Battle City NES

Battle City is a classic multi-directional shooter video game developed and published by Namco in 1985 for the Family Computer. As a sequel to the 1980 game “Tank Battalion,” and a precursor to the 1991 game “Tank Force,” Battle City has significant historical importance in the evolution of video games. The game also saw an arcade release on the Nintendo VS. System and made a cameo in the Japanese version of “Star Fox Assault.”

In “Battle City,” players control a tank tasked with destroying enemy tanks that enter from the top of the screen, while simultaneously defending their base, symbolically represented as a bird, eagle, or phoenix. Each level is completed by destroying all 20 enemy tanks, but the game ends if the player’s base is destroyed or the player loses all lives.

The game features 35 stages, each 13×13 units in size, filled with various obstacles like destructible brick walls, indestructible steel walls (unless the player collects power-ups), camouflaging bushes, slippery ice fields, and impassable pools of water. The gameplay intensifies with four types of increasingly challenging enemy tanks, some of which can lure players away from their base or offer power-ups when destroyed.

Power-ups play a crucial role in enhancing the player’s tank capabilities, such as increasing shot speed, allowing multiple shots, and enabling the destruction of steel walls. Other power-ups include a bomb that destroys all visible enemy tanks, a clock that freezes enemies, a shovel that adds temporary protective walls around the base, and a shield that grants invulnerability.

A standout feature of “Battle City” is its two-player cooperative mode, where both players defend the base together, despite the potential for friendly fire, which temporarily immobilizes the tank hit. Additionally, it was among the first NES games to include an edit mode for creating custom levels, although it did not allow saving these levels, unlike some later games.

The Game Boy version introduced a radar feature to accommodate the smaller screen, which only displays a portion of the map at any time, adding to the challenge.

Credits:

Battle City NES is developed by gamegecko.