Acrobat Mission

"So, how long can YOU cheat death?"

To answer the above question, unless you have amazing awareness of your surroundings and excellent reflexes, probably until the first boss.

You see, Acrobat Mission, a little-known, vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up for the Super Nintendo, has some of the most painfully difficult bosses known to this genre. The very first one is four screens long and each screen has about four to five guns blasting shots at you. The problem, each shot is the size of your ship and it is extremely easy to get pinned in.

And then, you move on to other challenges like a group of four ships that spin in circles around the perimeter of the screen, pausing only to fire wide beams every once in a while and a few more bosses that make those first two encounters seem like child's play.

The game itself spans five levels, with none of the levels being extremely long. The first two levels are fairly easy until you reach the boss, but after that, the action really heats up.

So, how does the game rate?

Graphics/Sound -- 7
At the beginning, I really liked the way this game looked. A lot of the enemies were large and detailed and there some real highlights. The first level, where your ship flies over a planet is very pretty, as is the boss of that level. And the enemies continued to look very nice all the way through the game. However, as you shifted from flying over a planet to flying in outer space and down a corridor, the background graphics became a bit more drab and generic. The musical score for the game was nice, as were the explosions made by enemies upon their destruction.

Gameplay -- 6
This game has some positives and some negatives as far as the actual gameplay goes. For positives, the game does compensate for some of the extreme challenge by making it so that running into enemies is not lethal. Believe me, there are enough ways to die in this game, from bullets to lasers to fireballs and so on, that you don't want to have to worry about a chance bump of an enemy putting you down for the count. Also, special weapons have levels. For example, the first time you pick up the wave weapon, you'll fire two shots. But as you keep picking up the little ''W'' icons, you'll get more bullets until you have five nice-sized shots taking up nearly half the screen. Being able to get this extra power for staying alive and picking up icons is very necessary, especially in later levels where enemies are coming at you quickly and fiercely. Also, if you die, instead of completely disappearing, your special weapon will just be downgraded one level. This way, you are not completely crippled by the loss of a life. Also, by holding the shooting button down for a couple of seconds, you can charge up your weapon and let loose with a more powerful burst. Personally, I found this skill to be of limited use, though, but others might like it.
As far as the negatives, you have a very limited selection of special weapons. There is the wave gun and one other one symbolized by the letter ''H''. This weapon, in my opinion, wasn't as good as the wave gun, since it had a more narrow field, so I rarely used it. Also, you can pick up bombs. That's it. Another problem was the shortness of the game. Five stages and, like I said before, most of them are relatively short in duration. Yes the game is challenging, but my personal opinion is that six stages should be a minimum for a game of this genre. While it was tough as anything to beat, at the end, I still wanted at least one more stage (after the troubles I had with the last boss, that was definitely a masochistic urge right there).

Challenge -- 10
For most of the first stage, you'll be cruising along, thinking this game might be the easiest shooter ever. Then you run into the boss and everything changes. That enemy, as well as most every boss in the game, has the ability to frustrate just about any caliber of player. And, as the game progresses, the levels themselves start getting very tough. Sure, killing those small circular ships might be a piece of cake, but wait until you get to the long ships with eight turrets (four on the top and four on the bottom). If you're able to destroy all the turrets, does the ship blow up? No, but it does start firing lasers out of its side before scrolling off the screen --- making you wonder if it would have been better to just dodge the turret fire.

Overall -- 6
While the game was very tough, it was a fun little romp. I think the only problems I really had with it was the overall shortness of the mission and the lack of special weapons. When you play enough of these games, you start to expect lasers, options, missiles and the like, so to be confined to only two weapons and the ever-present bomb is a bit of a letdown. Overall, it was a good effort, but it could have been great with just a few things added.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/03