Capcom's iconic shooting game series may owe a lot of its fame to its distinctive 'Pacific Theatre of Operations' setting, yet most of the praise should be given to its fast, hectic, and relentless style of play. Having started off well with the early arcade classic 1942 (1984), the series went stellar following its groundbreaking sequel 1943 (1987).
Although seemingly basic in its design, 1943 was full of depth, secrets and clever touches. It introduced a speedy, precise and rhythmic style of play that saw it rapidly become one of Capcom's most popular arcade games of the late 80s. It left a massive mark, and in many ways could be considered one of the pioneers of the 'Manic' shooting genre that is so prevalent today.
In fact it inspired a entire sub-genre, with a host of different developers paying tribute by both copying and improving on the recipe: Raiden (1990), Strikers 1945 (1995) and Battle Garegga (1996) all owe a massive debt.
To date, six games have been released in the series, with a spree of quality home versions in their wake. In 1998 the first three releases were beautifully compiled in the first volume of the Capcom Generation collection.
The fourth game, 1941 Counter Attack (1990), was only available on the PC Engine Supergrafx until recently, when it re-appeared in Capcom Classics Collection Vol.2 (2006), a PS2 and Xbox compilation that for some reason didn't get a Japanese release.
The last two entries, the excellent 19XX (1996) and the under-rated 8ing / Raizing co-operation 1944 (2000) remain arcade-only to this day.