Red UFOs quickly begin attacking you, swooping in line formations from the top area of the screen. They actually scale in size as they get closer to you (a nice effect for a 1981 raster title). By moving around you will discover that the screen can scroll upwards quite a bit, and the enemy armada comes into view if you get near the top of your area.

The armada consists of several rows of ships in classic "Space Invaders" style, except for the fact that they are tiny. You can quickly blast the armada away, as you have twin shots on this opening screen, and you can have several sets of them on screen at once (it really only takes a few seconds to take out the armada).

Player layout in our catalog: 2P alt.

If you are exploring by feel rather than by title, jump from the tags above into the matching genre rooms, or return to the Arcade hall for the full wall.

Open Play on this page to start Astro Fantasia (DECO Cassette) (US). Keyboard, USB/Bluetooth pads, and the on-screen touch gamepad all work inside the emulator bar. Save states and fullscreen live on that same bar so you can pause mid-session and resume later.

Astro Fantasia (DECO Cassette) (US) is filed in our catalog as a 1981 release.

Player layout on this cabinet: 2P alt.

Genre tags on Classic Arcade Games: Shooter.

Credit line lists Data East Corporation as developer.