In "Lonely Wolf", one character is controlled throughout the game, while "Team Battle" allows selecting a band of three soldiers through their missions, switching between them on-the-fly.

Players move in eight directions with the joystick and fire, do evasive maneuvers, use their special weapon, and switch characters with the A, B, C, and D buttons, respectively.

A special team composed of eight soldiers from different countries must fight through their ranks in order to get to their leader and save the scientist's granddaughter and the world.

[1] D4 Enterprise developed and published a port for the Virtual Console for Wii, which was released in Japan on May 22, 2012;[2] in North America on October 25, 2012;[3] and in Europe on November 8, 2012.

[4] A port developed by DotEmu for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux and asm.js was released by SNK Playmore as part of the Humble NEOGEO 25th Anniversary Bundle on December 8, 2015.

[9] Nintendo Life's Corbie Dillard scored the Virtual Console release a 7/10 and opined it "succeeds in offering up an intense and explosive run-and-gun experience.

"[10] Digitally Downloaded reviewer awarded it four-and-half stars out of five, stating: "If you’ve never played a run-n’-gun shooter before, Shock Troopers should be one of your top contenders, regardless of your skill level.