Son Son [Model CAP-SS]

Son Son © 1986 Capcom Company, Limited.

Son Son is a side scrolling action game and conversion of the arcade game originally released in 1984. It is loosely based on the old Chinese legend Journey to the west and tells the story of a monk and his long pilgrimage to Tenjiku (ancient India) to retrieve Buddhist scriptures. But soon, the monk and his disciples (lead by Son Son the monkey boy) come under attack and are captured by a flying demon-warrior. Only Son Son and Ton Ton (the pig in two-player cooperative mode) manage to escape, and the duo vows to save their friends and to reach their intended destination. Son Son is not your typical platform game, but rather a mix of platform action and shooting. Each one of the twenty levels (or continuous sections) is made out of six large platforms that span across the screen. The playfield constantly scrolls from right to left, encouraging Son Son to always stay on the move and to jump up or down to higher or lower ground in order to avoid incoming enemies or to collect fruits and other special items. Most of the items available in the game, such as fruits and vegetables, are only good for points (additionally, larger ones appear in front of wooden signs and award the player with even more bonus points). The last power-ups are Capcom's familiar and trademark Pow icons (kill all the enemies on the screen and turns them into fruits and vegetables for points), small Bamboo shoots (they grow behind Son Son) and the Yashichi pinwheel for extra bonus points. Every so often, the screen stops for a short amount of time and unveils a tougher battle against skull blocks, bombers and, later in the game, respawning waves of increasingly difficult enemies and large flying demon-warriors.