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thndrbld: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Thunder Blade (c) 1987 Sega.

Taking control of a heavily-armed battle chopper, the player must battle through a variety of both overhead and 'into-the-screen' 3-D stages.

Each stage is packed with a mixture of enemy choppers, planes, tanks, boats and static gun emplacements, all intent on bringing Thunder Blade crashing to the ground.

The player's 'copter is armed with 2 different weapons; a rapid-fire machine gun and air-to-ground missiles - both of which have unlimited ammunition.

The first half of every stage begins with a top-down, vertically-scrolling section, before switching to an 'After Burner-esque', into-the-screen section.

Thunder Blade consists of four stages, which are as follows :

* Stage 1 : The game begins in a skyscraper-packed city. Enemies consist of rival choppers, jets, and ground-based tanks and gun emplacements. The level ends over the sea, with the player facing a huge and heavily-armed battleship.

* Stage 2 : This stage begins with the player navigating a desert canyon, before switching to the into-the-screen view and taking the player through a number of stalactite-packed and densely populated caves. A huge ground-based tank awaits the player at the end of the stage.

* Stage 3 : This begins in a river canyon, before moving on to a rain-forest river network. As well the the usual line-up of enemies, heavily-armed boats are introduced. the end-of-level battle takes place in the skies as the player attempts to destroy a massive jet fighter.

* Stage 4 : The 4th and final stage begins with a repeat of the first stage's city level, only this time the action takes place at night. The second half of this stage takes the player deep into an industrial complex, eventually leading to an end-of-game showdown with a massive and heavily-armed gun emplacement.

- TECHNICAL -

[Upright model]

Sega X Board hardware

Main CPU : (2x) 68000 (@ 12.5 Mhz)

Sound CPU : Z80 (@ 4 Mhz)

Sound Chips : YM2151 (@ 4 Mhz), Sega (@ 4 Mhz)

Players : 1

Control : stick

Buttons : 2

- TRIVIA -

Released in December 1987.

Also released as "Thunder Blade [Deluxe Sit-Down model]".

Despite bringing nothing new or original to the shoot'em up genre, Thunder Blade was a huge commercial success for Sega. This was down to the superb and innovative use of their breathtaking sprite-scaling graphics technology - used to such stunning effect in "Out Run", "Super Hang-on", "After Burner", etc. The way Thunder Blade constantly switched between overhead and into-the-screen levels was smooth and flawless and helped to disguise the otherwise unremarkable game-play.

Pony Canyon released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (G.S.M. SEGA 1 - D28B0002) 07/07/1988.

- STAFF -

Music by : Koichi Namiki

- PORTS -

* Consoles :

Sega Mega Drive (1988, "Super Thunder Blade")

Sega Master System (1988)

Sega Mega Drive (199?, "MegaGames 3in1 Vol 3")

* Computers :

Amstrad CPC (1988)

Atari ST (1988)

Commodore 64 (1988)

Commodore Amiga (1988)

NEC PC-Engine (1988)

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1988)

Amstrad CPC (1989, "Coin-Op Hits")

Sharp X68000 (1990)

* Others :

Tiger LCD Handheld Game (1988) : Features 99 levels of play as you pilot your craft to battle!

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.74u2 [Andrew Prime]

0.36b2 [Andrew Prime]

Artwork available

TODO:

* Wanted: 317-0055 FD1094 CPU

Bugs:

- Glitchy colours in certain situations, single step problems, -mt changing visible result / stepping behavior. Haze (ID 04406)

WIP:

- 0.133u1: Renamed (thndrbd1) to (thndrbld1).

- 4th March 2007: Mr. Do - Today, we have Thunderblade, vectored by Zorg, on loan from Vintage Arcade Superstore.

- 0.111u1: Fixed rom names.

- 0.107u2: Changed input from 3 to 2 buttons. Renamed (thndrbdj) to (thndrbd1).

- 0.89u6: Aaron Giles improved sprites and road layer in Thunder Blade - Game now playable.

- 0.89u2: Fixed gfx2 rom loading.

- 0.89: Changed description to 'Thunder Blade (FD1094 317-0056)'. Fixed rom names.

- 0.88u5: Changed description to 'Thunder Blade (317-0056)' and added 317-0056.key. Fixed gfx1/2 rom loading. Added new gfx2 rom ($100000).

- 14th November 2004: Charles MacDonald - Dumped the 317-0056 cpu from Thunder Blade.

- 0.84u2: Added 'Service Mode' dipswitch.

- 0.74u2: Added Thunder Blade (Sega 1987) and clone (Japan).

- 0.36b7: Added Thunder Blade (Japan) (Testdriver).

- 0.36b2: Andrew Prime added Thunder Blade (Testdriver).

LEVELS: 4

Other Emulators:

* FB Alpha

Recommended Games (Helicopter 3D):

Cobra Command

TomCat

Thunder Blade

Thunder Blade (Tourvision PCE bootleg)

Super Thunder Blade (Mega-Tech)

Apache 3

Metal Hawk

Steel Talons

Air Rescue

Gunblade NY

Zero Gunner

Zero Gunner 2

Under Defeat

Romset: 3784 kb / 33 files / 1.17 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Thunder Blade (upright, FD1094 317-0056)</description>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</game>

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