Adopted Arcade Game

Adopted Arcade Game: Flying Shark

The classic arcade game that I decide to "adopt" and play was Flying Shark. It was released in 1987 by Toaplan / Taito Corporation and is classified as a vertical scrolling shooter game. My experience playing the game was a bit frustrating. Maybe I am just completely inept at playing arcade games, but I found Flying Shark to be surprisingly difficult. There seemed to be no progression of difficulty; as soon as the game started it seemed to have been on "hard mode." Playing this game via an emulator made the experience a lot worse. There were no clear instructions on which keys mapped to which functions. With that in mind, I do believe that this game was probably a lot of fun when it was played on the original hardware where all buttons clearly mapped to their respective functions. Furthermore I would imagine that the game was a lot less difficult when played on the original hardware as the player would have all of the functionality available to them. From the screenshots it appears as if the plane you are flying should be able to shoot. I was not able to shoot because I could not figure out which button mapped to shooting. Had I been able to play this on the original hardware and had the ability to not only move evasively but also attack I believe it would have been far less difficult and much more enjoyable.