City Connection have announced today that P-47 II MD, the Megadrive port of P-47: The Phantom Fighter will be released next year.
Originally released in 1988 for arcades by Jaleco, P-47 is a horizontal shoot’em up set during World War 2 where the player controls a P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft and travels through 6 different countries in order to stop the war.
The game was ported to various system after the arcade release but the Megadrive version, that was in production, was suddendly cancelled in 1990.
While this version is based on the 1988 arcade, it features a completely new game system, weapons, stages, and bosses (that’s what the “II” in the title means) and a Sound Test Mode.
Through the video are showed some weapons available in the game:
– Bomb, a ground attack effective against enemies at close range
– Wingmans, two small airplanes that can be deployed above and below the player’s controlled aircraft and can destroy enemies with long range shots
– Missile, a guided missile used to track down enemies and destroy them
– Guard, deploys a barrier to block enemy bullets but can be also used as a direct attack
– Hyper, the classic smart bomb that clear the screen from enemies but at a cost of 1 energy life
The entire soundtrack also has been re-arranged making it a special version for Megadrive.
P-47 II MD will be released in physical form with the classic case box and a Megadrive cartridge (unfortunately seems like a manual game will not be included) on 3 March 2025 and will be obviously playable on original Megadrive and Megadrive 2 systems.
You can watch the promotional trailer here: