Alpha Mission

Alpha Mission is a vertical scrolling shooter arcade game created by SNK in 1985. It was later ported to the Famicom in 1986 and released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. A sequel game, aptly titled Alpha Mission II, was released for the Neo Geo arcade system in 1991.

Alpha Mission is a one-player scrolling shooter game in its segregation of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. Missiles are used to destroy ground enemies, while laser-like weapons are used for aerial opponents. Throughout each of the levels, the player must fight off waves of enemies that threaten several space stations and a boss must be defeated at the end of each. Like most early games in this genre, when the player dies, all weapons are lost and the player is moved to a point slightly before the point of death. The player's craft can also be upgraded to have more powerful weapons by picking up various power-ups throughout the level.