Surprise Attack (Arcade) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
153A playthrough of Konami's 1990 arcade action-platformer, Surprise Attack.
Played on the machine's default settings.
Surprise Attack is one of several Konami games from the late 80s that unfortunately never got any sort of re-release after its arcade run. Does anyone else get the feeling that this would've felt right at home on the Genesis or the PC Engine?
It's not related to Rush'n Attack, but Surprise Attack is fun, chaotic shooter/platformer. Like Rolling Thunder and Code Name: Viper, it patterns itself off of the Shinobi style. Most stages have two tiers that you can jump between, you rely almost entire on weapon fire, you collect items (this time bombs instead of children), and you die in a single hit. All pretty standard stuff.
That's not to say that it's a mere rehash, though. Surprise Attack rewraps the package with enough novelty to make it feel like its own game.
We step into the anti-grav boots of one Red Thunderbolt, a special agent assigned with wiping out a terrorist group that has planted bombs throughout a base on the moon.
There are seven stages, each with three substances, all broken up with some nicely atmospheric cutscenes and dubiously translated English text. You travel to different spots across the base, carefully studying enemy patterns as you collect the bombs and make it to the exit. Many of the areas allow you to flip back-and-forth between the floor and ceiling - like Rad Gravity and VVVVVV - while others allow you to jump between floors and behind walls and fences.
You can upgrade your gun with bonus items, and you can charge yourself up to let lose an electrical storm that let's you invincibly fly for a brief period. It's pretty absurd, but those blitz moments usually come right when you need them most. Surprise Attack isn't quite as difficult as Shinobi, but it's not far off, so any bone the game throws is welcome. It's very much a classically-styled arcade game that wants your quarters, and like most arcade platformers of its era, it demands a lot of practice and memorization.
I'm not sure what's with that weird bonus trivia game, though.
There's a lot to like here if you are a fan of Konami's 8/16-bit era arcade games. The graphics are unexpectedly detailed and the FM music hits that sci-fi feel nicely (anyone else notice how the inter-stage music sounds like it could've been pulled right out of Lagrange Point?), the controls are sharp, and the difficulty level makes it feel like the game wants to joyously paddle in a gummy puddle of your blood. It feels exactly like a satisfying arcade game of its time should.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!