NES cover.
Japanese cover.
Super Spy Hunter (known as Battle Formula in Japan) is a 1991 game released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in Japan before it got released in the Americas and Europe/Australia in 1992 and 1993. Like the other Spy Hunter games, it has the same vertical driving gameplay where players use their sedans equipped with various weapons to take out hostile vehicles ahead of them.
Super Spy Hunter provides examples of:
- Continuing is Painful: Super Spy Hunter mitigates this by reducing your car's upgrade status by only one level (of five) after each death. However, your life meter is reset to four bars and you lose the auto-aim upgrade to your turret.
- Excuse Plot: Game material for non-Japanese versions mention that the player is a CIA agent sent to take out terrorists in the year 2525 after they start targeting the United Nations.
- Flash of Pain: Anything with health in Super Spy Hunter.
- More Dakka: Super Spy Hunter'' gives your car a single fixed forward gun and a roof turret, whose two guns are always symmetrically aligned. This ends up being better than it might sound as it gives you a selectable bullet pattern that can focus fire ahead, spray narrow or wide pattern, shoot to the sides, to the obliques or even straight to the rear. Then there is the control upgrade (red "C"), which automatically tracks enemies on the screen, giving you a constantly changing pattern that is surprisingly effective at sweeping the screen to clear mooks.
- One-Hit Kill: Some bosses shoot large lasers that will instantly kill you if you touch the beam.
- Quicksand Sucks: Super Spy Hunter's second level features an open desert section with flowing quicksand pits scattered about. They damage you and reduce your health bar by one stage if you touch the center of them, while killing you at base max health.
- Sequential Boss: The final level has three boss battles back-to-back. The first two are upgraded versions of previous bosses, and the third one is the final boss of the game.
- Smart Bomb: The game gives you a one-time-use one when you pick up the blue "B" power-up.
- Spiked Wheels: You get a one-time-use of these when you get the blue "S" power-up in Super Spy Hunter.
- Super Drowning Skills: The first level has sections of shallow and deep water and jumps over them. Touch the deep water and you die instantly. This makes sense for a car driving game, until you reach level 5 and realize your car can take on a boat form.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: The boss of the 5th level of Super Spy Hunter exposes its only weak spot, its central engine, for a few seconds after running through its regular attack pattern. It's actually completely justified - the animation makes it clear that not exposing it would be genuine suicide; as the ship opens up, the engine is visibly pouring off steam as it glows bright red, and slowly changes color to a typical metal gray as it cools (and the ship closes back up as soon as it does).
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The flying car, boat and airplane levels.
- A Winner Is You: After defeating the final boss, you just get a scene of your car driving out of a tunnel with a message saying, "You completed all missions." Followed by the credits and the game looping back to the first stage.
