Vimana (Japan) - MAME machine

Arcade Video game published 33 years ago:

Vimana © 1991 Toaplan.

Players control their ship over a constantly scrolling background; the scenery never stops moving until the final level is reached. Players have three weapons at their disposal: the standard shot, a charge shot and a bomb weapon.

The standard shot weapon is a twin-shot weapon capable of strengthening in size and power with upgrades. However, the player has to tap the fire button to fire rapidly; once the button is held down, the ship charges a stronger version of the normal shot capable of spreading out across the entire screen in twelve directions. The player’s bomb weapon, the Circle Bomb, encircles the ship once activated and seeks out enemies upon an additional tap of the bomb button.

There are a total of four items for the player to pick up shot strength, circle bomb, points, and and extra life.

TECHNICAL
Game ID: TP-019

Main CPU: Motorola 68000 (@ 10 Mhz)
Sound Chips: YM3812 (@ 3.5 Mhz)

Players: 2
Control: 8-way joystick
Buttons: 3

TRIVIA
Vimana was released in May 1991. It was licensed to Tecmo for Japanese, to Romstar for US and to Nova Apparate GMBH & Co for Europe distribution.

The game was not good and was one of the rare flop from Toaplan.

When you start the game, you'll see two elephants that the ship takes off from. On top of that they closely resemble Hindu drawings from India. The background for this game is based on a thousand's of years old book called the mahabarata that is regarded as a bible (sorta) for millions of Hindu's in India. When you read some of the verses in it you'll find funny descriptions of vehicles that the gods used that closely resemble modern aircraft of today. They are called Vimana's that carry •magical• axes and spears:). The mahabarata also describe what appears to be a technological war with missiles, nukes and huge flying fortresses and something which could be interpreted as radiation poisoning! The ancient Babylonian and Indian civilizations have often been an interesting pool for speculation and creative thinking regarding alien interference on earth in ancient times...

Pony Canyon / Scitron released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Vimana / Teki-Paki - PCCB-00071) on 21/09/1991.

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Hidden Functions: If the 'Invulnerability dip switch' is enabled, you are invulnerable but you may also 'Pause' the game with P2 Start and restart with P1 Start.
• If you kill the second boss quickly, you can see a new boss called 'Toa'.

STAFF
Music composed by: Toshiaki Tomizawa

CONTRIBUTE
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