Hey Arcaders!
Konami built a time machine… three years before Doc Brown did! Time Pilot is a very unique shooter with a time travel twist that keeps people coming back for more!
Players assume the role of a pilot of a futuristic fighter jet trying to rescue fellow pilots trapped in different time eras. In each level, players battle enemy aircraft and then a stronger aircraft. Players’ fighter jet is in the center of the screen at all times. Players eventually battle a mothership of the time period they are in; once the mothership is defeated, they move onto the next time period. Parachuting pilots will occasionally appear and award players points if collected.
There are five levels: 1910, 1940, 1970, 1982/1983, and 2001. After the fifth level is finished, the game repeats thereafter.
Extra lives are given at 10,000 points, and per 50,000 scored up to 960,000; thereafter, the game goes to “survival of the fittest” mode.
Fighters are destroyed if they collide into bullets, enemy ships, or missiles. Game ends if the last fighter is destroyed.
This was the first game Konami released under Centauri. Most Arcaders know what an a affinity I have with this company- I own a Swimmer arcade machine! These are beautiful (and heavy) cabinets! I even owned a Time Pilot a long time ago.
Enough about that… Let’s get to the gameplay!
Tons of ports of Time Pilot were avaiable from Coleco!
in the early 2000s, plug and play games were all the rage- Majesco released their version of Konami Collection. It was a NES on a chip, making this port of Time Pilot the first NES version of the game.
A SNES remake of the arcade classic has existed since 1995 but was only included as an unlockable game in Ganbare Goemon 4. This was not released outside of Japan and the player had to complete the game 100% to play it.
A patch makes Time Pilot 95 a standalone game for SNES and adds further improvements:
- A new title screen based on the 1982 arcade game with a high score counter
- The game loops back to the first level after beating the final boss (like the 1982 arcade original)
Get the patch here!
You can now play the arcade original on your modern systems through the Arcade Archives. No relation.
Have you ever Played Time Pilot? Have you ever gotten to the UFO stage and beyond?
Let me know in the comments!
Keep Playin’ Like It’s 1981!
The Arcade Archives! 