The Super Spy Longplay (Neo Geo) [60 FPS]

Developed and published by SNK in 1990

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Video Notes: tool-assisted (save-state, input recording)

Every so often, I'll stumble across a title that dares to defy convention, with The Super Spy being one such example. The game is a curious blend of Punch Out meets Die Hard and features some pretty impressive sprites and scaling effects for the time.

The player takes on the role of the Roy Heart, Super Spy, who must wage a one-man war against a secretive terrorist organisation that has stolen a number of high-explosive bombs and intend to destroy the headquarters of a major international corporation.

The player views the action from a first-person perspective, with a pair of disembodied arms and hands indicating Roy's position. Pushing left and right on the stick will move in the corresponding direction, allowing Roy to move along the corridors of the building. Crossroads appear at certain points and pushing and down on the stick will move forwards and backwards along these particular corridors, but not horizontally.

You have precious little time to adjust to the controls or to devise a plan of attack before the first bad guys start appearing on screen, all of whom are out to terminate you with extreme prejudice. There's no clear indication as to whether enemy attacks will hit you or not as there's no outline to Roy's body, although it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll be hit when enemies are positioned in the space between Roy's arms.

The enemy sprites are large, brightly coloured and look like they've come right out of some Japanese anime or other animated cartoon. There aren't a huge number of frames of animation, but they all look very impressive and certainly contribute towards the game's visual appeal.

Roy can punch and kick opponents by tapping the A and B buttons respectively and moving horizontally whilst punching will initiate a left or right hook that will knock the enemy down. Holding the A button will begin to charge up a super-punch that causes extra damage to opponents should it actually connect.

Whilst Roy can always rely on fisticuffs, pressing C will cycle through a small selection of other weapons, including a knife and handgun with a small number of bullets. The knife gets progressively weaker the more it's used, but has the added bonus of temporarily stunning opponents when hit, whereas the gun does large amounts of damage but isn't guaranteed to hit the opponent; I guess Roy didn't spend enough time on the range during training...

For a game that places such emphasis on it's combat, it's a terrible shame to discover that the fighting is poorly implemented and deeply unsatisfying. The first few fights feel pretty good as Roy beats up opponents with relative ease, knocking them backwards to collide with scenery. However, the toughness of the enemies increases dramatically and punching and kicking is ineffectual because they fail to stun the opponent, causing them to instantly counter-attack. For every blow you land, you'll end up taking four in return, rapidly draining your health and leading to a swift end to the game.

Certain blows can be blocked by pressing A and B buttons simultaneously, or can be avoided by pulling back on the stick to duck. Whilst this does improve chances of survival, it makes every fight painfully slow and protracted as you land a punch and spend ten seconds or so dodging from side to side.

It wasn't until just after the first hour of playing that I worked out the key to success is to ignore fists/feet altogether and to rely solely on the knife. Hitting opponents with the knife staggers them, allowing time to launch a follow-up attack that will stun them again. Despite getting weaker, the knife never actually breaks, so it seems pointless to bother using anything else.

The other chief complaint with the game is just how terribly boring and linear it is. The levels are made up of miles of identical, drab corridors with the occasional door that can be entered. Doing so usually yields a brief interlude where a hostage yammers at you in English so broken that it's often difficult to work out who is actually speaking.

The game features some basic role-playing elements whereby experience points are earned for beating enemies, with Roy levelling up offensive and defensive abilities as a result. Sadly, I honestly couldn't detect any difference in his abilities throughout the course of the game, probably as a result of enemies health and strength also increasing relative to that of the player.

All of this is really quite sad because The Super Spy genuinely tries to be an innovative and engaging title. If only the combat were more exciting and the difficulty not quite so high, it might have been quite fun to play.

As it stands, The Super Spy ends up being more The Super Snore and is best avoided.

#retrogaming
#superspy
#neogeo