Fire Shark

Fire Shark is a military-themed vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game reminiscent of 1942, where players take control of the titular biplane through ten increasingly difficult levels in order to defeat an assortment of enemy forces like tanks, battleships, kamikaze monoplanes and artillery from the mysterious Strange Fleet armada. This is the main objective of the game. The game plays similarly like its predecessor, as players control their craft over a constantly scrolling background and the scenery never stops moving until an airport is reached. Players have two weapons at their disposal: the standard shot that travels a max distance of half the screen's height and bombs capable of obliterating any enemy caught within its blast radius.

There are three types of weapons to pick up that appear as colored icons by destroying zeppelins: a wide shot, a laser beam and a flamethrower. There are also other items like "S" icons that increases the overall speed, "B" icons that acts as extra bomb stocks, "P" icons and 1UPs on rare occasions. By acquiring three "P" icons in a row, players increase their plane's firepower to one level, with the third power level being the highest. Once the plane is fully powered up, grabbing additional icons grants extra points instead.

The plot summary of Fire Shark varies between each region and version. In the original arcade version, a mysterious enemy fleet known only as the Strange Fleet arrived at a small island of the Mediterranean Sea during one summer night in 1991, with few people noticing its sudden arrival. In the span of two years, the Strange Fleet grew larger and larger, culminating in a worldwide attack as a result. As the Strange Fleet continues their assault, those who oppose them cried "Fire Shark!

Fire Shark! It's time to take-off!! Beat them for our sake. Go!

Fire Shark's development process and history was recounted between 1989 and 2012 through Japanese publications such as Shooting Gameside by former Toaplan composer Masahiro Yuge. Yuge acted as the game's composer, with Shintarō Nakaoka serving as artist, while both Sanae Nitō and Yuko Tataka were also involved in the production as designers, though none of the members in the development team were credited as such in neither version of the game.

The team wanted to convey "the same strengths" as its predecessor, Flying Shark, by adding elements like the flamethrower as a way to promote the game, with Yuge stating that the weapon acted as a successor to the blue laser in 1989's Truxton. Yuge later stated that he regretted not balancing the game's difficulty for both arcade owners and players. The development team settled on using the word "same" when coming up for the project's title, which translates to "shark" in Japanese to convey a strong animal sound. Nakaoka was also responsible for drawing the crowd during the takeoff sequence at the beginning of the game that was, according to Yuge, later animated during their leisure for diversion.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Fire Shark on their January 1, 1990 issue as being the fifth most-successful table arcade unit at the time. According to Masahiro Yuge, Fire Shark was well received in Western arcades but proved to be less popular in Japan due to its high difficulty.

German magazine Power Play compared it with 1943: The Battle of Midway and Vapor Trail: Hyper Offence Formation.

The rights to Fire Shark, its predecessor and many other IPs from Toaplan are now owned by Tatsujin, a company named after Truxton's Japanese title that was founded in 2017 by former Toaplan employee Masahiro Yuge, and is part of Embracer Group since 2022. Artist Perry "Gryzor/Rozyrg" Sessions cited Fire Shark as one of the main influences for Super XYX.