Shock Troopers - SNK Neo Geo [008] Jungle Route PlayThru

Shock Troopers is a nice six-stage shoot'em up from Saurus that was released on just the Neo Geo MVS for arcade play.  

NOTE: A trainer was used for making this capture.

Here are the vitals for the game -

US Title: Shock Troopers
Japanese Title: Shock Troopers
By: Saurus
Size: 346 Megs
Home Release: Not Released
MVS Release: 11/11/1997
CD Release: Not Released

I would personally consider this game the spiritual successor to SNK's Ikari Warriors.  I am sure that statement could be debated, but I think overall Shock Troopers is a well rounded game.  This game does not use the same kind of controls as Ikari Warriors: the dreaded, at least by arcade operators, rotary joystick.  In this game, the player fires in the direction the character is pointed, and you can hold that firing direction and move another direction by holding down the A button while you move.

The control seems pretty responsive; the game provides on screen prompts as to the direction a player needs to proceed.  Sound and music are decent; they both fit with the game, and do not stand out.  The graphics are well drawn as well.

Slowdown only rears its head in this game when the screen gets busy with enemies.  As long as the players keep mowing down the enemies, this problem rarely comes up.

Now let's go into a couple big difference between Shock Troopers and Ikari Warriors.  The first difference is there is a mode selection at the start of Shock Troopers.  The player can either choose to play with just 1 character, or choose to play with a team of 3 characters.  The game offers a roster of 8 characters in total.

A second difference, and this difference is why there will be 3 different videos posted of the game, is a choice of 1 of 3 routes to play through in Shock Troopers: Jungle, Valley, or Mountain.  I believe each track is five stages long, with the sixth stage being the same no matter which route is selected.  There is also one opportunity given by the game at a later stage where the route can changed.  So, while a complete play from beginning to end is six stages, the game offers a total of 16 stages.

Otherwise, the game has weapon powers that players can pickup that give a limited number of shots with a different type of weapon.  By far, my favorite is the buster, but only 30 shots are granted.  Players also get a 'bomb' which is different per character. For example, one character has an exploding boomerang and another has a crossbow with exploding bolts.  Beside the normal and special weapon buttons, a third button allows the character to roll, or evade.

I think this title is definitely a worthy addition to any Neo Geo library.  It is also readily available on many platforms as part of various Neo Geo emulation packages!

Capture Info:

This gameplay was captured on August 17, 2019.

Game was played on a modded SNK Neo Geo home console, equipped with the UniBIOS.
A HD Retrovision Component cable was used, connected to an OSSC 1.6 (processing the video in Line4x mode), with the output being captured by a Startech USB3HDCAP.

Video was edited with Shotcut.