Long
before anime became extremely popular in the U.S., a few series filtered
into American television. Early gems like Astro Boy, Kimba The
White Lion and the venerable Speed Racer were the first
attempts to introduce anime to the American public. By the mid-1980s,
quite a few more anime series had been introduced. Out of all of the ones
being shown on American TV during that time, the one that endeared itself
the most to its fans was Robotech, the Americanized version of
three Japanese series: Macross, Mospeada and Southern
Cross. Robotech itself pales in comparison to the three
original Japanese series, but to the people that watched it and enjoyed it
during that time (myself included), it was an epic series unlike anything
we'd ever seen before.
About the same time, the video game industry was struggling to rise from the ashes of the great Crash of '84. Nintendo released its Famicom system in Japan at the time, and towards the end of 1985 released the Famicom in the U.S. as the Nintendo Entertainment System. Surprisingly, none of the popular cartoons at the time were converted into NES carts - at least in the U.S. In Japan, several anime series had games based on them released on the Famicom - Macross among them. However, the game went unreleased in the U.S. - Bandai either couldn't get the license for Robotech, or they simply passed on it.
Choujikuu
Yousai Macross was the full title of the game (hereafter referred to
as CYM). It was never specified if you were controlling a specific
member of the cast or some nameless member of the Robotech Defense Force,
although it may have been in the instructions, which I can't read (being
an American that had not seen the original Japanese series until recently,
I'm going to have a tendency to refer to things by the American name
rather than the Japanese name, as they're the ones I'm more familiar
with). Whoever you are, your objective is to fly a lone Veritech fighter
into the heart of the Zentraedi battle fleet and destroy their battleships
from the inside, one after the other. Standing in between you and the
battleships is the entire Zentraedi fleet. Familiar mecha from the series
are all over the place - from the standard Zentraedi Battle Pods to the
Officer's Battle Pods and all sorts of mecha in between.
Your Veritech has the ability to transform into three different forms, just like in the series. The standard Veritech fighter mode is the one you begin each stage with. You can switch at will between the Battloid and Gerwalk modes as well. This isn't just a cosmetic difference... each mode serves a purpose. The Fighter mode is the fastest, but manuevers like a flying brick. The Battloid mode (when the Veritech transforms into a robot) is the slowest, yet offers you the greatest amount of flexibility when firing and moving. You can fire not only forwards, but backwards in this mode. The Gerwalk mode (the one that resembles a fighter with legs and arms sticking out from beneath it) is a nice balance between the two - you can't fire backwards like in Battloid mode, but you can manuever a lot faster than in Fighter mode. No matter what form you're in, you can fire the spread of missiles that the series made famous - however, you don't have an unlimited supply of them. They can be replenished by picking up missile icons that resemble the RDF logo. Other RDF logo icons will restore your shields - unlike most shmups, you actually have a "life" bar - and speed up your Veritech.
To sum it up, CYM was based on a great series and would have made a great game - if the designers had included a lot more variety into it. As it is, it's merely a slightly below average shmup, overshadowed by later Famicom releases such as Gradius, Gradius II and Salamander, to name a few. Luckily Macross was later done right - later games, such as Zamuse's Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie for the Super Famicom, made up for all of the shortcomings that CYM had, while at the same time keeping all of the best things from the earlier game intact.
front cover
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