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. For more information about how the password system operates, please see the Password system page.
- 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[edit]
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:
→ 
→ repeat → 
- → → →
→ repeat → - → → → → →
→ repeat → - → → → → → → →
→ repeat → - → → → → → → → → →
→ repeat → - → → → → → → → → → → →
→ repeat →
- 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.
| Stat level: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENERGY LEVEL maximum energy | 64 | 70 | 80 | 100 | 120 | 140 |
| SPEC'L WEAPON item unlocked |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| SW TIME LIMIT time increase | +20 | +30 | +40 | +50 | +60 | +70 |
| SW TIME LIMIT maximum time | 60 | 72 | 84 | 96 | 108 | 110 |
Items[edit]
Red Fighter[edit]
The POW icon appears first, and between every weapon that you can collect. Grab it to restore 8 units of fuel to your energy meter.
Like the arcade, the shotgun is a short-ranged weapon that fires a spreading blast with low power, but possesses the ability to destroy enemy projectiles. Similarly, it can be upgraded for improved range and speed by collecting the Shot Gun icon twice in a row.
Allows the player's fighter to fire a three-way spreading shot that is useful for shooting down multiple enemies at a time. It's also a practical tool for revealing the location of invisible items. Holding fire down produces and short auto-fire effect, just long enough for your lasers to charge.
Rapid-fire, large-caliber machine guns. Easy to use and are more powerful than the standard guns. Eights shots are fired when the fire button is held down. After that, the laser is charged, so you must released the button to fire the lasers, and press it again to continue firing.
Fires high-damaging shells in a straight line with no spread. Powerful, but must be aimed to be useful. Shells will fire continuously while the fire button is held down until the lasers are charged up. Then you must released the button to fire the lasers, and press it again to continue firing.
Upon reaching Special Weapon level 5, you unlock the ability to make large energy tanks appear. Collecting one of these restores 32 units of energy.
Collecting this cat allows you to continuously fire lasers without the need to charge up. In the arcade you had to find this hidden item to benefit from it. In the NES version, it unlocks as a possible weapon when you max out your Special Weapon stat with six points.
If an item icon is shot enough times, you will eventually get an energy tank. Collecting an energy tank restores 12 units of energy. However, you must loop through every weapon twice before it reveals itself. Once present, shooting it will not cause it to change into anything else.
Other[edit]
Equips the plane with two drones that add to the amount of projectiles with certain weapon upgrades (particularly the Auto, Shell, and Laser power-ups), making for extra firepower. However, they can be destroyed by enemy fire in a few hits.
Collecting a Yashichi will completely restore all of the Super Ace's energy meter. Sometimes it is hidden and must be revealed by shooting it's location. Other times they are left behind by enemy fighters under rare circumstances.
Barrels provide you with 16 extra seconds to your Special Weapon timer.
Collecting a star will completely fill up your special weapon timer to the maximum of your current Special Weapon Time Limit stat.
Shoot hidden spaces on certain stages to make a bamboo appear (typically the last boat that appears when you're high up in the air). Collecting one will give you an extra stat point to distribute.
Considerably rarer than Bamboo shoots, three stages contain a hidden Dragonfly. This lucky items grants you two extra stat points to distribute. Be on the lookout for them.
If you manage to reveal a hidden Elephant, collect it to receive 16 units of energy.
Hidden cows are hard to find, but if you see one, pick it up and you'll receive 32 units of energy.
Finding Mobi-chan from Hyper Dyne Side Arms is lucky indeed. Collecting one grants you both 32 extra units of energy and 32 extra seconds of Special Weapon Time.
Stages[edit]
- You can find Bamboo on stages: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23 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, 21 and 22.