71. Bermuda Triangle (SNK, Arcade (Switch), 1987)

Bermuda Triangle is a vertically-scrolling shooter that used SNK's loop lever joystick, which was a rotary joystick that allowed for simultaneous aiming and shooting. Here on the switch release within the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, this has been translated to a twin stick controls scheme. The story of the game involves a ship that is constantly traveling back in time, though you are still up against the same enemy ships in each time period, so the theming is not as novel as something like Time Pilot.

The first thing I noticed about Bermuda Triangle is how huge your ship is. Thankfully the game works on a power up system that also doubles as your life bar, so while your large size leads to taking more hits, there are also powerups (health) littered fairly liberally around each stage. To showcase the multi-directional capabilities, the game has you move forwards through a level, then backwards, then forwards again before you face the boss. Thankfully new enemy formations appear each time you switch directions, which keeps it from feeling stale.

Even though it has several interesting ideas, the game doesn't feel that great to play. There is only one shoot button so the gameplay itself is not terribly varied or interesting, and there are not a ton of enemy types. The rewind feature present in the Switch collection is a blessing here, as there are frequently large difficulty spikes that make the game a bit of a chore.

3/5, some cool ideas, but most of these SNK loop lever games are just a bit too hard