New contestants stand up against a sinister Mega-corporation!
"We must stop D.I.C. They have only 72 hours to accomplish their objectives. The four specialists will exterminate the troops of D.I.C. They will never be defeated."
— Opening Monologue of 2nd Squad.
Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad (a sequel to the prior game) involves a less-ethnically-diverse (but more diverse in weapons and abilities then the first team) team of four commandos must fight against the evil forces of Dio International Corporation And the shadowy General behind them, who are attempting to Take Over the World. It loses the Tag Team feature but gains more special weapon Power-Ups and adds Metal Slug-style controllable vehicles.
2nd Squad provides examples of:
- Attack Drone: Every time you destroy one of the gun pods on the Final Boss, it spawns one of these. If you don't deal with them quickly, they soon fill the screen with Beam Spam.
- Bullet Hell: Every boss battle in a nutshell, but especially the Dio Building.
- Charged Attack: The vehicles trade in the "fixed shot" ability you have on foot for this. The tank has a standard charged blast, the truck has a Spin Attack and the Mini-Mecha employs a two-fisted Rocket Punch.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Some of Toy's voice bites make him sound like this, though he's just easy-going.
- Code Name: Each character has one, part of which you can spell out with letter pickups for a bonus. Again, each also has a Special Weapon Of Choice.
- "Lion Heart" Leon - Frag Grenade
- "Ceramic Arms" Angel - Napalm Grenade
- "Lightning Eyes" Lulu - Pipe Bomb
- "Ice Brain" Toy - Circular Energy Blast
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Dio Nakatomi who leads the Dio International Corporation in worldwide conquest.
- Dual Boss: Quadruple in this case, one of the Stage 4's bosses consists of four modular tanks that can link-up for Combination Attacks.
- Energy Weapon Toy again. His weapon is a brick-like rifle that fires Frickin' Laser Beams. A few enemies use these, but ballistics are the order of the day.
- Everyone Has Standards: Angel may have found it fun to fight D.I.C. soldiers, but she does draw the line at seeing innocents being slaughtered and at the end of the stage where she enters a conflict between D.I.C. soldiers and people rebelling against them, she fires her gun to catch the attention of one soldier group as they were about to massacre a group of people.
- Expy: Leon looks like a bulked-out Gordon Freeman. Though the fact that he's French, wears round glasses, sports a goatee and is named "Leon" makes him more of a Jean Reno Expy.
- Hand Cannon: Used by several Elite Mooks. Notable in that they are literally bigger then the arms and heads of their users]
- MegaCorp: With surprising amounts of military power and resources.
- Mini-Mecha: The Mooks like to use these. Occasionally you can pilot one. They are equipped with dual gatling guns.
- The Man Behind the Man: Nakatomi isn't the one in charge of the coup, but you already knew this just from watching the intro. The coup d'état was actually masterminded by an Evil Laugh prone, blonde, one-eyed General with a pair of Hand Cannons.
- Molotov Cocktail: The Mooks like to throw these.
- Ms. Fanservice: Angel is a well-endowed woman whose outfit exposes her cleavage and her midriff. She also bounces quite a bit if you have her stand still.
- Nonstandard Game Over: Unlike the rest of the game, being forced to use a continue during the Final Boss does not reset the level timer. Failure to destroy the boss in the allotted time will still cause the game to finish, but results in an alternate Ending Scroll that claims your character disappeared and is presumed dead.
- Spread Shot: Lulu has a short ranged one for her main weapon.
- Super-Deformed: This game has a much more cartoony look then the first game, though retains the Family-Unfriendly Violence.
- Taking You with Me: Occasionally Mooks will attempt to suicide-bomb you. The General attempts to take the entire world with him using his Doomsday Device.
- Token Minority: Leon is French while the other three player characters are American.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Killing real defectors from D.I.C. will subtract points from the player's score.
- Weaponized Landmark: After a fashion. The entire front facade of D.I.C. headquarters, including the bushes, conceals a startling array of More Dakka. Serves as the penultimate Boss Fight.
- You Have Failed Me: The General shoots Nakatomi in cold blood, blaming him for the coup d'état's failure.
"No more war, no more weapon, no more blood, and no more tears..."
