Alpha Mission


Alpha Mission is a vertical scrolling shooter arcade game created by SNK in 1985. It was later ported to the Famicom in 1986 and released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. A sequel game, aptly titled Alpha Mission II, was released for the Neo Geo arcade system in 1991.

Gameplay

Alpha Mission is a one-player scrolling shooter game in its segregation of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. Missiles are used to destroy ground enemies, while laser-like weapons are used for aerial opponents. Throughout each of the levels, the player must fight off waves of enemies that threaten several space stations and a boss must be defeated at the end of each. Like most early games in this genre, when the player dies, all weapons are lost and the player is moved to a point slightly before the point of death. The player's craft can also be upgraded to have more powerful weapons by picking up various power-ups throughout the level.
With a pair of LS-30 rotary joysticks, Ikari Warriors can be played on the same hardware.

Ports

Alpha Mission was released on the Nintendo Switch in the Nintendo eShop on 25 October 2018 by Hamster Corporation as part of their Arcade Archives series.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Alpha Mission on their December 1, 1985 issue as being the second most-successful table arcade unit of the year.