 Sssssstt onto bed SNK made a ton of great arcade games, but one that gets slept on a little bit is Shock Troopers, made by Saras in November 1997 for arcades, and man! This is one of those games where, if I'm walking around an arcade and I see this cabinet, I am rounding up any quarters I can find because I'm spending the rest of my day playing this one. It's a tap-down shooter where you can fire in eight directions and it plays like Metal Slug crossed with Pocky and Rocky. One token gives you a health meter and two lives to get through at least seven out of a possible sixteen levels. One has you driving a motorcycle and a horizontal shooter before you go flying off and drop down into a cave as enemies drop down on top of you. Another level features a market with fruit stands that inexplicably explode. Another has you on top of a train shooting dudes flying around in jetpacks. It is a ton of fun and it's up to two player compatible. Based on the footage here you might think this game is extremely simplistic and not much different from other games of its kind, but you'd be pleasantly surprised. There are eight different characters here you can play as. Each has the same primary weapon, but they all differ slightly in speed, strength, armor, and special weapons. For instance, this guy has a grenade he can toss over barriers. This gal has a rocket launcher. This guy uses a boomerang. It's pretty dang cool. You can either go it alone, with just one character, or you can select three characters that you can switch between anytime you want. Yeah, the characters really aren't that different from each other, since ultimately it's just different varieties of making stuff go boom, but still, it gives the game some replay value, especially since each character has their own story sequences in between levels. Yes, there is a story here, and yes, someone's girlfriend got kidnapped. And yes, the main bad guy is some final fight-looking dude who apparently went to Wolverine's stylist. As you might expect, there's tons of different weapon power-ups you can pick up, each with their own limited ammo, everything from lasers, flamethrowers, spread guns, all the usual Contra and metal slug power-ups you're used to seeing. There's a couple other things that make this game stand out. One is how great the controls feel, especially if you're playing with a joystick, and that's because this game has auto-strafing. You can fire in any direction you're facing, or you can hold down the button to keep firing in that same direction while moving around. It gives this game a comfortable, player-friendly feel to it, but don't go thinking this game is easy. There are projectiles flying around everywhere at all times, and the game only gets faster and more chaotic the further you progress, to the point that I personally had to start unfocusing my eyes a little bit so I could concentrate on dodging instead of aiming and firing, kind of like playing a shoot-em-up. Thankfully, there's a button dedicated to rolling or dashing out of the way, and like I said, the controls feel exactly as they should. This game is hard, but it's still really approachable. Another unique thing in Shock Troopers is that there are split paths, so you not only can play through this one multiple times with different characters, you can take a different route to the end, which is really cool. You start out with a choice of three different paths of three different levels, and then after that, another three sets of two levels before you get to the final boss. One playthrough of this game usually takes somewhere around 35 to 40 minutes, but if you want to play through all 16 levels, then you'll be playing this one for close to two hours. So yeah, just a quick video here on Shock Troopers. It's awesome, and I consider it a must-play. It's a very well-made game that checks all the boxes. It's got great controls, great sound, great visuals, tons of replay value, and lots of tiny little understated touches. For example, I love all the different death animations. Some enemies get their arm blown clean off, man, that's brutal. Some enemies go flying up into the air. Some enemies just explode, like they're being blown apart by Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam. The only downside of this game is that the boss fights are a bit of a letdown. Each one is just a big tank or a big helicopter, nothing all that interesting. But that's totally fine, because this game offers plenty as it is. Shock Troopers received ports on PS2, PS3, PSP, Nintendo Wii, and there's a version available on Steam that came out a few years ago. So you've got no excuse but to go play this one. Alright, that's all for now, and I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.