Another weekly challenge from the guys at RetroTech100, this week the Arcade 20p Challenge (2 credits) is for a game I hadn’t seen before, SS Mission. Another vertical shooter, although this one isn’t such a bullet hell type as some that we have done in the past. That still doesn’t mean that SS Mission is an easy game, in fact far from it but it’s not that you can’t see the screen for the bullets coming at you like some of these arcade shootemups.
So, you’re the pilot of a helicopter in some kind of warzone, and your job, as it nearly always is, is to kill the enemy bases, and those they send to protect their bases. Your helicopter can move forward, backwards, left and right and has two fire modes, your guns and the kill everything on screen special weapon. As is standard on this style of game the special weapon is limited, but your main weapon can be powered up as you collect helpful little packages along the way.
Having only got just past the first boss in practise by using lots of credits I can’t say how hard it gets, but the first level is fairly easy until you encounter the first boss, this ship takes a lot of fire power to destroy and throws plenty back, resulting in lots of quick deaths (well it did for me). And there isn’t too much more to report, nice sounds, colourful graphics and a fun shmup for a while. Those who love these vertical shooters should enjoy it, but I think there are better out there, not that this is bad in any way, just that some are better.
See the video below for more on how it looks, and if you have the option of a rotating screen then you could get a bigger playfield instead of the middle of the screen window I had here.
