(also IMAGEFIGHT) is a 1988 vertically scrolling shooter arcade game developed and published by Irem. It was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, PC Engine (Japan-only), Sharp X68000 (Japan-only), and FM Towns (Japan-only) in 1990. Plot The following is taken directly from the NES instruction manual: On a fateful day in 20XX, the Earth's moon exploded into four large fragments and a multitude of meteors. Aliens from afar had succeeded in destroying the West's moon base. One after another, mankind's other military industrial space complexes were being lost. What mankind dreaded had come to pass. Scores of unidentified fighters were in the area. In addition, the moon's main computer, still intact after the explosion, had a strange vegetation coiled around it. Their trademark evil exploits being a dead giveaway, invaders from the Boondoggle Galaxy had arrived to take over the Earth. To counter these evil forces, leading scientists from all over the globe created the "OF-1" Fightership. Combat pilots depart the Earth to fend off the invaders and earn everlasting glory. Game play Image Fight was released one year after Irem's successful horizontal scroller, R-Type, and, although not directly related, the two games have some similarities. The player flies a futuristic red ship. R-Type Final identifies this ship as the OF-1 Daedalus, but it is not known if that was the ship's original name. However, the term OF-1 does appear in the NES version's instruction manual, as well as in the official artwork for the sequel, Image Fight II. The game appears to be set inside a holographic simulator, like the holodeck on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The game begins with five stages taking place inside a combat simulation, and the player's ability to destroy enemy entities is tested. Upon finishing a simulation stage, the game displays results and shows if their score is considered passing or failing. The player must have an average kill rate of 90% or better in the simulation stages to immediately proceed to real combat. If the player fails, they must play an additional stage before entering real combat. Real combat consists of three stages. The real combat stages play very much like a traditional shoot em' up game, where the player immediately proceeds to the next stage upon completing the current stage. Pods The defining feature of Image Fight is the Pod - a small, coloured sphere with two short gun barrels attached