MagMax

MagMax (マグマックス) is an arcade video game which was developed by Nihon Bussan and released in 1985 under its brand Nichibutsu. A horizontal scrolling shooter, players control the title hover ship in an attempt to completely construct the ship into a giant robot and to destroy any enemies attempting to stop it.

The three-headed mechanical dragon found as a boss character in the game, known as Babylon, strongly resembles Mecha-King Ghidorah from the Godzilla franchise.

Ports
The Nintendo Entertainment System version was published by Nihon Bussan in Japan on March 18, 1986 and by FCI in North America in October 1988. The game was also ported to the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC by Ocean Software and released on their Imagine label in 1987.

In 2015, an emulated version was released for the PlayStation 4 in the Arcade Archives series from Hamster Corporation, and was also released for Nintendo Switch in May 2020.

Reception
In Japan, Game Machine listed MagMax on their April 15, 1985 issue as being the second most-successful table arcade unit at the time.