Astro Flash December 22, 1985 // Sega Mark III
Hilariously titled TransBot in English-speaking territories, you'll never believe this, but this game features a plane that transforms into a robot. Crazy, I know. Astro Flash is actually a very nicely-made horizontal shooter that has some of the best graphics of any game I've played from this year. It's not true parallax since nothing overlaps, but it uses multiple layers of background scrolling at different speeds to give the illusion of it, and it looks really nice. The power-up system is also fun: shoot the resupply truck to start a roulette at the top of the screen, and you can get one of seven different power-ups, including the one that turns your plane into a robot. The main issue is that the game is disappointingly short: a single loop takes less than 20 minutes to complete, and although the backgrounds change, it is essentially only two levels long.
