Image Fight

Image Fight is a 1988 vertically scrolling shooter arcade game developed and published by Irem. It was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, PC Engine (Japan-only), Sharp X68000 (Japan-only), and FM Towns (Japan-only) in 1990.

On a fateful day in 20XX, the Earth’s moon exploded into four large fragments and a multitude of meteors. Aliens from afar had succeeded in destroying the West’s moon base. One after another, mankind’s other military industrial space complexes were being lost. What mankind dreaded had come to pass. Scores of unidentified fighters were in the area. In addition, the moon’s main computer, still intact after the explosion, had a strange vegetation coiled around it. Their trademark evil exploits being a dead giveaway, invaders from the Boondoggle Galaxy had arrived to take over the Earth. To counter these evil forces, leading scientists from all over the globe created the “OF-1” Fightership. Combat pilots depart the Earth to fend off the invaders and earn everlasting glory.

Image Fight was released one year after Irem’s successful horizontal scroller, R-Type, and, although not directly related, the two games have some similarities.