1943: The Battle of Midway/NES Walkthrough

Of all home conversions of 1943, the NES version is the most altered. It includes the following changes:


 * The ability to customize and increase various stats of your fighter plane has been introduced. You begin with three points and can collect more by revealing hidden items that grant points.
 * Rather than 16 stages, the NES version has 24. After completing the 16th stage, it is revealed that the current enemy was a decoy and the main fleet has been discovered, leading to eight additional stages.
 * This version is for one player only. The two player cooperative play present in the arcade has been removed.
 * A password system allows players to start at the beginning of any stage they have a password for.
 * A laser can be fired by holding down the fire button to charge it up. Release the button after a sound indicates that the laser is ready to fire a very strong attack.
 * The names of the boss boats and aircraft have been changed to make them less Japanese in origin, and all vehicles have been altered to make their country of origin more ambiguous.

Indeed, as 1943 depicts the defeat of the Japanese by the Americans during World War 2, the Famicom conversion has toned down the relationship between the game and the war, going so far as to replace the subtitle with The Battle of Valhalla. Additionally, some elements from the rearranged 1943 Kai game were incorporated into this version, including different presentations for time of day on some stages, balancing the weapons a bit, and standardizing lasers as an option for special weapons.

Stats customization
In the beginning of the game, you are provided with three points to assign to five different statistics of your choice. Each stat starts out with one point, and can be assigned a maximum of six points. Throughout the course of the game, you have the opportunity to obtain more points to assign by shooting at the locations of hidden items long enough to reveal them and collect them. Bamboo shoots provide one extra point, while dragonflies gift you with two points. You will only find one such item in certain stages, and some stage contain no bonus points. The stats are as follows:


 * OFFENSIVE POWER: The strength of your weapons. As you get further into the game, enemy fighters take more and more damage to destroy.  Keep this stat elevated in order to blast through them with minimal effort.
 * DEFENSIVE POWER: When you take damage, your plane loses a bit of energy. The higher this stat is, the less energy you lose when you get hit.
 * ENERGY LEVEL: Your plane's energy level initially maxes out at 64 units. As you increase this stat, you enable your plane to store more and more energy at maximum, making you harder to kill.
 * SPECIAL WEAPON: The number of this stat determines which weapons will appear whenever you shoot the POW items that groups of red enemy fighters drop when they are completely destroyed. Based on this stat, you will see the following items as you shoot them:
 * 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Shotgun.png → repeat → 1943 NES item sprite Tank small.png
 * 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Shotgun.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite 3-Way.png → repeat → 1943 NES item sprite Tank small.png
 * 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Shotgun.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite 3-Way.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Auto.png → repeat → 1943 NES item sprite Tank small.png
 * 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Shotgun.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite 3-Way.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Auto.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Shell.png → repeat → 1943 NES item sprite Tank small.png
 * 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Shotgun.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite 3-Way.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Auto.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Shell.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Tank large.png → repeat → 1943 NES item sprite Tank small.png
 * 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Shotgun.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite 3-Way.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Auto.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Shell.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Tank large.png → 1943 NES item sprite Pow.png → 1943 NES item sprite Lasers.png → repeat → 1943 NES item sprite Tank small.png
 * SPECIAL WEAPON TIME LIMIT: At the beginning of the game, every time you collect a special weapon, 20 seconds are added to the special weapon timer, and you can only store a maximum of 60 seconds. As you increase this stat, both the amount of time added, and the maximum amount of time you can store increases.

Stages
You can find Bamboo on stages: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21 and 24. You can find a Dragonfly on stages 6, 10, and 16. There are no stat boosts to be found in stages 1, 18, 20, 22, and 23.

Password System
Passwords in the NES version of 1943 are composed of 5 characters. The position and value of each character has a specific meaning and can be translated and broken down as follows: To indicate which stage you want to start on, enter the correct character according to the table below as the first character:
 * First character - Stage

To indicate your plane's level of offense and defense when you begin playing after inputting the password, enter the character which corresponds to the correct combination of values:
 * Second character - Offense and Defense

To indicate which level of special weapons you have access to and how much energy you can store, enter the character which corresponds to the correct combination of values:
 * Third character - Special Weapon and Energy Level

The fouth digit only represents the number of points assigned to the Special Weapon Time Limit stat. Enter the correct character according to the following table:
 * Fourth character - Special Weapon Time Limit Level

You won't be able to enter just any combination of codes. The game restricts you so that you can't possibly enter a code that would result in a more powerful plane than you could naturally achieve by collecting all of the bamboo and dragonflies available to you up to the stage in the game you wish to enter. In order for your code to be valid, you must enter a combination of numbers such that the total number of stat points you ask for does not exceed the number of stat points available by a particular stage. To determine what the fifth character should be, add up the: With this total in mind, consult the following chart, and enter the character that corresponds to the number of points you have. But you must ensure that you do not ask to play on a stage that's below the minimum acceptable stage for the number of points you have.
 * Fifth character - Security checksum
 * Offensive power
 * Defensive power
 * Energy level
 * Special Weapon level
 * Special Weapon time limit level