CHIKYUU BOUEI
MIRACLE FORCE
(UNRELEASED X-68000 SHOOTING GAME)

Sharp's X-68000 computer series was all about powerful specs and versatility. So much, that it soon became the home platform for arcade games, on a level that, not only was above Nintendo, NEC and Sega's contemporary TV systems, it also surpassed the ulterior Fujitsu's FM Towns computer series in many regards. Even Sharp itself bought the rights from Konami to launch the X-68000 with a port of Gradius bundled with the computer's system disk — there's hardly a better way to let the people know your intentions. It was the first of a prominent list of shooting games which would populate the computer's soft catalog, both, as ports of arcade titles and as original pieces which, most of the times, would never be released on any other system. Chikyuu Bouei Miracle Force was going to be one of the latter according to April 1995 issue of Oh! X magazine. Developed by Cybertech Custom —authors of Metal Orange EX and Carat, as well as Chip-chan Kick! for the PC-FX, later on—, it seemingly reached a near-completion form and never got a release due to being a bit late for the platform by then. The game, consisting on seven stages, would have let us pick between three airships, each with a main and a secondary fire. It supported vertically-mounted monitors —it would have been the first to do it, other than arcade ports—, HDD install and 16-MHz CPU for the full experience. Nothing else was ever said about it after that, though.