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1943: The Battle of Midway for NES (Last Updated 3/24/21)

In case you don’t know 1943 is an overhead shoot’em up where you fly a P-38 Lighting against Japanese ships and planes in World War II and “NES” stands for “Nintendo Entertainment System.” It can only be played 1 player.

In real life the Battle of Midway happened in 1942 (June 4-7), not in 1943, and surprisingly even though the game was made by Japanese people the goal in the game is to destroy Japanese ships and planes.

While some arcade games are the same for NES as the same title for the arcade machine just with less good graphics, this one is very different. Both are overhead shoot’em ups flying a P-38 Lighting against Japanese ships and planes in World War II and both in the arcade version and NES version there’re power-ups, but only in the NES version is there the ability improve the player’s plane by permanently upgrading certain aspects of its abilities. Another difference is the enemies are in different places, you encounter bosses on different levels, and the power-ups are in different places and do different things. Also the arcade version of 1943 can be played 2 players at the same time.

1943 for NES is the sequel to 1942 for NES and just like 1943 for NES differs greatly from the arcade machine of the same name, 1942 for NES also differs greatly from the arcade machine of the same name but both are 2 players alternating (you can’t play 2 players simultaneously). 1943 for NES is better than 1942 for NES in every way, there’s a password for every level except the last one, the game play is better, and even the music is better (and in 1943 the music turns from happy and upbeat to dark and scary when you are getting close to a boss and there’s also a second type of dark and scary music when your energy runs too low to warn you.) Also 1942 is the only game we have seen where the turbo on a turbo controller doesn’t work right, so if you use turbo for shooting it will actually make your plane shoot much slower than if you just rapidly pressed shoot. While 1942 has no password feature it does have Game Genie codes. All versions of 1943 and 1942 have an infinite number of continues which is nice.

The different ways you can play this game are: buy the standalone NES cartridge and it should work in any system that plays NES games. Buy the Ultimate NES Remix 154 in 1 Multicart for NES or the Super Games 150 in 1 Multicart for NES (where it’s titled “1943” and they both also have the NES version of 1942 except the NES version of 1942 is missing some numbers and letters) and they work in original NES systems and all Retron systems except the Retron 5 and they’re what we have and they work great in our Retron 2. It’s not on the Super Game 500 in 1 Multicart for NES (but the NES version of 1942 is except it’s missing some numbers and letters), the Super Game 400 in 1 Multicart for NES (but the NES version of 1942 is except it’s missing some numbers and letters), The 100 Best Videogames 143 in 1 Multicart for NES, the Unlicensed Collection 142 in 1 Multicart for NES, or the Pocket Games 30 in 1 Multicart for NES. Capcom Classics Collection Volume 1 for PS2 and XBOX have the arcade version of 1943, as well as the arcade version of 1942, and the only version of 1943 Kai. 1943 Kai is 2 players at the same time and it’s an overhead shoot’em up very similar to 1943 except you don’t pilot a P-38 Lighting, you pilot a Boeing Stearman E75 N68828 biplane.

For this game you really want to have a turbo controller, otherwise your right thumb will get tired of pressing the B button over and over, and SurvivalPartyStore.com sells them. For those of you that don't know, “turbo” is where when you hold the button down it acts as if the button were being pressed as fast as it can be pressed, and “turbo” is also known as “rapid-fire.”

The 5 Plane Permanent Upgrade Categories Are:
Offensive Pwr (The more of this you have the more your shots hurt enemies.)
Defensive Pwr (The more of this you have the less stuff hurts you.)
Energy Level (The more of this you have the more energy time that your plane can store.)
Spec’l Weapon (Each additional point of this you have creates an additional special weapon you can pick from except the 5th one of these is an energy power-up.)
SW Time Limit (The more of this you have the more special weapon time your plane can store.)

You start on the first level with a default and unchangeable one point for each of the 5 plane permanent upgrade categories and then 3 additional points you can choose where they go and a good way to go is one on Spec’l Weapon to get our favorite weapon and then the rest on Energy Level and/or SW Time Limit. In the game there’s a potential maximum of 6 points per category.

The cycle of the Pows if you have all 6 special weapon points is (and for these we don’t know the official names for them so we just put here what we call them): Pow then blocking weapon, then Pow then our favorite weapon, then Pow then missile, then Pow then bomb, then Pow then lots of energy, then Pow then cat (lasers), and then it cycles through the whole sequence a second time and after that ends with extra energy that gives you more energy than a Pow but less energy than a lots of energy.

With the first special weapon it’s the only weapon that destroys enemy shots it collides with for both the side angle shots and forward shots. The side angle shots don’t go the full length of the screen though. It’s also the only weapon that if you get 2 it does something different for the weapon itself because if you get one the shots don’t go out as far as if you get 2. You can’t kill stuff as fast as the second weapon though because some of your shots are being canceled out by the impacts of incoming shots and because the side angle shots don’t reach across the whole screen and those 2 reasons also make it harder to find hidden power-ups. The first special weapon is probably the best for novices who don’t have their incoming-shot-dodging-skills that good yet. Our favorite special weapon is the second one though since it shoots out side angle shots for the whole length of the screen in addition to shooting forward and it’s the only weapon that does that.

The closer to the top of the screen you are the faster your shots come out, and the farther from the top of the screen the slower your shots come out.

You can make your plane fire a more powerful shot by holding B until you hear a beep and release it. This shot is always the same and always fires just straight ahead regardless of what special weapon you have or even if you don’t have a special weapon. Also you can hold this more powerful shot for as long as you want before releasing it.

The A button will cause lighting to be released which hurts everything on the screen including you (unless your energy level is at 0), causes enemy shots to disappear, and will temporarily freeze whatever is not destroyed. You can still release lighting even when your energy is at 0 and only then it doesn’t hurt you at all but you can only do it so many times and it doesn’t tell you how many you have left so use it sparingly.

Walkthrough for the 2 Last Levels in the Game Listing All Hidden Power-Ups:
About a quarter way through level 23 there’s a 1 point plane upgrade on the left. Then you fight 3 giant planes one after another: Ayako I, II, and III. About a quarter way through the first half of level 24 there is a star (full special weapon time limit) on the right and at the very end of the first half of level 24 a 2 point plane upgrade on left (If you already maxed out your plane upgrades it just makes a noise if you get it and neither helps you nor hurts you). At the beginning of the close to water half there’s a star in the middle. Then a battleship. Then an elephant (energy) on the left and immediately after that a star on right. Then an aircraft carrier. Then a cow (energy) on the left and immediately after that there’s a star on the right. Then a battleship/aircraft carrier hybrid. Then another aircraft carrier. Then one cruiser on the left and at the same time a cruiser on the right (the easiest way to get by is pick one and attack just it and let the other one just cruise by and just stay out of range of the shots of the cruiser you chose not to attack). Then you’re finally to the boss of the whole game, the biggest battleship in the game: Totaku.

Some other game code sites say there’s a “super password” that will give you maximum everything for plane upgrades and you will start on the last level. The truth is that password (TY19U) will only give you all maximum upgrades except one special weapon and you won’t start on the last level (24), you will start at the second to last level (23) and there’s no password in existence for the last level, it doesn’t give you one. At the beginning of level 23 there’s a plane upgrade on the left side of the screen to fill that one missing special weapon upgrade up too if you want to fill that up too, if not it’s just an extra weapon to have to shoot the power up more to get the power up that you want. There also is a password creation guide on another game code site, but every password we tried creating using it didn’t work even though we followed the instructions correctly.

Level Select Codes:
Level Password
1 03D07 (One plane upgrade for special weapon and 2 for special weapon time limit.)
2 73Q17
3 E3QG3
4 L3QG3
5 S3QG3
6 Z3QG3
7 I3QG3
8 P3QG3
9 W3QG3
10 33QG3
11 A3QG3
12 H3QG3
13 U3QG3
14 53QG3
15 K3QG3
16 F3QG3
17 13QG3
18 63QG3
19 83QG3
20 D3QG3
21 M3QG3
22 R3QG3
23 TY2NU (Maximum everything for plane upgrades except one special weapon time limit.)
24 (This is the last level and no password exists for it.)

Game Genie Codes (for North American version):

30 power points: TOSNLLLE
20 power points: GOSNLLLA
10 power points: ZESNLLLE
Start on mission 5: AEVYZLAE
Start on mission 10: ZOVYZLAA
Start on mission 15: GOVYZLAE
Start on mission 20: TXVYZLAA
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