I think i haven't review vertical
shooter game with outer space theme. Space
Bomber sounds like one due to word "Space" on the title but only penultimate
and final stage that take place in space. The rest of the stages are on earth.
Anyway, i play SNK's Alpha Mission II
(1991) for now.
The space fighter flies from that
planet earth so we can assume that we will play as earth defenders who fight
against evil aliens. Well, that premise isn't far from Space Bomber. There's no backstory in attraction mode so you have
to take a look on internet. Here's the one that i find on Mobygames: "In
the year 2525 [I reckon this is some lazy year number design], space is again
threatened. Only the legendary Super Jet Plane SYD can defeat the invading
armada and destroy the Fulvalence Groma [Nice naming design here]". Of
course there's the prequel of this game but i just lazily assume that
the prequel is more inferior that this one.
When i start the game, i have to
choose between these 2 control configuration. The first one map both air-to-air
and air-to-ground attack on one button while the other uses separate button for
those attacks. I'm lazy git so i choose the former type control, which is A
type.
Engineer_battlecry04.wav. The
fighter jet SYD takes off from mothership and it's pretty glorious to see.
The gameplay is simple as it gets.
You lineup with the enemies and shoot. Once your projectiles reach them, they
will take damage and then either destroyed or not. If you use the other control
setting, you will experience the Fighter & Attacker's gameplay of switching between two buttons to attack
enemies or press them both simultaneously everytime which is quite tedious. The
air-to-air weapon in this game is laser while the air-to-ground weapon one is
missile. The power-up item can be found from destroyed ground structure
. Its form is alphabet "L", "M", or "S" with
spinning frame as you can see on right side of the screen. You can change the
power up item by shooting it. After suffers some knock back, it will cycle to
aforementioned order. "L" power up increases laser weapon's power.
"M" power up increases missile weapon's power. "S" power up
increases ship's speed. You can shoot it further to make "G" icon
which increase G counter on left-bottom corner by 1. As the purpose of G
counter, i will talk about it later. Note that i say the power up come up from ground
structure? That means missile upgrade is very important.
As for this "K" icon, i
have no clue what's that for. But the game plays glorious chime when picked up
so it must be good. On later levels, i discover that this “K” power up will
save my upgrades. There’s this usual mechanic where your arsenal will return to
initial level when your ship destroyed but with this “K” item your arsenal
maintain its level. I think the effect of this “K” power up occur for one
demise. It will be quite helpful if there’s counter of how many “K” that i
manage to collect. As for what “K” stands for, my best guess is: Kontinue. :p
Sometime, i find purple icon with
number on it and periodically change to some word like "Side" there.
It's armor part that you can collect it to gain full armor. As you expect from
vertical shooter game, AM II adapts the usual one-hit-destroyed on
protagonist's fighter. If you equip the full armor, the fighter will be more
durable and gains extra weapon. But you have to get the 3 armor parts
consecutively. If you pick up other armor part with different name, your armor
part collecting backs to square one. So make sure you get the armor part with
the same name until finish before pick other.
And this is not how you collect the armor part. I hastily get "HOME" armor part because i have been taught by Reimu Hakurei that homing weapon is mandatory. I mean, i grow likeness toward homing weapon from my experience with Touhou Project games because it gets the job done. What's the use of high damage projectiles if they don't hit enemies, right?
This chunky fellow is the first
stage boss. It's not so tough because he's the first boss afterall. Plus i use
the "Side" armor to decimate it faster. I get this armor for free at
the start of the game. As you can see, the "Side" armor provides me
with options that shoot at the enemy. Their aim have more angle but i don't
think i can set their aim to my will. Or maybe their aim can be changed by
moving left/right and i'm just not perceptive enough to see that.
There's the end level assessment in
form of enemy elimination percentage. Usually i don't care about end level
assessment on other game. But in AM II, i get additional "G" that
scales with enemy elimination percentage. "G" is currency that you
use to purchase full armor set in between stages. Thus "G" most
likely stands for gold. Shotgun armor looks tempting but sadly the timer on
shop menu doesn't stay long enough for me to purchase it. Heavy_jeers05.wav
I thought this giant ship is in
the same plane [Medium Pun Intention] as me thus i have to move out of its way.
Turns out, no. It's in lower altitude so that mean i have to hit it by using
missiles instead of laser and i have to hit it in specific spot like for
instance those 4 orbs on left and right separated part of the ship.
This level is 90% fighting this
giant ship part by part on the sky of moon. Therefore i have to destroy each
and every weak point of this ship with my missile which is quite tiring because
the missile travels and fired slower than the laser, especially in initial
power level as my fighter can only drops missiles one at a time. But there's some
magnificent visual effect if you're so into graphic. When i shoot down the
joint orb, the connected part will fall to moon surface with some rather
beautiful scaling effect.
This giant enemy that i keep
fighting on entire level reminds me of other SNK's vertical shooter game: Ghost Pilots which can be reasonable as
both game made by the same company plus they also on the same Neo-Geo board and
release on same year too.
I thought that tedious section is
the boss of this stage, but there's more than that as i fly inside of the
flying behemoth through that hangar door.
My goodness, the inside of this
thing is huge! Shield armor on my left sounds good but i choose to stick with
this Nuke because it sounds more awesome.
Here's the boss stage and it's
harder than previous boss because those laser turrets assist the boss. Not
really. You can evade their attack easily. The truth is: because it has weak
point that only open once in a while and it's ground target.
With the boss destroyed, the
flying behemoth also explodes but i escape just in time.
If you look it carefully i have
less gold than 100 although i don't spend it on previous occasion. That's
because everytime i use continue my gold revert back to 0 so my advice here is:
Shop until you drop, don't try to save your gold for next shop. It takes lots
of skill and memorization to pass the stage (especially in later where the
difficulty level raise) without dropping your credit and gold...or use
savestate diligently which i'm tempted to do that because i'm allured by that
Phoenix armor which is one of the most expensive armor in the shop. It should
be powerful weapon.
Here's another tip for collecting
armor in stages: armor part that you get in earlier level will most likely
doesn't spawn on next level. So you have to take anything on early part of level and drop anything that you saved
from previous level while also do your best to get the next part and don't
switch it easily. Completing armor parts is top priority in this game. Summary:
this Nuke part that i get before become waste here.
Sniper_mvm_loot_rare01.wav. I find
the second part of Phoenix. Maybe i don't need to diligently savestate for gold
but instead for another part of the armor.
Tough luck. I don't get the last
part yet and i reach the sub-boss here. It's either spews bullets or rotates
blue orbs in counter clockwise direction. This obviously reminds me of that
fire-juggler tanks from Ghost Pilot
and they also have another similarity: they're ground target. I have no problem
with that in GP but here it's
cumbersome because i mentioned before about how weak and tiresome my
air-to-ground weapon in initial state.
Then i encounter these orb that
will transform into ship that flies swiftly at me. They're most likely based on
T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Engineer_autodejectedtie02.wav
The end of the stage boss
launches balls with the same skin as it. It's much easier to dispatch than the
sub-boss because it's air target and i upgrade my aerial weapon several times.
Look, it's already torn apart like that!
This level 4 introduces you with
this special type pickup. But it's downgrade pickup. Reversed "S"
will reduce your ship's speed, reversed "M" (which will look like
"W") will reduce your missile power, etc. Avoid this obnoxious pickup
at all cost!
There's also this flying mirrors.
You can't destroy them and they will speed up if you shoot them instead.
There's one occasion in this level that they form a line along the screen. You
must shoot some of them to create passable gap on their formation.
Finally! I get another full armor
set. It's Blackhole and you can guess that it has the power to create the
legendary largest sink hole in whole universe. The mini version of it, mind you.
This level also has magnetic wall
traps that forcefully pull your ship's to their direction. Thankfully, there's
no collision with the wall in this game.
Here's the boss stage and guess
what? It's another ground-level enemy that can absorbs large damage also its
weak point (which is that glowing green orb) exposed only briefly when that
front large is released to reveal 6 cannons that shoot homing missiles. You can
blast the missiles with your laser though so it's not big problem. You also
keep in mind of those cannon on both corner. Sometime the wall springs a
magnetic trap to interrupt your movement.
Finally i can purchase the
Phoenix armor. Spy_positivevocalization02.wav.
I promise, i won't overly exploit
savestate diligently on next stages.
Next stage takes place on sci-fi
facility full of water and canals which reminds me of Dome of D'Sparil of Heretic somehow.
Oh the first boss is back. How
nice! Heavy_domination08.wav
I get 2 armor parts of
"Bubble" which is reasonable as i'm in this water facility, i guess.
As opposed to the first boss, these large turrets are harder to deal with
because -you guess it- they're ground target with big hitpoint. Because of
that, i die a lot here. Demoman_jeers06.wav
You can probably guess that the
stage boss is another ground boss and i think i know why. The armor weapon
don't hit ground target! Not all of them but still. The example of armor that don't
hit enemies on ground level is: Laser and Shotgun. This is quite shame because
the armor arsenal is the real deal of this game and the main reason why i
review this game. With that said, i should talk about the armor stuff in more
detail. Pressing 3rd button will open the menu to choose the armor. You use
left or right joystick to select between armor that you have and press the 1st
button to equip it. There's little problem on that. You move the cursor and the
ship at the same that may lead your ship to enemy's projectiles. Some armor's
special weapon doesn't work simultaneously with your standard arsenal so you
have to press 2nd button to activate it. As for the boss, it like to submerge
under the water to avoid my (petty) bombardment. The cunning sod. Fortunately,
this blackhole weapon inflicts damage to the bastard. Not the blackhole,
though. It's the bullet (which later explodes into blackhole) that harms the
boss. So it's 50% work, i guess. As for Phoenix armor, it does nothing! I try press every button but the bloody expensive armor won't work at all. Clearly, i miss something but for now it just terrible waste of money!
I used "Side" armor on
previous occasion but i replace it with this "Shotgun" armor. My
brain immediately plays "Shotgun" speech from Metal Slug.
Do note that using the armor's
special weapon will decreases the energy bar on the left (or right if you play
as the 2nd player). Getting hit also decreases it too. When it's entirely
empty, your armor will be detached and leave you to petty initial form. The
power up icon will be replaced with this "E" icon that replenishes
the energy bar when picked. Be careful with the reversed "E" icon
that will sap your energy bar instead.
You also have to keep an eye on this
"R" icon that will make you fly backward few screens. Therefore any
pickup icon with purple color is bad. That's kind of shame as i love purple color.
So you're the big brother of
first boss? Not nice to meet you. Perish!
After i beat this stage boss a
bit, it enters 2nd phase where it has the magnetic device on its own and a
couple of flame boosters. Those thrusters need to charge up for quite some time
before shooting stream of fire. You can only damage them with your missile
while they're charging. Don't get greedy though or you will get burn!
In here’s its final form and it’s
ugly mess. The main body shoots projectiles while its weak point (which is that
circle part on left bottom corner) flies around and releases 8-way blue spirits once
in awhile.
After sustaining enough damage,
the stage boss falls down but the core flies into that pyramid.
Heavy_specialcompleted08.wav
The core later emerges with this
titanic robot and...it’s really awesome. It’s unusual for final boss of
vertical shooter game in form of non-flying colossal figure. Well that giant
robot with drill dong from Dimahoo
isn’t final boss, mind you. Back to this titan, he has various attacks: he can
conjure swirling and fast-moving energy ball by clenching his hand, turn one of
his hands into cannon that shoots spread bullets, shift his head into a more
grotesque form and later shoot medium-to-large bullets, and spawns alien ships.
You probably think that his scrubs will drop power up to make your struggle
against this schmuck easier but no. They will never produce you with any power
up when destroyed. So the objective of destroying them only to make them go
away temporarily and one of them is larger ship that can take forever to kill
especially when your arsenal is back to square one and you probably in that
condition if you play this game “properly”. Actually in all of the boss fight,
you aren’t given a chance to upgrade your ship at all. So my strategy is: save
the armor for the boss fight because you get ship power ups in the middle of
level only. On other note, you don’t get chance to buy armor before this final
battle.
You can only harm the arm and
head when he’s about to attack. If his head suffers enough damage, it will lose
its cover and you can damage it at anytime. With more application of your
weapon to his head, the final boss falls. R.I.P Fulvalence Groma. You have great
name and visual design for vertical shmup game that i ever witness. Soldier_HatOverHeartTaunt05.wav
The game treats me with another explosive
escape. Demoman_specialcompleted12.wav
Then credit rolls along with
every armor flies between me and the 2nd SYD.
Then we return to mothership safe
and sound. I like the massive detail on this carrier and the final boss as you
expect from SNK’s chunky sprite art.
Well, I hope SNK makes the sequel
of this game. Make it Alpha Mission III
or Beta Mission or something like
that.
SNK's Alpha Mission II (1991) is space shmup game with additional arsenal
in place of screen-clearing bomb’s absence although “Blackhole” armor attack
can be treated as one. Besides delivering great damage, the black hole can
swallow enemy’s projectiles. Great stuff. The armor thing is the specialty of
this game. The armor parts are difficult to collect because you have to get
them in 3 sequences and there’s just little guarantee that the stage you’re in,
will give you what parts you need. If you try to acquire part via intermission
shop, you will have rough time because to keep a large amount of gold within a
stage is nigh-impossible especially on later stages which take quite forever to
finish and harder than previous ones even with grace of “you only lose gold
when using continue”. But once you get any of the armor, your effort will be
really paid off. As I mentioned before that missile’s power level is important.
The armor collecting may add replay value of the game. I think you can do just
fine with initial-level laser throughout the game. But your missile needs
padding really bad. Besides the source of power up come from ground target
only! I wish the pickup container also in the form of flying enemies instead of
just ground enemies. Thus the gameplay’s main problem comes from ground enemies
as opposed to Ghost Pilot where the
main problem is aerial enemies that like to ram at you pretty often. The
indestructible flying mirrors can be big problem but you can dodge them easily.
Usually I don’t care for speed upgrade because i think it causes my ship to be
uncontrollably fast and may lead to crash into enemy’s projectile or enemies
themselves but in this game the speed upgrade doesn’t make the ship wildly fast
and quite mandatory to dodge enemy’s bullets. I can’t remember the music but
it’s kind of the same level with Ghost
Pilot’s. The same thing also goes to visual department although the
background isn’t as interesting as the one in Ghost Pilot.
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