Slap Fight MD

For the 2024 re-release by Retro-bit, see Slap Fight MD Collector's Edition.

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Slap Fight MD
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Tengen
Developer: Toaplan, M.N.M Software
Distributor: Samsung (KR)
Licensor: Toaplan
Original system(s): Arcade boards
Genre: Shooting
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code JP 1993-06-11 ¥7,800 (8,034)7,800e T-48093 KR 1993 GM8100JT

Slap Fight MD (スラップファイト) is a Sega Mega Drive vertical shoot-'em-up game developed by M.N.M Software and published by Tengen. Released in Japan in June 1993, the game is an enhanced port of the 1986 Toaplan arcade game Slap Fight.

Story

The game takes place in the year 2059 in another galaxy. Mankind has colonized an alien planet called Theon after evacuating a previously colonized planet Orac. Five years prior, the colony on Orac was attacked by alien invaders, and the war was so intense, the colonists were forced to leave. However, Theon is now under attack by the same alien fleet, but the humans are ready. The player assumes the role of an Allied League of Cosmic Nations (ALCON) fighter pilot in the SW475 space fighter craft to stop the invaders from taking over Theon.

Gameplay

Slap Fight MD

Two games are available: a port of Toaplan's 1986 arcade shoot-'em-up Slap Fight with the choice to use either remastered music or the original sound, and a separate game called Slap Fight MD, that has the same gameplay mechanics but new art, stages, and music (composed by Yuzo Koshiro) and reworked weapons. The option to switch between Slap Fight and Slap Fight MD is in the Options menu under "Game Mode," with Normal enabling Slap Fight and Special enabling Slap Fight MD.

The mechanics of Slap Fight are similar to Konami's Gradius series, albeit as a vertical shooter rather than horizontal. The player's starfighter moves with the D-Pad. It fires with or , which can be held for rapid-fire. When the "Rapid" option is enabled, fires more rapidly. Destroying enemies can leave stars, which if collected cycle through a selection of weapons and upgrades, which can then be activated with . There are three different weapons to choose from, as well as movement speed upgrades and a shield that absorbs three hits. The player can also equip up to three pairs of additional "Wings," which provide additional firepower.

In Slap Fight MD, a "helper" drone sometimes appears. The drone moves autonomously around the screen and fires a narrow stream of bullets. It can be controlled by another player using a control pad plugged into the second port.

If the ship is hit on one of its extra wings, it loses a pair of wings. In Slap Fight MD, losing wings causes a large explosion in an area, which destroys enemies and neutralizes projectiles caught in the blast. Wings can be manually detonated by pressing . If the ship itself is hit without a shield, it is destroyed, and the player restarts at a predetermined checkpoint at the cost of a life. All weapons and upgrades are lost if the player loses a life; if there are unused stars, one star is given (meaning "Speed" is highlighted). The game ends if the player runs out of lives, but the game has unlimited continues. The player earns an extra life at 30,000 points and then every 100,000 points after that. There are multiple selectable difficulty levels (Easy, Normal, Hard, and Hardest).

After completing the last stage, the game begins again, with the second loop increasing in difficulty.

Weapons

	Star
	Selects the next item in the sidebar. The selected item can be chosen by the player by pressing .
	Speed (スピード)
	Increases the movement speed of the player's starfighter, up to 5 times.
	Shot (ショット)
	Reverts the ship to the standard firing weapon, which shoots streams of bullets in parallel. This weapon fires quickly but only fires about half the length of the screen, requiring the player to engage enemies more closely.
	Side (Shot) (サイドショット)
	Adds firepower on the left and right of the ship.
	(Power) Wing (パワーウイング)
	Increases the number of weapons, which increases the width of the ship's hitbox and makes it a bigger target for enemies. Each activation adds one set of weapons on the left and right side, with up to 3 being stackable. If a wing is hit by enemy fire, the pair of wings is lost.
	Bomb (ボム)
	Equips the Bomb weapon. In Slap Fight, it is a shorter range but wider attack for taking out enemies that are close together. In Slap Fight MD, it is a long-range attack that fires slowly but does high damage.
	Laser (レーザー)
	Equips the Laser weapon, which fires long-range beams upwards. Laser beams fire slower than the standard weapon but travel the full length of the screen and pass through targets.
	H.Mis (Homing Missile) (ホーミングミサイル)
	Equips the Homing Missile weapon, which shoots missiles that radiate outwards from the ship and automatically lock-on to nearby enemies. Wing upgrades increase the strength of the missiles rather than the quantity (which is always 16 missiles fired at a time).
	Shield (シールド)
	Gives the ship a shield that protects it from three hits.

Areas

Each game is a single long, uninterrupted stage, broken into approximately 80 areas.

Slap Fight

	Area 1-10
	Area 11-20
	Area 22-30
	Area 31-40
	Area 41-50
	Area 51-60
	Area 61-70
	Area 71-80

Slap Fight MD

	Area 1-10
	Area 11-20
	Area 22-30
	Area 31-40
	Area 41-50
	Area 51-60
	Area 61-70
	Area 71-80
	Area 81-83

Music and sound

Slap Fight MD has a new soundtrack composed by Yuzo Koshiro. M.N.M Software founder Mikito Ichikawa and Yuzo Koshiro were childhood friends, and they had previously worked together on Streets of Rage 2.

“	Mr. Koshiro was graduating as I began my freshman year in the same high school. When I went to work at Dempa Micomsoft still wearing my high school uniform, Mr. Koshiro realised we were from the same school and spoke to me. I happened to be developing an RPG and asked him to do the music, to which he accepted right away. Since then we have been very close. Mr. Koshiro had already provided many musical compositions for us at MNM by the time I asked him to do the music for Slap Fight MD, so he was a natural choice. Bare Knuckle 2 used a sound driver made by MNM, and I developed the sound driver and converted the sound for the Game Gear version of Shinobi.	„
— Mikito Ichikawa

History

Release

The late and limited release of Slap Fight MD meant that reportedly only about 5,000 copies were sold in total.

Legacy

Slap Fight MD was later re-released as one of the 42 pre-installed games on the Mega Drive Mini in Japan and other Asian countries. However, the game was modified in several ways. All mentions of Tengen were removed from the game and its packaging, with further modifications made for the game's manual released through the system's official website. In addition, an in-game sprite resembling one of the Invaders from Space Invaders was modified likely due to copyright concerns.

The item system was revisited for Toaplan's later shoot-'em-up V-Five, released in arcades in 1993 and ported to the Mega Drive the following year.

Production credits

• Game Designed by: Tatsuya Uemura*, Jun Shimizu
• Graphic Designed by: Kohji Wada, Hiroki Tatemukai
• Sound Composed by: Yuzo Koshiro, Mikito Ichikawa†
• Programmed by: Jun Shimizu
• Sound Programmed by: Takeshi Maruyama
• Supervised by: Mikito Ichikawa†
• Produced by: Tatsuya Uemura*

Source:

In-game credits

Legend: names with a * are Toaplan staff; names with a † are M.N.M Software staff.

Digital manuals

• 

  Mega Drive Mini JP manual

Magazine articles

Main article: Slap Fight MD/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1993-07: "July 1993" (1993-06-08)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1993-10: "October 1993" (1993-09-08)

Print advert in Game Champ (KR) #1993-09: "xxxx" (199x-xx-xx)

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average
Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 30 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 73 Mean Machines: The Essential Sega Guide (UK) 76 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 65 Hippon Super (JP) NTSC-J 70 MegaTech (UK) NTSC-J 83 Mean Machines Sega (UK) NTSC-J 76 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 86

	70
Based on 8 reviews

Slap Fight MD

Mega Drive, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, KR
Cover

Technical information

Main article: Slap Fight MD/Technical information.

External links

• Eurogamer article