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U.N. Squadron is a special game for me. It was the first shmup I played that really made me want to play it more. This was way back when I was 9 or 10 years old when at first my brother had rented the game. I remember it being hooked up to a vintage TV that was sat upon an old wheeled piece of wooden furniture. In the basement my brother had a big sleep over with his friends, and to my recollection, they were all playing U.N. Squadron. Later when all of them were gone, I got to try the game… and I don’t know how well I did. But I knew it was cool. I rented the game later on and really enjoyed it.
Then the years passed and I’m probably 16 now, when one day I suddenly wanted to search out the game. I called a lot of game stores around my area and eventually found a place that had it. The smallest game store I had ever went to, a little place called Raven Games. This place was the size of a 15 foot by 10 bedroom. Walls completed shelved with games, and I’m sure a mother load of games under the counter or “in the back”. I picked up U.N. Squadron for $7 and the orange price tag is still on the cartridge I’m playing today. The cart is in poor condition. Grime is in the crevasses and the cover is partially peeled off, including the end label, as well as the back label completely scratched off.
What’s with people and their games sometimes? I wonder if the person who had the game originally was raging over how difficult it was, and released their anger on the cartridge in such a way.
But the difficulty is just right for beginners of the genre. You would get your ass kicked at first, but then you would buckle down and find out there wasn’t a strong threat in the game except your own haste and lack of strategy.
image links to page I stole it from
Now coming back to U.N. Squadron after gaining experience and knowledge of beating other shmups, it became easy. I realize now that there is a right way to play any shmup, and the game just wants to show you the way. In my first play through, I was automatically analyzing the screen for safe spots during the boss battles and I was able to utilize the special weapons to full effect. My experience with shmups showed. So I went all the way to the end and 1cc’d the game on my first visit back. With Greg Gates and 2 lives remaining. Wow!
Then I tired Hard Mode and did well until the last 3 stages. Then the difficulty began to equate to arcade level difficulty and I didn’t know the best strategy for the ceiling boss on hard mode. Hard Mode is nice though. The bosses are more aggressive and the enemies shoot more bullets and faster. I was using the whole screen to herd enemy fire, almost like a Gradius loop. Hard Mode is definitely more suited for me and I was having genuine fun. Playing the game made me remember that I wanted to tackle the arcade U.N. Squadron some more some time.
These type of games were just not prevalent enough to garner an obsessive attention from me. There were lots of cool games in the SNES era. And an SNES was all I had. Yeah I played Gradius III but I never owned it. I had the same impression with it. I thought it was cool but in the end it was just a “simple” shooting game that became very difficult near the end. It was only until I found out some shmups have scoring systems that I gave them the proper respect. …And that was another 5 years later!
All in all U.N. Squadron on the SNES is a stand-out port of the arcade game and has aged quite well.
BREAKING WAR NEWS !!!!
I found out that there is a “Gamer” mode which is an even harder difficulty. I will report on the war when the conflict has been confronted.
5-7-11 — AQY defeats HARD MODE and gets special ending message. He also tries the secret “Gamer” mode and finds it is more difficult than the switch from normal to hard. It became like P-47 Aces shit. Fast bullets that require memorized dodging!!! Also the 1 million dollar plane is over powered! lawl
Sometimes it’s good to remember about your run-throughs in shmups that aren’t your hi-scores, or aren’t even runs where you reach a new stage. But are still exciting and different in their own way. This post is just about one of those runs.
I reach stage 13 with this score but I certainly wasn’t expecting to get this far. Like the Gradius games, dying in Twinbee is hard to recover from. If it’s a hectic part of the game, it’s very easy to die again quickly, and then again and again to game over. Especially during bosses. I don’t recall how I lost every of my 3 lives before my last in this run. However, two of those were solid recoveries to getting powered up again. Luckily, where I died was not during hectic parts, aside from a life I lost shortly before a boss battle. Boss battles are kind of interesting because you only need to get about 2 or 3 shots once the boss reveals it’s core to kill it. Even when it seems dire and you’re surrounded by popcorn or bullets, getting those few shots right before death to kill the boss is awesome.
On my 2nd recovery, I was crushed by the spinning metallic clubs. This section only consists of the clubs, a few ground enemies and clouds. It’s really not a bad place to suicide if you need to get your arms back. (Out of context, that sentence is awesome.) There I couldn’t power up from the clouds but soon after the metallic clubs dissipated, I picked up the spread power up, then there was a bunch of clouds with bells and I upgraded to options. There’s a long period in this run where I’m just trying to get my powers back, thus missing a lot of potential 10K bells. But you really have to ignore the bells sometimes because this game’s rank turns into bullet hell! Which becomes the most exciting part of the game, where minute dodging is used a lot more often. Most of the game is spent just sweeping the screen and making sure all the enemies are shot down, as to not linger on the screen and get a cheap kill on you. But that simple act is just so much fun, especially when fully powered up and the game throws tons of enemies and bells at you.
Anyhow, the run ends when there is an unprecedented amount of ground enemies in stage 13 and I am not prepared to act fast enough. There is a star that clears the screen of bullets and air enemies and I go for it and get shot down for my efforts. The best thing to do is to stay at a mid-upper range of the screen and just spam the ground for enemies when you know they’re coming. I didn’t know they were there. But I’ll remember next time, and I’ll practice, to get past stage 13, and my current hi-score of 2.2 some million. I genuinely want to see what else this game offers beyond stage 13.
One of my favorite things about playing STGs as a hobby has to be finding that game that I love to play. Everyone has different picks and tastes and you can never seem to please someone with a direct recommendation. For me it’s a curious search and a fun one. When I’m not invested in a shmup that is so awesome I want to keep replaying it over and over: I’m playing all kinds of shmups just for a credit or two for the simple enjoyment of casual play. Some games when I finish I thought it was fun, but sometimes it feels like it’s the same old, “Oh, I needed to know what to do at that part” to progress which can be discouraging. I feel that other factors step in when I really like a game. The music, the sound effects, graphics and animations have to create the right synergy. With Twinbee, I love how simple and classic it is for a STG. The enemies are often peculiar objects: lightbulbs, forks, bent spoons that explode into a magical dust when they meet my green energy blasts. The way the game handles music is also interesting, it changes depending on what power-ups you have. Other STGs have done this before, Star Force is an example. I like that game too, but I haven’t invested any serious time in it… it’s even more simple, it’s before MY time, in fact. 1985 (I was born in 1986.)
Tangent:
Sometimes I like to think about a type of media in terms of my birthdate, I don’t think I’m the only one who does this! Like, I think sometimes, is it just a funny coincidence that I like or love games like Commando, Son Son, Twinbee, Gradius, Salamander, Flying Shark, all games made right around 1986. Perhaps I just like them because this time was a brilliant era for the birth of video games and STG in general! It’s funny to think about video gaming still being in its infancy in the grand scheme of things. And to think, some day, we will all be the Cranky Kong’s preaching to our grand kids what a REAL “game” was. I don’t think the future is that bleak for the “core” game experience to be out there. Probably everything will be digital and accessible… I digress.
Finding a game you love is a joy in any matter. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what the reasons are. Except that you play it and you don’t want to stop. I think I like Twinbee because when the game doesn’t have tricky parts, it’s just fun to shoot stuff and collect bells. Which is probably half of the game as far as I’ve made it.
…Or maybe it’s because I have a hard-on for Konami shmups in general. Some of you know that I am in fact a Gradius nut, but certainly not the nuttiest of them all. *cough*TVIks*cough*
I was flipping through games in Mame, trying some various stuff out. No, I’m not one of those people who has every MAME rom on my computer. I only have games I’m interested in playing. So, I tried out P47 Aces and right away I found out that it was fast paced, and likely a challenging game to clear. I like a good challenge and it piqued my interest further. Upon inspection on the Shmups forum nobody had cleared the game. Soon after I found myself save state raping the hell out of the game, figuring out the bosses, enemies to point-blank, special positioning and all the like: learning the game. Leader boards can really do it for me when it comes to shmups. Anyway, I found the game to be quite good. Detailed and colorful graphics, parallax scrolling with some stages having more than 4 layers to them, a variety of stages and cool enemy and boss animations.
To me P47-Aces feels like a horizontal Viper Phase 1 or horizontal Gunbird game mostly in regard to the enemy bullets. The bullets are fast and a decent amount of memorization is required for positioning during bosses. Popcorn enemies are responsible for the non-fixed bullets and at times will flock in large groups, shooting many bullets, requiring you to herd their shots or dart in between some of them. What I liked about the general gameplay is that it is very straight forward with what you have to deal with. There is a simple order to the types of threats, but the speed of the bullets and how you must react made for a fun experience. Here’s my stage run down.
-First stage is a countryside type stage, lots of rolling hills and a large green cliff side at the boss.
-Second stage is higher up on the countryside at dusk with some farmhouses seen on the ground in the distance. A huge battleship consists of the whole stage.
-Third stage is a desert canyon type stage where the difficulty really settles in, as if the 2nd stage wasn’t intimidating enough. Many larger aircraft are now appearing with more threatening patterns, and a new popcorn enemy that if isn’t destroyed fast enough will let out a fast large spread shot which webs into the bullets of other enemies quite annoyingly. The boss scene takes place in front of a town built at the edge of a cliff.
-The fourth stage is the token water / huge battleship stage, seen in so many other World War themed shmups. In this stage the sun sets and the colors of the stage change quite nicely, as a nice touch, if you time out the battleship, it will sink just as you see the sun setting into the horizon. The animation on the water is pleasing to the eye and stretches out to the horizon.
-The fifth stage is over a lake with forested area around, the greenest stage yet. The water comes into play here where enemy planes drop boueys that explode after a few seconds once they hit the water. The explosions are cool, big water splash animations and a BOOOSHHH sound to accompany. This stage is like stage 3 2.0: you are forced to multitask, destroying large planes, avoiding their balloons that shoot aimed shots, and also considering the popcorn enemies. Point blank and herd or bomb is the lesson. The boss is a plane set in the water, one of its turrets shooting at you at first, then as you pass it takes off from the water and battles you.
-Stage 6 is my favorite: the true desert stage on a purple night. A jazzy song plays here that is laid back and groovy. And even an orange tinged, crescent moon is seen slowly scrolling in the farthest background. This stage has the most layers to it. A foreground dune scrolls the fastest in front of you at the very bottom, the desert over which your flying, then large cascading dunes followed by a few more layers of more scrolling desert. This stage puts everything you’ve learned to the test, and makes you memorize it the most while introducing a new type of plane, a type of jet that looks like it bears the colors of the US flag. It’s just oddly bannered in such a way, I don’t know why but I find it funny. This stage has a tank hybrid boss, and is also the 2nd easiest boss of the game once you figure out the best way to beat it.
-Stage seven, still bringing new areas for stages, this one is set in a harbor city, the buildings of the city are the highlight of the background. You are flying over a bridge that runs along the perimeter of the city. In this stage you have to be aggressive in your point blanking, but it’s short. The boss makes up for it, being the most hellish boss of the game. It’s simply a war machine on wheels. One of the most annoying things about it being that it shoots out missiles that upon explosion sends out rows of bullets from each side. In the latter phases, the safe spots within those rows need to be known, as a big spray comes out periodically as well as popcorn ships swooping in for potshots.
-Finally, the last stage takes place over an arctic ocean, snowy mountains in the background and glaciers in the foreground, reflected off of the water. In this stage you’re hunting down the escaping enemy ships. The stage is basically 4 mini-boss aircrafts with popcorn enemies filled between them. Once again, the popcorn ships attempting pot shots at you as you try to take down the mini-boss crafts, which have four phases to them, the last being the most dangerous. Varied bullet blasts that sweep the whole screen. Clutch dodging required or bombs if you have them. The boss has something like 5 phases and is actually a walk in the park if you reach him while fully powered up, and have at least one life or a couple bombs to spare. If not powered up, it is an annoying battle, but could be bombed to death with 2 lives worth of bomb stock. I had to reach it by no-missing the whole game, apparently.
The game had some fairly memorizer heavy parts, it required me to no-miss untill the end of the game. Dodging bullets was fun the whole time, and the way enemies die was done well. The bosses deteriorate after each phase, as well as some of the stronger aircrafts. The death explosions were cool, usually showing the craft splitting in half or breaking into smaller, distinct pieces. The game gave a great impression of destroying stuff. Popcorn enemies ‘parts’ would kind of lob up into the sky playfully, almost like popcorn does when it pops. Sometimes during the game it’s fun to watch that popcorn pop and watch their debris fall.
Yeah, I should mention the music was done by Manabu Namiki too. A very classic shmup soundtrack that did its job, and bragged only a little bit with catchy melodies, holding steady with the atmosphere and tension for the rest. A funny and cool thing about the game is that ramming into stuff, terrain, enemies or bosses doesn’t kill you. It just bounces you away. I really liked this about the game, I think I would have been more frustrated as there were some parts where you make contact with enemy planes but don’t shoot. The funny part is that the core element of scoring higher revolves around bouncing off of stuff. Every bounce is worth 100 points. On top of that, there are certain places that you can bounce to gain points very quickly. Basically getting your sprite stuck into an area will rocket it up a bit. I didn’t bother with it much during my run, but I do show a few places where that is possible.
Also, about my run. I recorded an .inp of my 1cc in Mame Plus .133. Kaisero has offered to make the videos of my run since my computer can’t handle the recording. I will update this post with those videos when they are up. I think you will enjoy watching this game. But I encourage anyone looking for a slightly memorizer, challenging, fast and thrilling shmup to give P47 Aces a go. I did have to do a lot of specific practice with save states to accomplish the 1cc, but I had plenty of fun doing so, conquering certain parts of the game. The game is only about a half hour so the stages go quick and there isn’t a whole lot to learn in between the tough parts.
I used the chick with big boobies ‘Kim Blaire’, but there is a loli, a generic tough guy 24 year old and a geyser who goes by the name “Captain Uncle” for the characters.
A note about the music: The sound emulation is slow, apparently! I checked out the actual soundtrack and it’s so much faster that I find it weird! I’m used to the slow music, hahaha.
Got the no-miss clear of R-Type’s first loop. I’m pleased. And I beat Kiken’s score by almost 100k, that’s a nice bonus.
Second loop’s a bit tricky. The first two stages aren’t that bad (though in this run I messed up in 2nd stage boss) but Stage 3 is already pretty brutal. The big cannon/thruster at the end of the Big Ship takes much, MUCH more hits, the turrets at the front of the ship regenerate quite fast…it’s a whole new ballgame from there on. I’m actually a bit tempted to work on the second loop – the game’s so short that even if I played through both loops it would still take less time than a full run of Contra: Shattered Soldier. But if I do decide to go at it, I’d be doing it with R-Types for PS1 rather than the Dimensions port I played here. Nothing wrong with Dimensions, but in the end I’m just a bit more comfortable with the original – especially since Dimensions doesn’t have customizable controls.
But then, I also want to work on R-Type 2 and about 30 other games. I have a list of gaming feats I want to accomplish, and now I can mark off one of them.
Video at http://www.ghegs.com/movies/Ghegs_R-Type1XBLA_1stloop_nomiss.mp4
Inspired by sgronblo I’ve finally found the groove to work on R-Type, which is something I’ve wanted to do since I finished Delta and I’ve had a clear of the game on my list of gaming goals to achieve for a while. I was actually making some nice progress on Last Resort before this, but then I got sidetracked into Borderlands for ~40 hours. No doubt I’ll be returning to Last Resort though, I made it to Stage 4 (out of 5) on a credit and after checking out Stage 5 with creditfeeding it looked pretty damn crazy awesome fun. And hard.
But R-Type. Even though it’s a fairly short game, it’s still annoying to practice the later stages when the tactics change completely depending on if you’re properly powered up or recovering from death on a checkpoint. Solution, emulation. But the game doesn’t support savestates in mame, using them actually crashed my computer. Luckily, the R-Types collection for PS1 works far better in this and I’ve been using a PS1 emulator to practice the stages with savestates. Both R-Types and the Dimensions port have actual stage select modes, but since they just start you at the beginning of the stage without any power-ups whatsoever they’re a bit useless, especially since I’m aiming to no-miss the game. Scoring via checkpoint abuse in Stage 7 be damned.
And so, I’ve now cleared every stage individually and have started doing full runs. I’m actually going to clear the game on the Dimensions port, at least for starters. If I feel like taking on the second loop I can always just play my R-Types. The early stages are a no-brainer, though Stage 4 boss still sometimes catches me by surprise. Stage 5 is probably the easiest stage of all as long as the ship’s properly equipped. Stage 6 sort of feels harder than Stage 7…it’s not as hectic, but in many places you’re confined to very small spaces where it’s easy to accidentally manuever into a wall.
Stage 7 is the one I spent the most time practicing. I had already gotten good enough to clear the first six stages just from normal play but Stage 7 had eluded me and it was the biggest reason I felt the need to practice with savestates. Not a terribly hard stage as such, but many little things that can go wrong…like getting caught by a blast of steam from a wall, which ended my latest no-miss full run. sgronblo prefers Blue weapon there, but I’ve found Yellow to suit me best. And Yellow allows me to abuse a safespot right in front of the boss which I couldn’t get to work with Blue. Here’s hoping the Dimensions port doesn’t differ here. If it doesn’t, I should have the clear soon-ish.
Been playing the game (still on Normal) with R13 few days now. The tactics aren’t that much different, obviously the vastly different Force and charge shot require some modifications to the tactics I used with RX, but it’s pretty simple. The most difficult part, I’ve noticed, is getting used to the smaller area R13’s Force covers. RX’s Tentacle Force can be opened up so it blocks more shots. Most of my deaths with R13 have come from a lone bullet slipping past the Force, a bullet that RX’s Force would’ve blocked. I’ve still made it to Stage 6 to the game’s hardest bit, so getting the clear shouldn’t be far off. After that I’ll clear the game with R9, bump the difficulty up to Hard and clear it again with all the ships. And then do a No-Force run. Maybe not on Hard but Normal instead.
Or that’s the plan, anyway. We’ll see how long it takes before I’m distracted by another shiny game.
Well that was entirely unexpected. Did my usual run, was happy to see that my tactics for Stage 6 worked nicely, was a bit surprised when I even killed the boss (first time for that) and then my jaw dropped to the floor when I went and beat Stage 7 despite not having seen it before. So…yeah. R-Type Delta cleared on Normal using RX and it was a no-miss, no-bomb.
Huh.
Stage 6 was much more difficult than the last stage, in which the only part where I felt some worry was at the very end where you have to dodge the sperm without the Force. There were few very close calls there. Reviewing the replay I see the ship’s hitbox is very small, in Stage 5 there’s a bullet that passes through the back of the ship and in Stage 6 I end up trapped inside the boss’ coiling tail and almost the entire canopy is inside the tail for a frame or two. So the hitbox must be in the very middle of the ship. Or maybe that tail has its own hitbox smaller than its graphics, who knows.
So…what now? Do I go forth and try to beat the game with the other ships, crank the difficulty up to Hard, go for a No-Force clear or move on to something else entirely? I’m still in a WTF-just-happened state of mind, I really wasn’t expecting to clear the game yet. According to the game’s timer it only took me 8 hours and 20 minutes.
Video available at http://www.ghegs.com/movies/Ghegs_R-Type_Delta_RX_nomiss.mp4
I have the first part of the sixth stage down, it’s the latter part that’s still giving me problems. Starting from the moment the Armored Giant Space Poop pushes you to the open space it’s mostly improvisation mixed with knowing you need to be in other part of the screen but not exactly sure how to get there safely. I’ve taken on the habit of recording my every run though, watching the replays afterwards really helps out in finding the correct path and figuring out your mistakes. I know which tactic to try next time there.
The boss itself needs a bit more work too. I can deal with his first form but the second one, which I just reached for the first time, caught me by surprise. Again, reviewing the replay footage helps in figuring out what to do and where to be. That’s basically by approach to the game now: do a run, study the replay, revise tactics, rinse and repeat.
Stage 5 still has one part of which I’m uncomfortable with. It’s shortly after the metal bars start spinning around. There’s a moment where it’d be really nice to have the Force at your back, but changing it there is hard because you need it at front just before and launching the Force out easily leads to it being trapped behind the rotating bars. Regardless, I (almost) always make it unharmed anyway, but it feels so unrefined. And watching that bit on the replay later on I often notice there was way too close a call there. I gotta try and find a better tactic there.
Just for a change of pace, after my normal run I went and tried playing the game without the Force. It was a very different experience, parts that are child’s play normally turn into deathtraps suddenly. I surprised myself by reaching Stage 3 before my first (and subsequent) death, and even that was due to a controlling error causing me to crash into an enemy that posed no danger. Stage 1 wasn’t all that different, but Stage 2 was waaaayyy harder. The part with the beehives was nerve-wrecking but I survived it with some luck. I was playing with the RX which probably isn’t the best choice for Force-less play…R13 with its homing-capable charge shot might be the best…or R9a with the second-level charge shot that covers more ground.
I’ve reached Stage 6 few times now. The first four stages are a cakewalk but I still make the occasional whoopsie on Stage 5. I have a good strategy for the whole thing, it’s just that in the heat of the moment I may start to doubt myself in the latter part of the stage (which resembles Stage 1 from the original R-Type) and that results in swooping through the rotating metal bars at the wrong moment. I feel confident against the bosses, they shouldn’t give me any more trouble.
RX is my main ship, but I tried the other ships at last and R13 feels like a powerhouse. It was with R13 I got to Stage 6 for the first time, actually. Couldn’t make up my mind whether R9 feels strong or not. The charge shot requires you to NOT be right in the target’s face or it doesn’t do full damage, so it can be hard to use against some of the bigger enemies. Stage 3 feels most difficult with R9, the other ship’s forces are far more suitable for it.
The famous R-Type innuendo really starts to show…Stage 5 had the Giant Space Vagina and the Battleship’s “core” looks like the male counterpart, and now in Stage 6 there’s an Armored Giant Space Poop pushing through what resembles a colon. Really now, Irem.
Not much to report on as my progress has been mostly non-existant. The no-miss continues to elude me. Every day I play few full runs which vary between 2-5 miss clears. I got tired of “only mostly working” safespot for the big lasers the final boss sends out in the beginning of the fight when he’s still in the background, so I’ve been training on dodging them properly. I’ve done it several times on practice mode, but on both times I tried it in a full run I got hit. That’s kinda annoying.
I’ve also managed to break the 6 million point barrier twice now. Another thing that’s sorta annoying, but for a different reason. At one point I was thinking that after the no-miss I could work on hitting 6m, because I believed the no-miss to be a requirement for it (since I most often die at bosses and dying there delays their destruction, which has a negative impact on the resulting bonus). And since the game doesn’t reward any points on clear based on remaining lives, it’s entirely possible I’ll get the no-miss with a lower score. Though there’s still at least two score-improving tricks I haven’t used…but it’s not like the game is based on scoring (in fact, it’s somewhat random) so it doesn’t matter much. There’s not even a high-score thread on the forums.
I am getting a bit tired of the game though. I can do most of it on mental autopilot, only needing to really focus on few spots – and the final boss fight – that I know can be problematic. And it’s still at these parts where I get hit. Maybe I should play something else for a while so I can let my poor brain rest and process some of the the accumulated EV data. I’m just worried that I’ll end up forgetting about the game completely.
Gaming Journals 