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UN Squadron (Area 88) Appreciation Thread.

suikodan

suikodan

Member
System: SNES
Year: 1991
Company: Capcom

For those who got a SNES near its release date, you can tell that there wasn't too many games available to play. I remember this game that had a very stylish art so I kind of found out that it could have been an anime, especially with the Japanese name "Area 88" but since Google didn't exist at that time, there was no way I could find out.

I always liked that game, the graphics were good but the soundtrack was really something. The boss encounters are very cool, the way they just blend in the action is something that I find very exciting in games. No intro, no cut-scene, just fight me and get over with it!

(The big plane in the first picture is an exemple of a boss battle that I like, it simply comes slowly into the screen, the music starts and the duel starts right after!)

unsquadron08.gif
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Now since Google is available, I found out what the real backstory was. Shin Kazama was betrayed by his once-best friend to sign a contract to fight as a merc in some Army. He is obligated to serve a 3-years term or pay 1.5 million bucks to buy his contract and be free.

Shin is the typical quiet-yet-I-Fight kind of guy who simply wants to buy his way out of Area 88 to go back to his gf in Japan. Fortunately for him, she is waiting for him even though his traitor of a friend Kanzaki has other plans for her.

area-88-vol1-1.JPG


The anime in whole is OK, but being able to find out an origin of a game that I liked a lot back then made me happy.

This could also bring the topic where Japanese content were removed from US versions of some games but that's another story.

Anyone liked this game then? Or now? :)
 
THat was the first game i trully masterd as a child. if you played it enough it just came down to repetition and knowing exactly where to be. game could be beat in less then an hour.

GREAT GAME!
 
I remember this game...never played it though. But it reminds me of a game I played to death on my C64...

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Falcon_Patrol.gif


Hard to believe this game was made before Live Aid. And with visuals like those, it's no wonder Afterburner blew me the fuck away.
 
<3

I loved this game too, only finished it on a handful of occasions but 100% addicted to the gameplay (and 5 layer parallax scrolling! woohoo) To this date, I still have the music on my computer. My strongest memory is from the canyon run (?) where a small convoy of trucks is making its way along the bottom of the screen, you've got 30 seconds or so to take a few passes over their heads and napalm them to death! Oh, great times ;)
 
Loved this game way back in the day. Intense shooting, GREAT music for it's time. Played in the arcade for a LONG time as well as the SNES version.

Just Capcom at it's best. Really showed how the SNES could be a home arcade with ease.
 
I absolutely love U.N. Squadron, great launch title. To me, still holds up today as a good shooter, especially with the choice of different pilots and the buying of weapons between levels etc. Great music as well. I would like to see the arcade version show up on a Capcom Classic Collection or XBLA, but I wonder if Capcom still has rights on Area 88 so they can republish it.
 
GitarooMan said:
I would like to see the arcade version show up on a Capcom Classic Collection or XBLA, but I wonder if Capcom still has rights on Area 88 so they can republish it.
Click to expand...

Apparently no and that's why it wasn't included in the recent Capcom Collection :(
 
It's a decent enough shooter, but it (like its sequel Carrier Airwing) is a bit too easy for my tastes. The moments of real intense bullet-dodging are few and far between.

Then again I always preferred vertical shooters anyway.
 
Played this game to death, it was truly awsome and like stated before kinda hard sometimes. I really liked the upgrading part of this game :)
 
I loved this game a lot! It was one of those games I just went out and bought with no real knowledge of the game.
 
Anyone know where to find the soundtrack? or downloadable songs at least? Been looking forever... One of my favorite soundtracks of all time.

Fragamemnon said:
It's a decent enough shooter, but it (like its sequel Carrier Airwing) is a bit too easy for my tastes. The moments of real intense bullet-dodging are few and far between.
Click to expand...

That's why you play on Gamer Mode ya nub :p
 
This is one of about thirty SNES games I still own. In fact, it's in my SNES right now as I played it about two weeks ago. I'd REALLY love to see an updated version of this game done with all the flash and bang possible in the current or next gen.
 
MomoPufflet said:
Anyone know where to find the soundtrack? or downloadable songs at least? Been looking forever... One of my favorite soundtracks of all time.
Click to expand...

You need SnesJukebox (or something of a similar name) it emulates the SNES soundchip and will play any music from any game... give me a moment to find it and the AREA88 files for you...
 
marvelharvey said:
You need SnesJukebox (or something of a similar name) it emulates the SNES soundchip and will play any music from any game... give me a moment to find it and the AREA88 files for you...
Click to expand...

<3 ! Big cookie for you.
 
ziran said:
brilliant game! one of the best shoot 'em ups ever :)
Click to expand...

Seconded. This will be the first game I get on Rev. if it's available.

One of the most awesome shooters...EVAR.

That is all.

[EDIT] So sad that I traded it away :*(
 
I used to play the hell outta this in the arcade... I was soo incredibly happy when it hit the SNES...

I agree with the music part... especially the tune that played during mission briefing/weapon picking... For the arcade it was awesome rivals with the opening music for Super C... hehe...

There was another shooter spun off of this game... i can't remember the name... same look and feel... if i remember correctly you launched off a carrier everytime... It's in the Mame ROM collection, US Navy or something... i'll have to check

Carrier Airwing (US Navy - in Japan) by Capcom as well... it's a great game too... check it out...
 
I still remember getting to the last boss when I was just a wee little kid, it took me a while to beat that game at that age.
 
I found the Xbox Air Force Delta Storm to be a great spiritual sequel to the Snes version of UN Squadron. You don't fight level after level, you choose your next destination.
 
This game got a lot of playtime on my SNES. I love it. Played it well into college, and just played a little yesterday. One time my brother and I made up dialog for every enemy pilot and driver as we blew them up ("OH NO! WHAT'S GOING ON! AHHHHH! I'LL NEVER SEE GRANDMA AGAIN!"). Good times. This better be a game we can download on the Virtual Console!

The Area 88 anime is on the Anime Network now, for those few lucky schlubs who get it.
 
GhaleonEB said:
The Arcade version was better, but yes this shooter ruled. I still have one of the music tracks memorized.
Click to expand...
Gotta disagree with you. IMHO this was one of the games that was so refined when it hit the SNES. The only advantage I feel the arcade edition had was t being two player.
 
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arcade version has much better graphics, but incredibly, the SNES version is actually a better game overall with the money system and getting to buy new planes.


I liked Carrier Air Wing also.




I remember at a Nintendo game center (forget the name) which was an island store in
Golf Mill mall in Niles, IL someone had this flyer hanging up
10003101.jpg




I wish that Capcom had done an SNES version of Carrier Air Wing in the same way.
 
WORD UP!

It was more inventive then a dozen of your average shoot-em-ups, had terrific graphics and music, and just about a perfectly balenced difficulty level. I lost a lot of time in U.N. Squadron(I used to think it was somehow connected to the 194X series), and I would gladly lose many more.

I wish Capcom was still making 2D shooters(sigh).
 
Suikoguy said:
So it was in the launch window?
Click to expand...

Yep. I was originally going to make a comment about it being in the "launch window" to use the modern term that MS and others love so much, but decided not to. :D
 
I remember getting U.N. Squadron a few months after SNES launch. I got my SNES in late August 1991 when it was released, and I had U.N. Squadron by November 1991 IIRC. but I don't know the exact release, though it was not a launch game.
 
I liked the Mode 7 launch sequence in the intro... really great music, especially for a game so early in the SNES lifecycle.

The game had some super-annoying slowdown, though, and the game was pretty damn hard. What the game lacked in bullets, it made up with plane and missile quantity/speed. The size of your ship made dodging a lot of it pretty tough, and like many shooters of that era, many areas required pretty good memorization of the attack patterns to navigate successfully.

Still, I loved it since I grew up reading the Eclipse-published manga in the US. The cover art of those books still remain some of the strongest from back in the day.

I also preferred the arcade version for its focus on pure shooting and the more straightforward non-Halo-like damage system, but the SNES one was early proof of the SNES's ability to bring the arcade experience home quite faithfully... which would be fully realized later with SF2.
 
One of the first SNES games I played but I borrowed it from a friend so I never owned my own copy. Here's hoping this is made available for Revolution!
 
Good game, I really need to replay this or purchase it. Though I'm not really too nuts about the whole concept of grinding for money in a shooter :lol
 
A friend of mine bought the game the day it was released, we were HUGE fans of it's Arcade big brother. IMO, fantastic translation from arcade to SNES for it's time. Fun, fun, fun!
 
It's funny, I was just thinking about this game the other day, haven't played it since right after it released though, a friend of mine owned it. I don't remember if I finished it or not, but I know I enjoyed it.
 
I used to love UN Squadron as a kid. I always wanted to try it again, but I couldn't remember its name untill now. There was another SNES games that I loved, but have since forgotten its name, maybe someone will know in this thread.

It was a 2 player game with one player controlling a helicopter, the other a tank. The first level was set in a desert and played like a vertical shooter.
 
All Hail C-Webb said:
I used to love UN Squadron as a kid. I always wanted to try it again, but I couldn't remember its name untill now. There was another SNES games that I loved, but have since forgotten its name, maybe someone will know in this thread.

It was a 2 player game with one player controlling a helicopter, the other a tank. The first level was set in a desert and played like a vertical shooter.
Click to expand...

Hmm... that sounds a bit like Silkworm for NES, except that was a hori shooter not a vertical one...
 
djtiesto said:
Hmm... that sounds a bit like Silkworm for NES, except that was a hori shooter not a vertical one...
Click to expand...

Thanks. I looked up Silkworm, and it turns out the game I was talking about is a sequel. I was so addicted to this game. Played it for hours a day for a few weeks, and finally gave up when after dying at the same level over 100 times.

SUPER%20SWIV%20(SuperNintendo).jpg

SuperSwiv(1).png

swiv7.jpg


It turns out it was called Firepower 2000 in the US, what a bad name for such a good game.

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I used to play this game in the arcade before the SNES version. It is still one of my favorite games. I play it through emulation once in a while.
 
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