Flynn’s Arcade have been responsible for publishing some of the absolute best faux-early 80s arcade titles on the Switch, and Super Spy Raccoon is another title from the publisher which fits that description, joining modern retro classics such as Donut Dodo and Cash Cow DX.

A single screen platformer in the vein of games such as Donkey Kong or Burger Time, in Super Spy Raccoon the main mechanic is, unusually for a title of this nature, stealth. You’ll run and jump around each stage, picking up classified documents and trying not to be seen by the various enemies, spotlights, lasers and more. Collecting all the documents in a stage completes it, with five stages which loop and get harder and harder, just like the classic games it apes.

If you’re spotted, it’s an instant life lost, but you can pick up items that grant temporary invisibility or, more commonly, hide behind the various bushes dotted around each stage, taking care to reach them before any enemies or obstacles on the same level as you can spot you running around.

At first, I found it incredibly frustrating. The window of opportunity to get between each bush, or to reach certain documents in time without being spotted, seems incredibly small, and you’ll lose plenty of lives trying to get into the staccato rhythm of completing a stage.

Yet carefully watching the positioning of enemies, spotlights and so on, knowing when and where to move at lightning speed, soon becomes second nature. It never really becomes easy, as such, but it certainly becomes manageable, whereas when you begin it just feels impossible to get anywhere.

So despite that initial learning curve, it’s well worth persevering with Super Spy Raccoon, which plays incredibly hard, but does play fair (unlike, say, single screen Atari platformer Bounty Bob Strikes Back).

Especially as, like several of the other faux retro arcade games from Flynn’s Arcade, you can upload your score to a global leaderboard using a clever, simple QR code system.

Visually, it’s a treat too, with smooth animation and gorgeous colours, along with a very old school, arcade cabinet style border design.

It’s fantastic, addictive stuff, and I can highly recommend it; that is, as long as you don’t mind a lot of trial and error before you get your head around Super Spy Raccoon’s unique, old school stealth mechanics.

Super Spy Raccoon is available now on Switch, Steam and itch.io. Many thanks to Flynn’s Arcade for providing me with a code for review purposes.