Hellfire (ヘルファイヤー) is a 1989 arcade game developed by Toaplan. It was later ported to the Mega Drive and the PC Engine CD-ROM², the latter under the name Hellfire S. Hellfire S contained notable differences from the other versions, including a remixed, more orchestral soundtrack, animated cut scenes, and the replacement of the leading male character Lancer with a female character called Kaoru (voiced by voice actress Yumi Tōma).

Hellfire is a horizontally scrolling shooter, one of Toaplan's two alongside Zero Wing (compare to their library of vertical games).

Players take control of a small spaceship named the 'CNCS1' and manoeuvre through several different locations set in space. In similar fashion to many other space shooters of the late eighties and early nineties, the game is split up into a series of stages that automatically scroll along on a 2D plane as players destroy basic enemies, middle bosses part of the way through some of the stages, and a tougher boss at the end.

One of the more unique features found in Hellfire is the ability to fire in different directions by changing the colour of your ship. The CNCS1 ship individually cycles through the colours Pink, Yellow, Green and Blue.

• Pink fires missiles from the front in a horizontal state.
• Yellow allows the opposite, firing from the behind.
• Green has two guns firing at once, shooting above and below the ship vertically.
• Blue adds two more shots to this, firing four guns from each corner of the ship diagonally.

This firing system helps give Hellfire a more tactical edge to its gameplay, as different colours work more effectively in different situations. More experienced players can cycle through the different colours rapidly, making complete use of the four different firing types. To keep balance in the game, no matter which colour players pick for their ship they will always be vulnerable from one direction or another.

Hellfire also sports many upgrades and power-ups. that can be collected throughout stages, ultimately altering the ships appearance. The power-ups range from simply granting the player more firepower by upgrading the ships projectiles to adding an over shield, increasing defense. Once a life is lost however, all power-ups are removed and the CNCS1 ship reverts back to its most basic state.

Furthermore, the Mega Drive version contains a new "special weapon", a powerful laser. This weapon is stockpiled by collecting the appropriate icon, and fired with the C button.