Arcade Shmups #26

Scramble Spirits (1988)
By: Sega Genre: Shooting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 310,120 (one credit)
Also Available For: Master System, Amiga, Atari ST, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

There weren't a massive number of shmups on the Master System - it didn't have a huge number of games of any genre I guess - but of the ones that did find their way to Sega's wonderful console, about the only one I never played was Scramble Spirits. This may have been down to the lacklustre reception it received in magazines of the day, or the fact that it has been pretty much ignored ever since. Perhaps not, but either way, I recently reminded myself that the poor neglected game exists and immediately made a mental note to investigate it forthwith. If I'm going to do that, I then reasoned, I might as well first try the original version of it, so behold: after some problems getting it running, here is the arcade version of Sega's lost shooter. Does is deserve our continued apathy?

Well, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, it looks a little rough around the edges on first impressions, but aside from that things seem very familiar. It's another one of those military-based vertical-scrollers that were popular around this time (I blame Flying Shark) through which you are in control of a creaky old propellory plane, much like the one showcased on the title screen. It is armed with a rapid-fire cannon and small bombs which, unusually, are both fired using the same button. There is almost immediately lots of stuff to test them out on too - the bulk of the enemy forces are squadrons of aircraft similar to your own which fly in formations, and ground-based artillery which comes in the form of tanks and gun emplacements, but there are also occasional larger craft too.

These include the usual stuff - larger planes and tanks, helicopter gunships, and gunboats on the watery sections - and they all take multiple shots to take down. Some of them, however, give you the only power-ups the game offers - escort planes. You can have one or two of these which fly obediently along either side of your plane, and they can be configured to either supplement your cannon fire, or drop their own bombs. You can switch back and forth depending on what the game throws at you too, and they can also be discarded, upon which time they act as smartbombs. Hope there's no one in them! Unfortunately, you get no other help through the game's six stages which are over many airfields, military bases, and staging areas surrounded by varied terrain.

These landscapes will also be very familiar to anyone who's played similar games - the stages (or 'missions') take in wooded areas, deserts and mountainous regions, and stretches of water - but there is at least a little originality when it comes to the bosses. The main stage bosses are the usual large military contraptions festooned with various guns and missiles, but acting as sub-boss encounters are a few strafing runs where the game zooms in and tasks you with taking out as many grounded aircraft and guns as possible, with bonus points awarded based on the percentage destroyed. These are actually great fun and, unlike the rest of the game, you don't go down from a single hit either. I suppose they're more like bonus rounds really, which is considerably splendid!

Aside from this, though, you will find nothing here you haven't found in goodness knows how many other vertical-scrollers from around the same period, and in many cases they did it better. The graphics are quite good with some nice detail, though the backgrounds can be a little drab, and the music and effects aren't bad either, but there's nothing special and nothing to draw you in over something similar. The game is definitely a challenge though - the smaller enemies and bullets all move very quickly, with formations of planes zooming and looping all over the place firing at you as the go, and their shots and even some enemies themselves aren't always easy to see. If you're playing this via emulation as is likely, you'll probably be losing a life every ten seconds on later stages, until you've put in a lot of practice at least. Word of warning though - you can't use extra credits from the fifth stage onwards so you'll need the eyes of a hawk to finish it. At which point you may be irritated to find it just starts again anyway - oof! Good for high-score chasers I guess! As unremarkable as it may be, though, it's still a Sega game, and that counts for something in the retro world.

RKS Score: 6/10

Gameplay Video: here's a video of the whole game being played by one of the talented fellows at Barón Rojo Shmups (check out their great channel here). Oh, and don't watch if you want to avoid spoilers!