An alien force called the Bozon seek to destroy the Earth. As the conflicts between humans and Bozon escalates, two pilots Lieutenant Henry and Sergeant Sanders are deployed to Earth to save it from its destruction. Together, they fight against the Bozon with their Humongous Mecha, Mobilesuit Alpha and Mobilesuit Beta.
Hyper Dyne: Side Arms or simply known as Side Arms, is a shoot'em up arcade game that was created by Capcom in 1986. It was one of the first shoot'em up games that allowed players to aim both left and right directions in the screen. After releasing in arcades, it got a home console release on the TurboGrafx-16 in Japan and outside of Asia. And the game would later be included in the Capcom Classics Collection
in 2006 for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox and Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium on July 2022 for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
For more Capcom mecha games, see Armored Warriors, Cyberbots, Tech Romancer, Lost Planet, and E.X. Troopers.
The game contains examples of:
- Attack Drones: The players can procure a set of orbs called Bits to protect themselves.
- A Winner Is You: After defeating the final boss, the players are given congratulations and cuts to the credits after. Although no dialogue is shown, the implications are that you saved the Earth by defeating the Bozen leader and the war against them is finally over.
- BFS: Both Mobilesuit Alpha and Beta wield large rifles for fighting against the Bozen army.
- Combining Mecha: With a power up, both players can combine their mecha into a single machine. Mobilesuit Alpha combined with Beta has Alpha with Beta's arms and legs. The reversal can also happen with Beta having alpha's arms and legs too.
- The Hero: The heroes of the game are Lieutenant Henry and Sergeant Sanders.
- Humongous Mecha: Both Mobilesuit Alpha and Mobilesuit Beta are big mecha that fight other enemy mecha from Bozen.
- Light Is Good: The Hero Henry pilots a white and orange mecha.
- Long-Range Fighter: Both Mobilesuits Alpha and Beta specialize in fighting from long range and their weapons can also work in close range as well.
- A Mech by Any Other Name: The Mobilesuits the players control.
- Multi-Directional Barrage: The players can upgrade their mechs to shoot in multiple directions.
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Nintendo Hard: A pretty archetypical example of an arcade game designed to steal quarters by killing you every 15 seconds. - Omnicidal Maniac: "Bozen" intends to kill off all living things.
- Poison Mushroom: Shooting a powerup too many times will cause it to turn into a reversed Pow (woP) that will lower your speed a bit if you touch it.
- Red Is Heroic: The Sander's mecha Mobilesuit Beta is colored red and he is the partner to The Hero Henry in his white and orange colored mecha Mobilesuit Alpha.
- Segmented Serpent: There are several centipede-like enemies animated this way, including the final boss.
- Series Mascot: Mobilesuit Alpha's chibi form "Mobi-Chan" is the mascot for the game and has appeared in other Capcom-related video games and bonus material. Mobilesuit Beta's chibi form has also appeared alongside Mobi-Chan too.
- Shout-Out:
- There's lots of fun little homages to Gundam: the name of the main mecha being called "Mobile Suits", the hopping Bozen enemy mecha resembling the Zaku II, the underwater Bozen enemy mecha resembling the Z'Gok, and one of the weapons that you can use is called the Mega Bazooka Launcher. However, the Bozen enemy sprites in the original game resembled too closely to the Gundam Zeon unit designs, so all of their sprites were eventually altered in the version released by Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium.
- In the underwater level, one of the fossils in the background resembles a God Warrior from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
- The Yashichi icon from Capcom's very first game Vulgus appears as a Power-Up Weapon.
- Super Mode: When Mobilesuit Alpha and Beta combine, they create a stronger mecha form that has increased damage and range.
- Transforming Mecha: Both Mobilesuit Alpha and Beta have an aircraft form they can transform to. Their aircraft form is also necessary for both of them to combine into each other for their Super Mode.
- Under the Sea: One of the levels involves going through an underwater tunnel.
