#level editors

If you live in the States, odds are good you may have never encountered or heard of Battle City. However, if you had access to an aforementioned pirate cart, or a bootleg miniconsole, you've probably played or seen this game in one of its numerous, illicit incarnations. That's because Battle City is apparently one of the most bootlegged NES games in existence, at least if Battle City's trivia page on MobyGames is to be believed!

There's likely two simple reasons for this:

The game is very small, both in terms of gameplay and content, making it easy to change into something else.

More importantly, it includes a level editor!

(A custom level by yours truly.)

That's right, like a lot of early games, Battle City includes a built-in level editor that can be accessed from the main menu. Building a level is pretty simple: use the A and B buttons to both cycle through and place parts on a 13x13 game board, then hit Start and begin a new game to play it. Sadly, levels can't be saved, so once you beat your custom level or get a game over, it's gone for good. Not being able to read Japanese, I can't say whether the editor was heavily advertised, but it does add a bit of longevity to an otherwise simplistic tank game.

In terms of gameplay, Battle City is pretty basic. You play as a tank whose goal is to eliminate 20 enemy tanks on a given level, all the while protecting your base at the bottom of the screen. If the base is destroyed, it's an instant game over, regardless of how many lives you have left. There are a few different enemy types to complicate matters, as well as flashing red tanks that drop powerups, which you will definitely need to survive. The game is also littered with different terrain and block types, which have different effects, such as being destructible or impassable. In a bold move, the game includes a simultaneous two-player mode where both players defend their base and destroy tanks, although nonlethal friendly fire is in effect.

Besides being released on the Famicom, the game also appeared on a few other systems, such as the Game Boy and Sharp X1. The Game Boy and Arcade versions don't appear to have the editor included, but are otherwise competent ports of the game. Also worth noting is that Battle City is the second game in an unofficial trilogy, succeeding Namco's 1980 arcade release Tank Battalion, and being followed by Namco's Tank Force in 1991.

And that's really all there is to say about the game! It’s easy enough to find, and simple enough to pick up and play, so there's no real reason not to give it a try. And while it's not quite up to Lode Runner standards, it is a good introduction to level editors of the 1980s, being surprisingly powerful and easy to use.

Further Reading:

MobyGames page for Battle City (Where most of the screenshots were taken from)