izigame.me

1942 was an arcade phenomenon in 1984, and it is also the first Capcom game to spawn a successful franchise (the 19XX series). This old glory, though, aged like milk for me, and it feels less fun and more basic than Vulgus, Capcom's very first game.
The game looks quite nice for the time, with all the planes and the WW2 setting, but it lacks variety, having just a handful of enemy types and repetitive scrolling. From what I've seen, there are 30 or so stages and they are grouped in missions. Each stage of a mission has the exact same backgrounds, and when you do get to a different mission, the background is the only thing that changes a bit. The enemies remain the exact same, from what I've seen anyway. I have no desire to push through all the stages, also because the gameplay is incredibly limited. You have a basic shot and no bombs, but an evasive maneuver instead. You do have power ups, but their effects are middling at best.
The music is an unspeakble abomination from the lowest pits of hell. It's a rendition of a famous military march I've heard somewhere else before, but it's literally done with one (1) sound for percussion and one (1) note of screeching arcade whistle-like sound. It drills in your brain and never f*cking stops, even when changing mission! What irks me is that restarting after dying has a nice little jingle, so they COULD make different music, but they went for the militaristic ear torture instead. It probably was cool and warlike at the time, and probably effective too, but as far as I'm concerned it just made me wante to jump out of a plane irl.
Overall, 1942 feels very boring and barebones to me, with irritating music and too little variation to catch my interest. I'd take Vulgus over it any day.