The Deep / ザディープ - Arcade - Attract and full playthrough (Submarine shooter) [4K60]
38Full longplay / playthrough / walkthrough of this obscure submarine aquatic arcade game, most of you will have never have heard of. Nor could we even find a complete video playthrough showing all 15 stages from the game. Developed by Woodplace in 1987 the studio behind it disappeared long ago, however this is a wonderful little game few have ever played. Released only in Japan officially, some bootleg copies did make the rounds outside of the country. Which is likely how are editor ended up playing this while on holiday many years ago.
Despite now being on MAME, few are still aware of it. The emulation isn't perfect either as the end of mission scenes show incorrect and mix up graphics for the boat and water explosions.
The gameplay seems based on Sega's Deep Scan, with you playing a boat and having to drop depth charges to blow up submarines. Every charge counts as you are very limited with ammo and it's all too easy to run out, while it slowly replenishes over time, careful development of changes is the best way to stay alive. Still the game is rather difficult to play a result, as you can quickly get trapped by enemy fire.
Each of the enemy submarines has a different attack pattern, so learning how they move and attack is key to decide, which one to deal with first. The crocodile and mine layer submarines are two of the most dangerous as the former can't be stopped once it surfaces and the latter can pin your boat. Both caught Riven plenty of times in this run, playing in two players certainly reduces the difficulty somewhat. A brutal game if you want to try and one credit clear it, without cheating or using savestates.
The stage pixel art looks stunning for 1987 and there's a nice sense of humour on the ice stages with ships, mammoths and dinosaurs trapped inside the ice. Each of the 8 stages has a great look and feel to it, it's just a shame stages 1-7 are repeated as stages 8-14, but the final stage 15 has a unique look and a menacing final boat boss to battle with.
While the difficulty will put some people off, hopefully now that we have given this game some coverage more people will come to enjoy it. Irem's own submarine shooter In the Hunt seems to have borrowed a number of elements from it years later.
Also known as: Run Deep (Bootleg version)
Release: 1987
Developer: Woodplace Inc
Publisher: Woodplace Inc
Format: Arcade (Arc) / アーケードゲーム
The Deep only received home port on European computers such as the Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. All these versions are very different to the arcade. The arcade version itself remains unported.
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All footage captured from MAME 0.195 using Open Broadcast Software. Video upscaled to UHD 4K during edit to improve quality on Youtube.
#TheDeep #Arcade #shmup