Video Game / U.N. Squadron

^{Click here for the Japanese game, Area 88.} 

U.N. Squadron is an arcade horizontal shoot-'em-up developed by Capcom and later ported to the SNES. It's a video game adaptation of the 1979 manga Area 88, and known as such in Japan. Although the US version goes by a different name, the references to the manga remain, even keeping the names of the cast, featuring Shin, Mickey, and Greg of the as playable pilots, and McCoy and Saki as support characters.

The games share very little with the original series (although it did use bounties as a way for the player to buy Power Ups between levels). The arcade version features three different types of planes assigned for each character: Shin flew the F-20, Mickey the F-14, and Greg the A-10. The SNES version differentiates characters by how quickly they leveled up the main weapon and how quickly they recovered from damage; all characters start with the same plane (the F-8E Crusader, Shin's starting plane in the series). It also eschews the arcade's linear stage progression with an expanding mission map, the ability to buy other planes (including the Tomcat and Thunderbolt), and moving stages such as supply convoy raids and bomber interceptions. It got an Spiritual Successor in the shape of Carrier Airwing, when Capcom lost the rights of the manga along the way.

In 1995, Family Soft released the Area 88: Etranger 1995 video game in Japan. Players can select from multiple pilots, including Saki, Shin, Mickey, Greg, Hoover, Sela, and others.

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U.N. Squadron contains examples of:

Tropes in Both Versions

• Adaptation Distillation: The arcade and SNES games leave out many important story elements from the manga, such as Shin's involuntary servitude and Mickey's time in the Vietnam War.
• Adapted Out: You won't see Farina, Kanzaki, or any of the other villains in the manga at any point in this game. The game tasks you with taking down Project 4 with no mentions of any of its specific members.
• After-Combat Recovery: Your health is refilled to full after every mission. This is especially helpful in the arcade version, where you only get one life.
• Ascended Extra: Greg was a minor character in the manga, but is one of the three playable characters in the arcade and SNES games.
• Battleship Raid:
  • The final boss of the arcade version is a huge battleship, fought in a way somewhat similar to the Cerberus from Thunder Force III.
  • On a smaller scale, there's the naval battleship Minks and that land carrier in the desert.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The shields in the arcade version. While a bit costly, they can help improve survivability by letting you take 3 or 5 extra hits.
  • The Bomb sub-weapon. It doesn't do anything really fancy — it just drops under your plane to deal some damage — but its starting ammo is quite high (even in the SNES version, where you start missions with 50 Bombs), it's a useful anti-ground weapon, and in the SNES version it's very cheap and almost every plane can equip it.
• Bowdlerise: The arcade and SNES games contain none of the tragic ambiance or anti-war messages of the manga and OVA.
• Company Cross References: The Mobilesuit Alpha appears in this game which is from Side Arms: Hyper Dyne, an earlier Capcom shooter.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In the manga, McCoy gets his hands on an F-14 Tomcat destined for Iran and sells the jet to Mickey. After the first F-14 is destroyed, McCoy secures a second one for an overjoyed Mickey. Guess which jet Mickey flies in the arcade game?
  • In the manga, desperation drives Greg to purchase an A-10 Thunderbolt after a disastrous battle with Farina's land carrier. In the arcade game, Greg flies an A-10.
  • The Japanese version of the arcade game features an extra stage in which the player must shoot bombs off of a civilian plane. This is exactly what Shin and Mickey were sent to do in the manga, when a terrorist attached bombs to the exterior of a civilian plane carrying Saki and Ryoko.
  • In the manga, Farina menaces Asran's pro-monarchy forces with his land-based aircraft carrier before offering it to the anti-government forces. In the arcade and SNES games, a land carrier is the final boss of the desert stage.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The A-10A Thunderbolt. It's primarily designed for air-to-ground combat; its main gun fires both forwards and diagonally downwards, and in the SNES version its compatible weapons are all anti-ground weapons. This unfortunately makes it lousy for air-to-air combat.
• Flunky Boss:
  • The SNES version has the cave boss, a strange machine on the ceiling with a weak spot on the bottom. Trouble is, it has a lot of flamethrowers and homing missile launchers traveling along the conveyor belts below, all of which will fire at you.
  • The Desert Carrier and Jungle Fortress launch fighters until the elevators are destroyed.
• Homing Projectile:
  • Phoenix missiles for the player, launched two at a time, and certain enemy missiles.
  • Falcon missiles in the arcade version are simply more powerful versions of the Phoenix. In the SNES version however they behave in a completely different manner.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: In the arcade version, your plane can carry way more special weapon ammunition than it seems like it should be able to. One stage lets you buy a pack of 140 missiles, and the final stage allows you to buy a pack of 200 Super Shells. While the SNES version tones down the ammo limits, you can carry several different weapon types; the F200 in particular can use all of them.
• Life Meter: The arcade version has a more traditional life meter. In the SNES version, taking damage will lower your life, but not before shortly putting you into "DANGER" mode in which taking a second hit during that time will destroy you instantly. If your life drops too low, you will permanently remain in DANGER mode until you die, clear the stage, or restore your life.
• Lighter and Softer: Relatively speaking. It's still a serious military-themed shooter, but it doesn't carry the War Is Hell messages of the original, in order to make it more palatable for a wide audience.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Defeating the final boss causes the entire enemy base to start exploding, followed by the player-character having to Outrun the Fireball in the final cutscene.
• Market-Based Title: The games, originally simply called Area 88, were renamed to U.N. Squadron for some unknown reason. It couldn't exactly be licensing issues, as the names of the characters were kept.
• Recursive Ammo: The nuclear missile submarine Seavet launches missiles that release smaller projectiles when shot down. If not shot down, they detonate off-screen and the projectiles rain down across most of the screen.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Destroying all of the destructible trees in the forest stage yields a shield powerup.
• Shock and Awe: In the arcade version, one of the hidden items you can get will replace your special weapon with a 3-way piercing thunder laser that cannot be purchased in the shop. In the SNES version, it can be purchased and equipped on some planes.
• Spread Shot: The Bullup weapon throws out a lot of missiles, and the Thunder Laser is a three-way Lightning Gun
• Spiritual Sequel: Carrier Air Wing, which had similar graphics, gameplay and missions.
• Sub System Damage: A number of bosses have weapons that can be disabled by shooting them.
• Units Not to Scale: Boss and Mini-Boss planes are at least a good two or three times their normal size.

Tropes Exclusive to the Arcade Version

• Composite Character: The intro screen of the American arcade version states that Greg trained NATO pilots back in Europe. This was not part of Greg's background in the manga, but it was part of Hoover's background.
• Nintendo Hard: You only get one life per credit in the arcade version.
• No-Gear Level: The special mission in the Japanese arcade version forces you to play it without being able to buy special weapons.
• Precision F-Strike: One of the post-stage quotes in the arcade version is "Go to Hell!"

Tropes Exclusive to the SNES Version

• Adaptation Expansion: The SNES port adds three more planes, a more nonlinear progression format, and the option to pick whatever plane-equippable weapons you want for each stage including a console-exclusive Mega Crush weapon rather than having to pick between two stage-specific weapons.
• The Cameo: The little robot that serves as the menu cursor on the title screen is Mobi-Chan from Hyper Dyne Side Arms.
• Every 10,000 Points: Reaching certain score intervals in the SNES version nets you extra lives!
• Forced Level-Grinding: The game is rare shmup example; your chances of making it all the way through are highly dependent on how soon you can store up a million dollars for the F200 Efreet, so be prepared to kill a lot of convoys (the only infinite source of money).
• Harder Than Hard: "Gamer" difficulty, only accessible through a code.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The F200 in the SNES port. The most expensive aircraft, it can use any special weapon and gets more shots of them. Oh, and its main gun can be powered up to level seven, while almost every other plane is capped at level five.
• Just Plane Wrong: The F-111 can carry the Phoenix missile, which the F-111 (primarily a ground-attack plane, the Phoenix being a dedicated long-range air-to-air missile) never carried, although it was designed for the closely-related F-111B that was intended to be used as an interceptor by the Navy. Strangely, the Phoenix is not available on the F-14, the only production aircraft to ever utilize the missile in Real Life.
• Last Chance Hit Point: On the SNES version if you don't have enough life to take the hit it will put you into permanent DANGER mode instead of killing you instantly.
• Nerf:
  • In this version, your sub-weapons get less ammo, as a tradeoff for being able to buy any sub-weapons your plane is compatible with for any mission as well as being able to carry multiple sub-weapons at once.
  • The lifebar system has been revised to kill the player if they take two hits in a row too quickly, unlike the arcade version where the player can keep taking hits as long as they have the health for it (albeit not a lot of it).
  • To prevent you from just marching to the end of the game so easily (as this isn't an arcade game that costs coins to play), every time you die you exit the stage and have to start all over if you want another go, rather than just being able to respawn where you left off.
• Not the Intended Use: Bombs can be used to destroy the annoying AV-8 Harrier enemy which enters from the left edge of the screen and cannot be attacked normally until it starts flying into the middle of the screen. This is only possible in this version, as the arcade version restricts you to "homing missile"-type weapons for this particular mission.
• Purposely Overpowered: The F200 Efreet can use any weapon in the game and can equip more ammo for each weapon than any other plane. Of course, there's a catch: It's the most expensive plane in the game.
• Smart Bomb: The Mega Crush. Most planes can only carry one of it, except for the F200, which can carry two. Mobi-Chan can also be picked up in stages for an instant blast.
• Spell My Name With An S: This version of the game gives Mickey's surname as Scymon.
• Video-Game Lives: You start with 3 in this game, unlike the arcade version which provides only one.
• Vulnerable Convoy: A source of easy money in the SNES version. You just destroy a set of trucks that have barely any reinforcements.
• Wolfpack Boss: The mission to take down the enemy Wolfpack mercenary squadron has three F-117s as the boss. They have an annoying tendency to sneak up behind you.

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