Descpription:
Vanguard is a 1981 arcade game developed by TOSE, and published
by SNK in Japan in 1981. The game was also licensed to Cinematronics for
conversion to cocktail arcade cabinets in North America.
The game is known as one of the first scrolling shooters ever made and is additionally
notable by being the first shoot 'em up where a player can shoot in four different directions.
Also, unlike other comparable games at the time, Vanguard was unique in that the player must focus
on avoiding obstacles while firing in order to survive; which made this game a precursor to Konami's
Gradius and Irem's R-Type. It also has the distinction of being the first colored game released by SNK.
Vanguard is very similar to Scramble, in the sense that the player controls a ship with a limited
amount of fuel that constantly depletes. Some zones start off primarily as a horizontal scroller,
but in some zones, the ship flies vertically. Also, at the end of each zone the player must defeat
a boss that is guarded by two moving force fields with holes in them while scrolling vertically.
There are a total of ten zones in the game:
Mountain Zone
Rainbow Zone
Styx Zone
Rainbow Zone 2
Stripe Zone
Rainbow Zone 3
Bleak Zone
and the City of Mystery.
