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castfant: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Astro Fantasia (c) 1981 Data East.

This is a "Galaga" style vertical shoot'em up with a few unique twists that make it interesting. You pilot a single fighter ship against an armada of enemies (sound familiar?). There are 2 different play screens that alternate :

The opening screen uses pseudo 3-D graphics and has a large red bit of what appears to be machinery (or perhaps part of a very large spaceship) as background on the bottom half of the screen. You can move your ship around anywhere on the red background, but the black area beyond is off limits. The game opens with a large mothership craft visible at the top of the screen, but your shots cannot reach it at this point. Red UFOs quickly begin attacking you, swooping in line formations from the top area of the screen. They actually scale in size as they get closer to you (a nice effect for a 1981 raster title). By moving around you will discover that the screen can scroll upwards quite a bit, and the enemy armada comes into view if you get near the top of your area. The armada consists of several rows of ships in classic "Space Invaders" style, except for the fact that they are tiny. You can quickly blast the armada away, as you have twin shots on this opening screen, and you can have several sets of them on screen at once (it really only takes a few seconds to take out the armada). After the armada is gone, the mothership begins spewing out groups of red UFOs (who make suicide runs at your ship), and a new green ship that actually fires at you. Be sure and shoot these green ships quickly, as they split into 3 separate enemies once they reach your movable territory. Eventually the mothership will stop spewing fighters at you, and the entire screen will scroll up (taking you completely away from your red 'home base'), and the game will begin the second wave.

The second wave pits you against the mothership directly. You will find that your multi shot is gone, and you can only have one shot on the screen at a time. The mothership has 3 areas that must be blasted away (a 'spark' on each side, and then the center which takes several more hits than the sparks do). The mothership does not flash, or otherwise provide any feedback on a successful hit, but just blast away, and eventually you will get it.

After killing the mothership the game will award you bonus points based upon how much fuel you have left and then the game will begin again with increased difficulty.

- TECHNICAL -

DECO Cassette System hardware

Cassette No.07

Main CPU : M6502 (@ 750 Khz), M6502 (@ 500 Khz), I8X41 (@ 500 Khz)

Sound Chips : (2x) AY8910 (@ 1.5 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Vertical

Video resolution : 240 x 240 pixels

Screen refresh : 57.00 Hz

Palette Colors : 32

Players : 2

Control : stick

Buttons : 2

- TRIVIA -

Released in March 1981.

This particular title was only released on cassette tapes, and was made for the DECO Cassette System arcade platform. The Astro Fantasia tape held 32K of data on a two minute audio cassette. The marquee for this title shows an 'Astro Fantasia' logo in a 'space warp' type scene.

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.37b13 [Juergen Buchmueller, Al Kossow]

Artwork available

Bugs:

- Missiles color are wrong. MASH (ID 03901)

WIP:

- 0.145u1: Changed description to 'Astro Fantasia (DECO Cassette)'.

- 0.88u2: Changed description to 'Astro Fantasia (Cassette)'.

- 0.37b13: Juergen Buchmueller added 'Cassette: Astro Fantasia' (DECO 1981).

- 9th February 2001: Juergen Buchmueller sent in the first version of the DECO Cassette system driver, supporting Lock 'n Chase, Treasure Island, Super Astro Fighter, Astro Fantasia, Lucky Poker, Pro Golf and Mission X. The rest are either not yet dumped or use protection that has not been cracked yet.

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Astro Fantasia (DECO Cassette)

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Romset: 33 kb / 2 files / 16.0 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Astro Fantasia (DECO Cassette)</description>

<manufacturer>Data East Corporation</manufacturer>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</game>

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