Alpha Mission

Alpha Mission on the NES is a vertically scrolling shooter similar to Xevious where you have air-to-air shots for flying ships, but fire missiles to take out stationary ground targets. There are an array of power-ups in the game in the form of various letters, but also power-downs that are backwards letters. The title is a port of the earlier arcade game released in 1985...and this is the game's core problem. Alpha Mission would have been just fine as an NES launch title. However, releasing in 1987, the same year as Mega Man, The Legend of Zelda, and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! , it clearly is out classed by video games that have progressed past the arcade style action it offers. Even compared to other shooters (the much better Zanac that was released the same month as this), Alpha Mission is lacking. The game's graphics and sound show their age while the extremely high difficulty and endless looping gameplay with no end show the arcade roots ill adapted for a console port. Overall, Alpha Mission should be skipped although hardcore fans of old shooters who have worked through the other, better, titles on the system may get some enjoyment the rest of us won't.