Thunder Force III is a horizontal scrolling shooter developed by Technosoft and released for the Sega Mega Drive in 1990. It is the third game in the Thunder Force series.
Gameplay[]
At the start of the game, the player can select between 5 different stages.
- Hydra, a planet overrun by trees and roots. The boss of the stage is the Gargoyle, whose weak point is the stomach.
- Ellis, an icy planet. The boss of the stage is the Mobile Fort, whose weak point is the control unit.
- Haides, a rocky underworld planet where the floor rises and falls, threatening to crush the player's ship. The boss of the stage is G Lobster, whose weak point is its eye.
- Seiren, a planet submerged in water. The boss of the stage is King Fish, whose weak point is its eye
- Gorgon, a planet engulfed in flames. The boss of the stage is Twin Vulcan, whose weak point is the Search Radar.
The player only chooses the first stage, with the rest of the stages following in clockwise order.
After beating the first five stages, the player is sent to the 6th stage: the giant battleship Cerberus, which must be destroyed from the inside. The 7th Stage, the Orn Base, ends with a fight against a shielded boss. In the final stage, Orn Core, the player must destroy Cha OS.
The A button controls the player's speed, the B button fires the selected weapon and the C button switches weapons.
The weapons the player can use are
- Twin shot, returning from Thunder Force II. This weapon fires two lasers from the front of the ship. When upgraded with the red "S" power-up, the lasers turn wide, blue and change from simultaneous fire to alternating fire. With the CLAWs, both will also fire forwards.
- Back shot, also returning from Thunder Force II. By default, it fires one laser from the front of the ship and one behind the ship. When upgraded with the "L" power-up. The lasers take a flare shape, and a second laser is added to the back of the ship. The two back lasers fire from the upper and bottom half of the ship. With the CLAWs, both will also fire backwards
- Wave shot, which fires large waves of energy from the front of the ship. With the CLAWs, both will fire smaller wave guns in front. This weapon is obtained by collecting the "W" power-up
- Front shot, which fires one laser in front, and two missiles, one above the ship and one below. Similar to the missile in Gradius, the missiles here travel along the ground until they go off screen or hit an obstacle. With the CLAWs, they will fire two small wave projectiles, one in front and one behind. This weapon is obtained by collecting the "F" power-up.
- Homing Shot, which fires in front of the ship in a three-way spread. When enemies are on screen, the gun homes in on them.. With the CLAWs, they fire two additional streams of homing bullets. This weapon is obtained by collecting the "H" power-up.
The player can acquire a shield by collecting the blue "S" power-up. The shield will absorb some hits for the player, turning from blue to red before disappearing.