U.N. Squadron

"Why Did The <I>Ultimate History of Video Games</I> Call This Trash?"

The Ultimate History of Video Games, by Steve Kent. Pages 447 and 448
Going onto 1992, Sega had several advantages over Nintendo, including much lower sales price and a larger library of games. Nintendo was slow in getting games to market, and some of the early Super NES games such as U.N. Squadron and Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball were not particularly fun.

OK, so they didn't flat out call it trash. I still want to know why they said it wasn't much fun.

U.N. Squadron is the North American equivalent of the Japanese game ''Area 88''. I believe Area 88 was based on a manga of the same name which spawned the game and animè. Either than or an animè which spawned the game and manga. Whatever, there were three things here. The manga and animè were about a character named Shin Kazama who joins Area 88 out of hate and revenge for things Project 4 has done. I'm not sure if this same plot is shared by the game. I'll just say what I think the game's plot is.

I don't have the manual and not much of the plot is said in the game. I guess there's a war going on and the United Nations have hired some mercenaries who call themselves ''Area 88'' to help them fight an army calling themselves ''Project 4''. Maybe it's more like the plot of the animè, although if that were so the only playable character would be Shin.

The game is a side scrolling plane shooter. I have never played Gradius nor R-Type, but I guess this plays like them. When you start the game, you see a giant map. Usually there's a few places you can go, but in the very beginning there's only one destination. Later in the game, more missions open up, but you can't go back to ones you've already completed. So, you go there. Up comes a menu where you choose a plane and buy some special weapons. Yes, you buy them. As in spend money. You get money from defeating enemies. When you get enough money, you can also buy better planes (I suggest going straight to the Efreet). When you're done there, you go onto the actual level.

The level starts with your plane flying into the arena and enemies start coming at you. You shoot them and use a special weapon here and there. If you get hit, your planes starts flashing. If you get hit when you're flashing, you die. If you're not on your last health, a few seconds pass and the plane goes back into normal mode. At the end of the level, you fight a boss. They can be easy like the tank or painful like Wolfpac.

There's some missions that move along the map. These are things like a fleet of planes or a submarine. There's also trucks which don't pose a threat. They're actually bonus games for extra cash. But if the dangerous ones get too close to the Area 88 base, they start attacking it. When they attack it, you have to go to that mission. You are not allowed to go to any other mission. You can also go to the missions early to get them out of the way. Do whatever you want with them.

You can pick from three pilots in the beginning of the game and you use him (they're all guys even though Shin looks like a girl) for the whole game. One has a pro, one has two pros and a con, one has neither. The first who I believe is the main character is Shin Kazama. His gun upgrades with fewer powerups than the other two. The second is Mickey Scymon. He has no pros nor cons. He was suppose to be able to use more than one type of special weapon at once, but there's a bug in North American version that causes him to be unable to do so. The third is Greg Gates. His plane repairs faster than the other two and he gets more health from recovery items, but his gun powers up slower than the other two. Choose whichever you want.

You get to pick your challenge level in this. I don't know why, but when I was smaller I could never beat this game even on Easy mode. I always got stuck on this one boss that was on the ceiling of a cave. I got sick of trying and never played it again for a while. When I got my own copy a few years later, I beat it on my first try... I have no idea why that happens. That happened with Blaster Master and Diddy Kong Racing as well. I tried it on Medium and beat it on that easily. Basically, the challenge is average. Hard at first, easy once you play it enough. The final boss is hard on the first trip around, but after you come back for a second trip of crippling or attacking, it's rather easy.

The replay value is U.N. Squadon's weakest point. It isn't terrible, but it isn't wonderful. There's multiple endings depending on who you finish with and at what difficulty. You can also take a few runs through with a different character. After you do all that, the game will be sitting around for a while.

Controlling the plane is easy enough. Use the control pad to fly around and dodge obstacles, B drops a special weapon, A switches, hold down Y to rapidly fire for a few seconds, then the gun will stop. Release and press again to start up the gun again. Switching weapons can be a bit cumbersome, but you can do that while the game is Paused. Overall, the control is great.

The graphics are really good. The color scheme is nice and the mugshots of the characters appear to be animèish. There's one level where the sun sets as you play through, which I think is a nice touch. In one level there's a strange effect where your plane starts speeding up and ascends into the air. It gives me this strange feeling of being shoved back into my seat. Not many games can actually make me feel the game.

If you want a bad point, some explosions look pretty bad. Sometimes they actually look like something's blowing up. Sometimes they just look like an orange circle. Sometimes they look like a blue circle. Another gripe is how silly Greg look when flying the plane and on the little ''mission complete'' screen.

The music is awesome. When you first pop in the game and start hearing that heroic tune of the opening sequence, you can be sure the music's going to be good. Then you go on to select your character to this nice tune. Some of the music is a bit repetitive, especially the final boss. But it's not Friday the 13th's Overworld repetitive. This isn't even Bionic Commando's Albatross repetitive. It's better. One of my favorite tunes is the one that plays on the Forest Fortress. They even seemed to time the music so the music rises when you come up to the weak point which then exposes itself and starts firing missiles. The other songs are nice and fit the mood of the scenery.

The sound effects consist primarily of gunfire from your gun or a special weapon, explosions, and little noises when you pick up an item. They're good, but get too repetitive after a while.

Scorings
Story: 7/10
Gameplay/Fun Factor: 8/10
Control: 10/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

I still don't know why that book said this game was poor. Maybe Steve was sick of side scrolling plane shooters. Whatever the reason may be, I cannot agree with them. I feel this game is one of the better SNES games out there. This game is a must for your collection.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/29/02, Updated 10/29/02