Forgotten Worlds

Forgotten Worlds (Lost Worlds in Japan) is a Sci Fi-themed Shoot'Em Up Arcade Game developed by Capcom in 1988, as the very first game released on their popular CPS-1 arcade board. The game makes use of a rotating control scheme known as "Roll Switch" that allows aiming at any of the eight directions, something of a novelty back then, as well as a system of suporting satellites that adds a large variety of different weapon options (from Reflecting Lasers to napalm bombs). These weapons are purchasable from shops that literally raise from the ground/walls, attended by a girl named Sylphie, using zennies collected from defeated Mooks.

Set in the 29th Century, the story starts with a Galactic Conqueror and God of Evil and Destruction known as BIOS, who has created 8 evil gods and went on conquering and destroying worlds, turning them into husks of their former selves. Eventually, Earth is targeted and suffers the same fate, becoming a warren wasteland known as the "Dust World". The few humans that have survived decide to fight back by raising and training two childs into Badass Super Soldiers. This works wonders, and the two now adult Nameless Soldiers embark on a quest to defeat BIOS.

The game was quite succesful back then, getting ported to many consoles and home computers of the time, including the Mega Drive port (which has to cut a few things, like voiceovers and 2 stages) and the later TurboGrafx-16 port (which removed 2 player co-op, but included a bunch of bonus features). The main characters were also brought somewhat reguarly in several of the company's Crossover games.

"Sylphie: Thank you so mach."
 * An Ice Pers-ehh, Thing: Iceman, Stage 7 boss.
 * Ancient Egypt: The setting of Stages 4 trough 6, the Pyramid World.
 * The Archer: The Glyph Mooks, recurrent enemies in the Egypt-based stages.
 * Arms Dealer: Sylphie.
 * Asteroids Monster: Some enemies in later stages.
 * Badass: The Unknown Soldiers.
 * Background Boss: Stage 3 boss, War God.
 * Big Bad: BIOS, King of Gods.
 * Blind Idiot Translation: The ending has some humorous examples.


 * Raijin and Fujin (Stage 8 bosses) were mangled into Laidin and Whodin.
 * Bubbly Clouds: The Sky World, setting for Stage 7 and 8.
 * Captain Ersatz: Laidin and Whodin resemble Raiga and Fuga from Fist of the North Star.
 * Cool Shades
 * Color-Coded Multiplayer: Player 1 in blue and Player 2 in red. However, their sprites are not only different (Player 2 wears a tank top and has a mohawk hair style), their weapons are as well. Player 1 uses a long-range automatic rifle, while Player 2 wields a short-range wide shot.
 * Crossover: "Unknown Soldier 1P" appears as a challenger in the quiz game Adventure Quiz: Capcom World and its sequel. Sylphie and the Dust Dragon appear in the sequel as well, the former as the "INN attendant" and the latter as one of the three dragon bosses.
 * Capcom vs. Whatever: Unknown Soldier 1P is one of several Assist Characters selectable in Marvel vs. Capcom Clash of the Superheroes. One stage also has background cameos of bosses Raijin & Fujin as well as Final Boss BIOS. Both soldiers and Sylphie make the jump to playable characters in Namco X Capcom.
 * Crapsack World: Earth is a wasteland ruled by a cult of reptilian humanoids and humanity is almost extinct.
 * Dual Boss: Raijin & Fujin.
 * Dub Name Change: The Mega Drive manual changed Sylphie's name to Mirabella.
 * Dungeon Shop: One has to wonder how Sylphie was able to set up a shop that magically raises from beneath the ground just as the soldiers come by...
 * Enemy Summoner: The Dust Dragon generates Reptilian Mooks from his mouth.
 * Eternal Engine: The first stage eventually gets into one of these, with giant gears and pipes that release a blast of fire when shot.
 * Evil Tower of Ominousness: The Tower of Babel (a.k.a. BIOS' lair) seen in the background of the Raijin and Fujin Boss Fight.
 * Expy: Two P. from Final Fight was modeled after the Player 2 character of this game. Even Two P.'s name is a reference to him (Two P.= 2P).
 * Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Among the evil gods we have representatives from Classical Mythology (War God), Egyptian Mythology (God Rah/Mesketit and the Sphynx) and Japanese Mythology (Fujin & Raijin). And then there are the giant dragons, humanoid reptile cultists, floating martial artists, ice monsters, humongous undead buddhist monks...and cyborg Tutankamen.
 * Flight: The Unknown Soldiers and several human Mooks fly throughout the game. In the former's case, thanks to gravity equipment.
 * Galactic Conqueror
 * Hair of Gold: Sylphie.
 * Homing Projectile: Homing Missiles and Homing Lasers are among the Satellites to purchase.
 * Ki Attacks: Martial artist-esque Mooks attack with this.
 * Lizard Folk: The Reptilian Thugs, early stage Mooks and religious followers of the War God.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent
 * Macross Missile Massacre: Not actually missiles, but BIOS has one attack in which he sends a shower of difficult-as-hell-to-avoid homing lasers upon the player.
 * Market-Based Title: While the original arcade game was titled Lost Worlds in Japan, all the console ports (including the version in Capcom Classics Collection) were all titled Forgotten Worlds in Japan, presumably due to trademark issues.
 * Mind Over Matter: The main power of the first boss, Paramecium.
 * More Dakka: It is a Shmup, after all.
 * The default Weapon of Choice given to the soldiers in all their cameos is the machine gun.
 * Multi-Armed and Dangerous: BIOS sports six arms.
 * No Name Given: Both player characters are only known as the "Nameless Ones". This is kept in their cameo appearances, usually going by the monicker of "Unknown Soldier" followed by 1P/2P to identify between them. The Japanese sources have slight variations at times, like "Nameless Super Soldier". The Mega Drive Japanese manual also refers to the 2P soldier as "Mohawk Man".
 * Orcus on His Throne: When the player reaches BIOS's chamber, he's non-chalantly sitting on his throne.
 * Our Dragons Are Different: The War God is shown using several western-styled dragons in the intro. One serves as the boss of Stage 2, named the Dust Dragon, which for some reason is half-beaten and missing some patches of flesh (including the whole stomach).
 * Physical God: BIOS.
 * Pinball Projectile: The Bound satellite.
 * Powered Armor: The soldiers start battle shirtless, and get their more iconic armored look after picking up armor upgrades which provides limited protection.
 * Segmented Serpent: Worms in Stage 2, dragons in Stage 7/8 and the boss of Stage 5, Centipede.
 * Shock and Awe: Raijin and Fujin conduct electricity between them as one of their attacks.
 * Shout-Out: There's an amusement park in the story mode of SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash which is filled with references to the game: it's named "Lost World", its theme music is from the game's first stage, several in-game weapons are exhibited and appears as a card seller.
 * The alt color for the Unknown Soldier in Marvel vs. Capcom Clash of the Superheroes is one to his 2P buddy.
 * Super Soldier
 * Token Minority: Unknown Soldier 2P.
 * Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: The Burner satellite.
 * Walking Shirtless Scene: The two characters without the armor pickup, and second-to-last bosses Raijin & Fujin.
 * Winged Humanoid: BIOS.
 * Good Wings, Evil Wings: Subverted. The very evil BIOS has...white featherly wings.