These vehicles cause far more damage than your ordinary guns, and you cannot be killed while in them.

The Tank, the Jeep, and other guns: In all of the stages, you’ll have a chance to jump in either a tank or a jeep. Each Mission ends with a boss, typically something mechanical with a ton of firepower, like a huge aircraft.ĥ Missions stand between you and victory. Missions 4 and 5 are always the same, no matter which path you choose. However, after Mission 1, you can choose which path you want to take, and Missions 2 and 3 are different for each path.

Gameplay: There are 5 Missions to shoot your way through in 2nd Squad. While jumping you are completely invincible, and this is where the strategy of the game comes into play – you don’t have to simply dodge enemy bullets in 2nd Squad, you can ‘evade’ them by jumping, which is useful because you’ll often be under tremendous fire, particularly from bosses. C jumps, and you can jump in any direction. These melee attack cause enemies to drop power-ups, like weapon power-ups, special bombs, or health packets to restore some of your energy bar. When in close to an enemy soldier, A will use your melee attack, like a knife attack with Leon. Extra bombs can be found in the game’s stages.Īll 4 characters play differently and have their own unique gun.Ĭontrol: A shoots. Each character also has their own limited number of ‘bomb’ special attacks, which will cause major damage to enemies, and are best saved for bosses. Leon and Angel use machine guns, while Toy uses a laser gun and Lulu uses a Spread gun. Each character has their own unique gun that can be ‘powered up’ as you gather ‘P’ icons in gameplay. Naturally, the characters are all diverse with regards to these categories – Leon has great attack power and a good Defense, meaning it takes more shots to kill him, but he moves slowly Lulu moves around quickly but has a weak attack and low Defense, so she’ll die quicker when hit Angel and Toy are more balanced among the categories. The higher their statistical bars, the better they are at each attribute. Each character has his or her own stats for 4 categories – Speed, Attack, Defense, and Evasion. The Shock Troopers are sent in to stop them.Ĭharacters: Choose from 4 Shock Troopers – Leon, Angel, Lulu, or Toy. Story: An organization known as DIO, led by the evil Nakatomi, is threatening to take over the world using military force, and DIO’s armies are killing innocent people along the way. However, with practice, you can beat the game on all difficulties. On the Normal, MVS, and Hard settings, approximately 2 shots will kill you, depending on your character. On the Easy setting, you lose less energy when shot, and you can take between 3 and 5 hits before you lose a life, depending on who your character is. You can set the game’s difficulty from Easy, Normal, MVS (arcade), or Hard. Because of this, you’ll only have the game’s given 4 Credits to beat the game – you get 3 lives per Credit. Neo Geo Memory Card, Credits, Difficulty: This game has no saving functionality when using a Neo Geo Memory Card. The copy of Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad used for this review is an AES conversion, meaning the game boards from an MVS arcade cartridge were placed into an AES cartridge. The game’s home console release did not receive a large production run, making the AES cartridge a bit on the rare side. It was a sequel to Shock Troopers, which was only released for the arcade MVS.

Quick History: Shock Troopers: 2nd squad was released for the Neo Geo AES home console and Neo Geo MVS (arcade cabinet) in 1998. This review will focus solely on 2nd Squad. *While you can find several other reviews for Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad online, many of them spend too much time comparing the game to its predecessor, Shock Troopers. Note 2: This game was played on a Neo Geo AES home console that was modified to output in component video (red, blue, green). Note 1: Like shooting games? Check out my reviews of Operation Wolf and Cyber-Lip! Today, MVS arcade cartridges can be converted to AES home console cartridges. Original AES copies of 2nd Squad are tough to find.

Shock troopers mame rom