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Sky Shark NES is Taito’s 1989 vertical shooter, developed by Software Creations from Toaplan’s arcade game Flying Shark, with music by Tim Follin. Fly a biplane through five stages with guns and bombs. You get the loose cartridge only, with no box or manual. Orders ship within 2 business days.
| Platform | NES |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Taito Video Games |
| Condition | Loose Cartridge |
| Availability | In stock |
Sky Shark NES is a vertical scrolling shooter that Taito released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in September 1989. Software Creations developed it from Toaplan's 1987 arcade game, known as Flying Shark in Japan. This listing is the loose cartridge only, with no box or manual.
You fly a biplane through five stages full of enemy fire. The A button fires your machine guns and the B button drops bombs, which destroy enemies within their blast radius. You can carry up to eight bombs, and the S power-up upgrades your gun up to six times.
Each stage ends with a landing, and any bombs you have left turn into bonus points. You earn an extra life every 50,000 points, up to eight lives. You get up to three continues, but continuing resets your score to zero. After stage five, the game loops back to the start.
The NES version of Sky Shark was released only in North America. It was the first NES game from Software Creations, an English studio, and its soundtrack is one of the earliest Tim Follin wrote for the system. Two players can share the game by taking turns, and you pick the mode with Select on the title screen. If you want a straightforward arcade shooter, this Sky Shark cartridge is easy to pick up and play.
Browse all NES games in our store. Software Creations also made Silver Surfer, and for more wartime planes see 1943: Battle of Midway. You can read more about Sky Shark on Wikipedia.
Who made Sky Shark for the NES?
Software Creations developed it, and Taito published it in North America in September 1989.
Is Sky Shark the same as Flying Shark?
Yes. Flying Shark is the name of Toaplan's 1987 arcade game, which was called Sky Shark in North America.
Can two people play?
Yes. Two players can play by taking turns.
Does this copy come with a box?
No. You get the loose cartridge only, with no box or manual.
Orders are dispatched within 2 business days. Standard US shipping is $4.99, and orders over $50 ship free. Returns are covered by our 30-day return policy.
Standard shipping is $4.99. Orders over $50 ship free.
Loose is the game cartridge only. Complete (CIB) includes the cartridge, the original box and the manual. Brand New is factory sealed. Choose one above; options shown in grey are not in stock right now.
strife82 –
Originally posted on Amazon.com · not a MarioShroomed purchase
By and Large the Worst NES Gaming Experience of My Life
There’s no real way to ease the reader into this, so I’ll be blunt…all things considered, this is the worst NES game I’d played in terms of being an overall product. Some titles are bad with regard to graphics, controls or gameplay issues, but Sky Shark is all of that, and more, on its own level through and through.
From the get-go, it’s a rather standard top-down scrolling shooter ala Xevious, 1943 or the even-numbered Life Force stages. Discerning gamers would find quite a few parallels between this and 1943, particularly the war theme, the method of dogfighting and the line of red planes that, when completely destroyed, will bestow power-ups. Throughout the game, you take on foes in the air (enemy planes), land (tanks) and sea (boats, aircraft carriers with AA artillery), all of whom are plentiful against your one lonesome jet, and as a result it ends up being a pretty hard game to play. It only takes one hit to destroy your plane (yet thankfully there are a number of checkpoints throughout the stages) and as such it makes the difficulty curve a bit out of your favor, for while you die in that singular hit and can are able to take out other enemies in a span of one to three hits total, there are a LOT of them coming you way, and many of the larger foes take a boatload of punishment before being felled. Larger planes, huge tanks, guns on aircraft carriers, all of which can fill the entire screen with nigh-unavoidable bullets that will kill you dead with so much as a brushing.
If any saving grace in this grave scenario is to be had, it’s that you can maneuver your plane quickly and smoothly. The controls are responsive and sleek, enabling you to somehow worm your way through the frenzied labyrinth of enemy fire. And when it comes to actually fighting the enemies, your main weapons are…missiles? I think? Whatever those odd gold projectiles are you can fire them at will, as many as you need, though without a turbo controller your thumb is sure to get pretty tired. The aforementioned red plane lines will provide you with “S” power ups that will multiply the amount and spread of your golden missile things each time you pick one up, thereby upping your offensive potential, but you will also lose that powering-up upon being killed.
You have an unlimited supply of projectile-missile-thingies, as well as a few bombs that will wipe out an entire screenful of smaller enemies (AND their bullets!) and severely damage larger war machines. These are limited, however, and while you’ll find ancillary bomb pick up items after destroying specific enemies or guns you won’t find a whole lot all throughout the stages as a whole, maybe two or three at best, so it’s definitely best to hold onto them until you end up face-to-face with a boss-type foe or you’re almost completely swarmed and you need a last-ditch bout of help.
It all sounds pretty standard and exciting for some, but not for me…at first, the high difficulty level left me apprehensive, but during one particularly good gaming session I soldiered on, all the way to the end of the fifth and final stage. I did it! I beat it! But…wait…no. It doesn’t end. You start back on Stage 2 and enter an INFINITE LOOP! Only this time, it’s even HARDER! There’s no closure, no real definitive end, just a constant Purgatory of Top Gun-era dogfighting and ultimate frustration. Upon learning this, I lost my last life and continue, dropped my control and never went back. And I never will. It was EASILY the worst swerve a game has ever given me, one that I find rather unforgivable. You may think I’m being too hard on it, or I’m overreacting, but I’d NEVER felt so angry at a game in all my life, even the most impossibly hard ones. No saving grace, no turning back.
Oh, and one more thing…hitting A after you die will skip the “GET READY!” text on the screen and jump you right back into the game, but keep an eye on the amount of lives you have, for hitting A during the “Continue?” screen will negate the option and end the game right then and there. I learned THAT the hard way…
All in all this was at one time an odd little guilty pleasure I busted out every now and again, but the sudden swerve at the end completely killed it for me. I’ve been through my fair share of inexorably difficult NES games, but none of them have ever aggravated me as much as THIS. Any interested parties, be forewarned…