Acrobat Mission
The players takes controls on one of two surviving fighters pilots, 'Jet' a male pilot and 'Nova' a female pilot and both flying the Icarus, a fast and powerful space-fighter, which comes equipped with a Standard laser. Two more weapons are available throughout the game - the wide shot (W) which spreads out in front of the ship and the Hurricane shot (H) which fires clusters of rotating balls of energy. Holding the fire button charges up a special attack and each weapon features a different energy blast and damage factor. The ships can also hold a maximum of two smart-bombs, one under each wing - although they can be activated by the players, they also do fall off easily and can be detonated by enemy shots. Interestingly, the Icarus can't collide with other ships or any part of the scenery - instead, it bounces off and only suffers damage from enemy shots. However, once the shield is depleted, the ship will fly out of control for a few seconds and grant the players a last chance to inflict damage to any remaining enemies before it explodes.
SCREENSHOTS
PHYSICAL
HISTORY
Acrobat Mission is a 1991 vertically scrolling shooter arcade video game developed by UPL and published by Taito. A port to the Super Famicom developed by Micronics was released in 1992.
Gameplay
Players start the game equipped with the default weapon, the Standard Shot: a semi-automatic laser weapon. Though moderately powerful, the Standard Shot cannot be upgraded or charged. Once the player has lost a significant number of lives and their selected weapon his lost its upgrades, the Standard Shot will once again take over.
Two other weapons are selectable to the player, one of which is the Wave Shot (Wide in the Arcade version). The Wave Shot is a spread shot that increases in size, numbers and strength. When charged, the Wave Shot can unleash a short range, but powerful laser blast that increases in width and strength when Wave icons are collected. The other weapon is the Hurricane Shot, a unique area-effect weapon that encircles the ship clockwise when fired before flying forward. When charged, the Hurricane Shot fires a ball of energy across the screen, but there is a one-second delay every time the shot is fired.
The player also has Bombs although unlike many shooters, the player can only hold up to two bombs. Once collected however, the two bombs get physically mounted under the ship's wings. If an enemy shot hits one of the bombs, then the bomb will detonate, creating a destructive shield for the player. The player can manually detonate either bomb at will.
The player's Icarus fighter ship has a number of defenses at its disposal as well. Whenever the player moves their ship in any given direction, a burst of flame from the ship's jet exhaust will shoot out from the opposite direction the player moves the ship in. This applies to all directions: left, right, front, back and all four diagonal angles. This jet exhaust not only serves an aesthetic purpose, but it can also harm nearby enemies and destroy nearby objects.
Whenever the player is hit, their ship will steer wildly out of control. Once this happens, a timer will appear near the ship which indicates how long the ship has until it explodes. The explosion of the player's ship will harm any nearby enemies. Also, because the Icarus is apparently well built, any kamikaze enemies or drifting objects that touch it will not damage or destroy the player's ship, allowing the player less restrictive movement.
Reception
In Japan, Game Machine listed Acrobat Mission on their September 1, 1991 issue as being the fourteenth most-successful table arcade unit of the month.
Record
Antonio R. Filho (Brazil) holds the official world record for this game with a maximum 279.900 points.
STORY
At the year 2100 A.D. Humans were exterminated by their own self-destructive nature leaving behind the consequences of environmental degradation on earth and were forced to escape to Mars leaving a bio-computer for environmental recuperation of earth to preparing the blue planet for future recolonization. But one day a half a century after humans arrived, mars was attacked by strange flying objects. To fight these enemies, the director general of the Defence Agency organized the task force army and started quickly the dogfight with invaders to neutralize the invasion.
The operation was called 'Acrobat Mission' as it exceeded the technical limits of the pilots.
1CC RUNS
One-credit clears we point to as the benchmark for this game.