A lot of arcade games of the ’80s are rather brutal in their gameplay design, with tough yet oddly addictive mechanics in place to keep the flow of coins, well, flowing. One of these games that brought the allure of pixel blasting fun to arcade cabs in 1984 was Scion.
Released by Japanese arcade brand Seibu Denshi, this futuristic adventure was one of the earliest examples of vertical scrolling shooters. Much like Xevious a few years prior, Scion sees players pilot a dinky spaceship – frantically blasting away hordes of enemies on the screen. Sounds straightforward, right? In a lot of ways, the Scion setup is familiar. Don’t blink and frantically shoot your shot. Put those manoeuvrability skills to the test and dodge flashing space pellets to survive. All in a day’s work as an aspiring arcade space pilot!
The difference here is that it that the stages loop. The initial impression is that this level is lasting a little long. Perhaps, too long. As well as fending off relentless, endlessly spawning foes, there is a secondary requirement to progress: destroy the floor. The ah-ha moment. After equipping a specific weapon, a bomb button triggers a ground attack. Hitting certain, tricky, targets eventually breaks the stage’s barrier and it’s time to descend further. Onwards… and downwards!
The challenge in this game is, well, multitasking. Hitting specific targets and surviving bullets and enemies takes a fair bit of patience. Having coins on the line in the original arcade release must have been slightly pressure inducing! Fortunately, the Arcade Archives 2 release of Scion features save states and various other settings to make things a little less painful. Additional lives and credits can be stacked on, with difficulty toggles and saves helping replay portions of a level to practice.
Despite these modern enhancements, this arcade gem is still a challenge to get through. It demands a fair bit of patience and learning enemy patterns to keep the campaign alive. To what end, you might ask? Well, there is a story objective in Scion. The mission is to rescue your family, who are held captive within the core of a sprawling super city. Blasting through the floors and each stage allows the craft to get ever-closer. Eventually stages repeat, but this time a touch harder.
Scion may not be the most memorable title in the succession of space shooters that came after it. However, the game is known for its fresh spin on a classic formula, paving the way for the more popular Raiden series from the same developer. Fans of retro arcade shooters could benefit from trying Scion as part of the Arcade Archives 2 series; a little piece of shooting game history.
As well as the classic arcade mode, there are a handful of Arcade Archives 2 extras – online leaderboards, time attack and technical tweaks to make the game run well on modern hardware. On the Nintendo Switch 2, the game performs as smooth as can be – crisp, bright pixels honour the game’s futuristic art direction. Publisher Hamster has created a striking experience that does capture the arcade feel well. An alternative soundtrack option, however, could have helped dilute those infernal beeps! It does sound like being in a casino where a slot machine lurker has just cashed in.
