The Classic Arcade and Console Era (1972-1989) - Submarine
A good-looking shoot ‘em up rescue game that feels like a fusion of Defender and the 1990s Irem title In the Hunt.
RELEASE DATE: 1985
DEVELOPER / PUBLISHER: Sigma Enterprises
BEST VERSIONS: Arcade
PLAYABILITY TODAY: Highly playable
1980s shoot ‘em up games have a reputation for being a dime a dozen, and there’s a good reason for that – for every groundbreaking title like Xevious, Scramble, Gradius or Zanac, there are dozens of copycats that are pretty much the same thing mechanically. One of the genre’s most enduring problems has been its reliance on futuristic, outer space and military air force settings, all of which just add to the common sentiment that the genre’s designed for a very narrow slice of gamers and doesn’t have a lot of fresh ideas. So, when a shoot ‘em up bothers to do something a little bit different thematically, it’s at least worth taking a look at it, and Submarine is certainly a game that dares to be different by changing some of the core mechanics of the genre and by throwing in a variation of the rescue mechanics of Defender.
I couldn’t find much history on this game or its developer, Sigma Enterprises, and even the lone longplay video I found provided no useful information from the player or comments section. Part of the problem seems to be that Sigma Enterprises wasn’t a particularly well-known developer and didn’t have much of an arcade footprint beyond some Japanese me-too cabinets including a cute tanuki-themed platformer called Ponpoko. The title, Submarine, is also similarly unimaginative and is shared with many other titles from various PC, mainframe and console platforms. It would be easy to write this game off and move on.
But when I stumbled upon this game, I was first drawn in by the excellent graphics, which feature a massive castle on the first level and surreal futuristic underwater backgrounds that are reminiscent of Moon Patrol in later stages. You play as a submarine that can shoot torpedoes forward and drop bombs downward, but the watery theme and slower movement of your submarine makes it feel like you’re plodding through the levels at a careful and deliberate pace, particularly since you can slow your submarine down and even slowly reverse the screen scroll as you back up. Many enemies also fire torpedoes that you can shoot down with your own weapons. This proves to be a major shift from most other shooters of the mid-1980s, because it allows you to maneuver in ways that are more methodical than a conventional shooter. You also have the freedom to back up away from aggressive enemy groups and wait out their attack patterns.
This isn’t to suggest Submarine is easy, because it isn’t. The gameplay takes place over a continuous level broken up into four rounds, at which you enter some sort of underwater orb and then are taken back to the beginning for a more challenging variation. The first round, which takes place around the undersea castle, isn’t too bad because there are ample opportunities for cover and the enemies aren’t overly aggressive. In the second round, the sea floor opens up as you travel into an underwater forest where kelp beds and floating rocks obscure some of the enemies you’ll face. In the third round, you see the ruins of a futuristic underwater city, but you also find many enemies hanging around the debris, waiting to ambush you. And in the fourth round, you enter an underwater mountain range where enemies are aggressive and attack you as you dodge volcanic rocks that respond to being hit by your torpedoes. Once you start over, the rounds are increasingly filled with floating rocks and are populated with more difficult enemies, including, for whatever reason, tanks. Things don’t seem to change much after that.
In the midst of all of this, you’ll come across little people trapped in floating bubbles whom you can rescue, though I have yet to determine what this accomplishes beyond giving you points and a feeling of satisfaction. You’ll also encounter fuel tanks, which you can bomb to replenish some of your fuel gauge. The fact that you have consumable fuel forces you to consider your choices a little more carefully when you’re moving slowly, and while it’s difficult to run out unless you’re really moving at a snail’s pace, there are stretches where fuel is hard to reach and you have to go a little faster to reach it. I love that if you overshoot the fuel tanks, you can still back up and hit them; that’s a mechanic which would be helpful in other shoot ‘em ups where precise timing informed by trial and error is required for survival.
Submarine is a very surprising game for something so obscure and generically named. For a horizontal scrolling shoot ‘em up released in 1985, it looks great, offers some pleasant music and sound, and plays quite well. For reasons I don’t quite understand, the game was developed for a vertical screen instead of a horizontal one, but the rationale may have been to give you more space to move up and down since the pace doesn’t require seeing very far ahead of you. Hardcore genre fans might be turned off by how easy it is on the first round, but by the second or third, the game shows its teeth and requires absolute concentration to make it through. Still, since the pace is slow, the sub is highly maneuverable and the enemies behave predictably, a careful player can easily clear the first loop and make it to the more challenging second loop.
Given the obscurity of the game, the only way to play it today is via arcade emulation through the likes of MAME or Retroarch, and I would be surprised if anyone will ever publish this game in a retro revival series since the developer seems to have gone out of business long ago. It’s a pity, because Submarine is a legitimately decent game and a definite hidden gem.
As Our Series Continues…
It’s time to move on to console and arcade gaming in the 1970s and 80s, and we’re going to cover it all with an exploration into hundreds more games you’ve probably never played but definitely ought to check out. Come for amazingly great early 1980s games like Warlords, Super Locomotive, Shark! Shark!, Acrobatic Dog-Fight, Mysterious Stones: Dr. John’s Adventure and Intrepid and stick around for mid-to-late 1980s greats like Peter Pack-Rat, Penguin-kun Wars, Momoko 120%, UFO Robot Dangar, Wonder Momo, Raimais, Last Alert, The Legend of Valkyrie and the arcade version of Twin Eagle: Revenge Joe’s Brother, complete with a rockin’ soundtrack with wonderfully inscrutable lyrics.
If you’ve never heard of any of those games, you’re in for a treat as we explore them one by one. And If those games are all old hat to you, don’t worry; they’re just the tip of the iceberg for what we’ll be discussing!
If you missed my series on the hundreds of 1980s PC games you probably never played, you can find the entire archive at https://greatestgames.substack.com.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 2. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!