SNK’s first full game after a string of brick-breaking machines, Ozma Wars ran on Taito’s 8080 hardware that powered Space Invaders and introduced shoot ’em up players to the idea of discrete stages, learnable attack patterns and health bars.
Developer: Logitec
Publisher: SNK
Available on: Arcade, PS3, PSP, Vita, Switch, PS4
Original release date: 1979
Articles about Ozma Wars
SNK Essentials: Ozma Wars - Well now. Here’s one that doesn’t get talked about all that much: one of SNK’s earliest games, and a title believed to be the second ever fixed shoot ’em up, after Taito’s genre-defining classic Space Invaders. In fact, Ozma Wars, developed by Logitec (no, not that one) and published by SNK in 1979, ran on the same … Continue reading SNK Essentials: Ozma Wars
SNK 40th Anniversary Collection: (Almost) Perfect Preservation - As the years advance and old gaming hardware and media gets more expensive, harder to find and even more difficult to maintain, the matter of gaming preservation is of increasing importance. I’ve previously talked about how emulation and ROM archives have an important role to play in all this — in spite of interference from … Continue reading SNK 40th Anniversary Collection: (Almost) Perfect Preservation