Released in Japan as “Area 88” and based on the Manga series of the same name, U.N. Squadron is a horizontally-scrolling bullet hell shooter arcade game developed and distributed by Capcom in 1989. It features three playable characters, each flying a different aircraft, and one or simultaneous two-player gameplay.

Rather than having a stock of lives each player instead has a health bar that decreases with every hit taken, and when this is depleted the player’s aircraft explodes. When this occurs you can insert more coins to continue, or retire and enter your name on the high score table.

Players earn money by destroying enemy aircraft and can spend their cash in-between levels in a shop that offers various special weapons and defensive upgrades. Each player also begins the game with $3,000 which allows them to make an initial purchase at the shop, before the game begins.

Of course, at the end of each level there’s a boss fight, and these are quite impressive. There are also some sections of the gameplay where the aircraft will turn around if certain targets have yet to be destroyed, but are required for the mission.

The graphics in U.N. Squadron are excellent, but the player craft do seem to flicker on occasion. This is probably intentional (since it’s unheard of for arcade game to suffer from sprite tearing), although it is distracting and unnecessary. The music in the game is high-tempo and dramatic and was composed by Manami Matsumae.

Capcom also released a Super Nintendo version of U.N. Squadron which features a wider range of aircraft to pilot.

The arcade version of U.N. Squadron remains a fun game to play to this day – especially two-player. In MAME the game can be easily beaten by continually adding credits.

More: U.N. Squadron on Wikipedia