Noboranka (Japan)

Arcade Video game published 39 years ago:

Noboranka (c) 1986 Data East Corp.

This game is a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up where the player controls a character that has to climb a tree and shoot bug-like enemies. The story is that the princess has been kidnapped by the villains of the Insect World, and Zippy Bug has to rescue her. After shooting the enemies, they drop fruits that the player can collect for extra points, and skulls that are deadly if touched. The player is able to fly for a short time, and every time this is done, one of the letters from the 'I Love You' at the bottom of the screen is used up. The letters regenerate over a small period of time. There are also other items, such as the key, which surrounds the player in a bubble and makes him invulnerable to 1 hit. Another item is a ring which seems to instantly replenish all of the used up 'I Love You' letters. One other item is the hammer, which allows the player to wipe out all the enemies off the screen. There is a boss at the end of each level.

- TECHNICAL -

Runs on the Sega "System 1" hardware.

Players: 2
Control: 8-way joystick
Buttons: 2

- TRIVIA -

Noboranka was released in October 1986.

Data East licensed the game from Coreland for distribution in the U.S. Back in the early to mid 80's, Coreland and Sega collaborated on many games. For some reason, it didn't seem like Sega was interested in licensing this game from Coreland even though it had already been ready for manufacture on the System 1 Hardware. Obviously, Data East was interested, they indirectly licensed the System 1 Hardware that this game uses from Sega, even though it would be another 9 years before they would finally license hardware from Sega, for games they created. This seems to be the one and only game that Coreland sold to Data East.

Noboranka was one of the rarest game developed by coreland. Others are "119" and "bepop".

This game is known as "Zippy Bug" outside Japan.

A bootleg of the game was made by Game Electronics.

- CONTRIBUTE -

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