Air Buster

Air Buster is a horizontally scrolling shooter game. Players choose between one of the two Blaster fighters through six scrolling stages. The Blaster fighters can equip one of seven weapons. The weapons include the Striker weapon which adds additional firepower through vertically aligned Options, the Reverse shot which fires two diagonal shots from the rear of the ship, the Six Way Shot which fires semi-automatic shots in six directions and the Homing Shot which tracks enemies all around the screen.

The other three weapons are Missile-based which vary from Red straight-firing Rockets and Green Homing Missiles. There is also the Border item which surrounds the front of the ship, keeping it from crashing into foreground objects. The only other Items include Power-Ups which increase the ship's standard shot power and Bonus Points that appear in the sign of Dollar signs.

The Mega Drive/Genesis port runs fullscreen, features more detailed graphics, keeps most of the Arcade version's parallax effects and has better sound effects. The PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 port features a slightly expanded ending and has a unique track on stage 2.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Air Buster as the third most popular arcade game of February 1990.

MegaTech magazine gave the game 78%, commenting on the "excellent graphics, sound and playability", but criticizing the low challenge factor. Mega placed the game at #13 in their Top Mega Drive Games of All Time. Mean Machines gave the game 80%, but said that it could not compete with Hellfire.