Cross Strait Independence initially began life as a game that was exclusively available for the Famicom. It was manufactured and sold at the end of July and first week of August 2019, making it a candidate as the first homebrew game with a commercial release that made use of the popular NESmaker game engine.
 
Over the course of several months, the game was sold in limited venues online as well as in advertisements in magazines. Due to the extremely limited edition, very few copies of the game were sold. For the first time ever, Cross Strait Independence made its way to the 72-pin NES.
 
As the name suggests, Cross Strait Independence depicts a hypothetical battle between Taiwan and China. The game takes place over a variety of areas in Taiwan including Kenting, the port in Kaohsiung, Changhua, a railyard in Hsinchu, and Taipei. A route is also enabled, cutting through Chiayi and over the mountains, entering Taipei from the east.
 
Gameplay wise, Cross Strait Independence is a shmup. It was purposely designed as a kusoge, a Japanese term used for low-quality video games marked by bugs, clumsy design, or technical issues, which nevertheless may develop a cult following due to their strange appeal, unexpected entertainment value, or amusingly broken mechanics. The game is challenging, infuriating at times, and ridiculous by design. Sometimes you are shooting at flags or enemy words of text bearing political messages, and other times you are dodging betel nut trees, monkeys chewing betel nuts, and the dead, bloated carcasses of pigs that were inflected with swine flu. The game was designed as a political statement somewhat along the lines of the notorious Super Famicom game, Hong Kong 97.
 
The title screen in the NES version of Cross Strait Independence has been updated to reflect the change of political leaders on the island.
 
Please note: This is a limited release game. Only 100 copies of the game will be produced (individually numbered). Once they're gone, they're gone. Grab a piece of NESmaker history today!