Alpha Mission

System: Arcade | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Release Date: Arcade – 1985 | NES – 1986
Genre: Vertical Scrolling Shooter
Players: Single Player
Publisher: SNK

Alpha Mission was originally released in 1985 by SNK in the arcade circuit. After growing it’s fan base it was ported and re-released for home console play under the name Alpha Mission on the NES (America) and the Famicom (Japan) in 1986 under the name A.S.O: Armored Scrum Object ( no wonder they changed the title in the American release). Alpha mission is a hard core top scrolling shooter that to me, consumed many hours of mine growing up and even now as an adult.

 

The game is a lot like 1942, Xevious and many others, but what separates Alpha Mission from the rest for me, is the high action play and the ability to up-grade and if your not paying attention, down-grade your weapons on your ship during game play. Each level offers an onslaught of large variety of many different enemies. There are times during levels that you can end up having 20+ enemies on a screen. For Nintendo this was crazy, high impact shooter for it’s time and still to this day, lives up to the action. After each level it is like most NES games, you end up fighting a end level boss. After the boss is defeated it is on to the next level. The thing that sucks during the play of this game is, during the process of shooting all of the enemies, you also shoot boxes and panels that after being shot, display a letter inside of a box. Now the trouble is, if not knowing what the letters mean, you can end up down-grading your entire ships guns and lasers, or you can even end up reversing the level, which means you, being brought back to a previous point in the level. Knowing these letters is crucial to the play of the game, making sure you don’t end up going back or loosing what you have worked hard to upgrade. And it never fails this usually happens right before a boss battle. Many times, even knowing what the letters mean, because of the all of the enemies coming at you it is hard at times, to keep track of what letters you are running into. It does happen time from time to have no place to move on the screen except over a down-grade. If you are new to Alpha Mission and lack the manual, I suggest that you google the game to find out all of the meanings of the letter upgrades. Along with this you also earn ship upgrades the give you shields that allow more hits. A lot of new comers to the game do not realize the ship upgrades because the screen for this is nicely hidden under the select button. They come in super handy when activated before any bosses. If you die, you loose everything and it is back to the beginning of the level. Once you run out of men then its game over unless you use the continue code. At the Game Over screen, enter A, B, UP, DOWN, B, A, RIGHT, LEFT to continue at the beginning of the previous level. You loose your upgrades, but it is better than starting from the beginning of the game. I personally have never beaten Alpha Mission because it does get super intense and the difficulty ups tremendously after level 1. But as far as I am aware there are 12 levels and bosses at the end of each level.

As far as Alpha Mission goes it is, in my eyes, one of the better top scrolling shooters for the NES. It has the difficulty, enemies and upgrades that keep you coming back for more. Even though I have never completed this game almost 30 years later, I still come back for more. I know there are a lot of negative reviews on this game but as for me It is top notch. The graphics, for the NES, I like. The game play is right on and the controls are smooth. The only downfall is if not knowing, the down grades and the shield up-grades under the select button.

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Well this is Alpha Mission. It was a successful release for the NES and spawned Alpha Mission II which was released in 1991 for arcades and the NEO*GEO system. I am not familiar with this version, but from what I read it is even better then the first!

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Thanks for reading and the support. As always, happy diggin’ and GAME ON!