Vertical Force

Gameplay is similar to Hudson's Star Soldier series, featuring power-up items that increase the player's abilities and parallax scrolling. The player can move their ship further into the background to avoid enemies and obstacles in the way. Development was directed by Hitoshi Okuno, with music composed by both Shōji Tomii and Minoru Endō. The team originally planned to make the game a third-person rail shooter in the vein of Space Harrier, however the thought of similar games being released for the console later on instead caused it to become a vertical-scrolling shooter. It was shown off at the 1995 Winter Consumer Electronics Show under the working name Shoot'Em Up!. The game received mixed reviews from critics; some praised the game's 3D effects and detailed graphics, while others criticized its lack of originality and for enemy bullets being hard to see due to the console's limited color palette.

• Title — Vertical Force • Developer — Hudson Soft • Director — Hitoshi Okuno • Composer — Shōji Tomii Minoru Endō • Platforms — Virtual Boy • Genre — Scrolling shooter • Modes — Single-player

• Illustration — In-game screenshot, showing the Ragnarok fending off enemy ships. Akin to all games on the Virtual Boy, it uses a red and black color palette for its graphics. Vertical Force is a vertical-scrolling shooter video game. The player controls a starship, the Ragnarok, and must destroy the malfunctioning supercomputer on the human colony planet Odin before it annihilates Earth. The Ragnarok must shoot down oncoming enemy fighters and avoid their projectiles and other obstacles within the stages. The Ragnarok can also sustain multiple hits before being destroyed. Some enemies will drop power capsules that can be collected to strengthen the Ragnarok's abilities, such as a wide shot, a piercing laser, and a shield. Collecting additional power capsules will increase the abilities further, such as making the projectiles stronger or the shield be able to take additional hits. The Ragnarok has the ability to switch altitude into the background, which is used to avoid incoming obstacles from different planes. Enemies will also change their behavior if the Ragnarok is at a different altitude. Throughout stages, the player can find small crafts known as AI Drones, which when collected will help the Ragnarok destroy enemies, each featuring different weapon types. Drones can be damaged if they are hit enough times by enemies, which lets the player store them into a "reserve" box to repair them and allow the Drone to be used again. Multiple Drones can be stored in the reserve space, and can be deployed into battle at any time. Drones can also be used as smart bombs, destroying all enemies on-screen. The game is composed of five stages, made up of starfields, mechanical bases and tunnels. Each stage features a boss at the end that must be defeated, some requiring the player to switch to the background to inflict damage. Most stages will also involve fighting a mech-like robot miniboss named Bratt, who will learn the player's abilities as the game progresses and gradually become stronger. The player can save their high-scores to an entry table upon losing all of their lives, however these scores are wiped when the system is turned off.

Vertical Force was developed and published by Hudson Soft for the Virtual Boy on August 12, 1995 in Japan. It was later released in North America on December 1, 1995, where it was published by Nintendo. It was Hudson's only other game released for the system, alongside a port of their PC Engine puzzle game Panic Bomber. It uses a red-and-black color scheme for its graphics, just like all other games for the console, alongside parallax scrolling to simulate a 3D effect. The development team originally planned to make the game a third-person rail shooter in the vein of Space Harrier, however the thought of similar games being released for the console later on instead caused it to become a vertical-scrolling shooter. It was presented at the 1995 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, under the working title Shoot'Em Up!. The game was directed by Hitoshi Okuno, and composed by both Shōji Tomii and Minoru Endō. On May 14, 2026, Vertical Force was re-released via the Nintendo Classics service.