PixlBit

Varth, released in arcades in 1992, is the final stop on our Capcom Classics journey. It's the last BaD for this year...and it's good! Varth is a vertical scrolling shooter that feels very much in line with Capcom's 194X series, though it shares no overt connections with that series, certainly no story ties. In the distant future the human colony on the planet Varth learns the hard way that you should never have a single supercomputer run everything for you. When a temporal-spatial consciousness seizes control and turns the planet's defenses against the humans, it's up to a couple of planes too old to be part of the network to save the day by blowing everything up. In practice this plays out like, well, XX42 or something. And that's a good thing!

A key difference: You can acquire a couple of invinsible pods that you can either have up front to protect you or circling you to home in on enemy shots (you have to pick a style when you first start the game). I went with the "smart" formation and it worked pretty well. Certainly helped keep me alive! The play area in Varth is quite large, bigger than the visible display, so the screen scrolls to the sides with you as everything moves forward. That's not my favorite but it works alright and means there can be a lot of bad guys on screen at a time. The game is also really long, coming in at 30 stages (I did not play them all; had to have time to type this up!).

Varth is a really solid shmup. Capcom had had years of practice by that point and it shows. Plus Yoko Shimomura helped with the soundtrack, so you know that's good!