U.N. Squadron

U.N. Squadron was the first Super Nintendo game I rented back in the day. It caught my eye from the Nintendo Power magazine stuff based largely on the fact that it has an energy meter, unlike most games in the genre, so it seemed more accessible. The various customizations and the Capcom brand were draws too. I wasn't surprised to find that the game has delightful music. The backgrounds are gorgeous, especially if you're used to NES graphics. And it has a bunch of memorable boss battles and stuff. I eventually beat it on Easy mode, although it did require a bunch of tedious side missions to get enough in-game money to buy the best plane after I had already upgraded once or twice.

The game isn't perfect. Since weapons and planes cost money, you sort of have to lose and retry, over and over, in order to build up enough to buy what you need. In fact, the "right" way to play the game is to stick with the default plane (and its minimal special weapons) until you can buy the best plane, the Efreet. Doing this is sad because you have to bypass my favorite aircraft, the A10A Thunderbolt, which has an extra downward-firing cannon (at the cost of a weaker forward-firing one). It's kind of sad that the game simultaneously encourages you to get a variety of aircraft, and demands stinginess.

The "U.N." branding is kind of odd. In Japan the game is branded after some Anime series, but they changed the name for sale in other countries. There is no reference to the United Nations though, or anything else with those initials. It's about a mercenary group. But whatever - the genre is not known for its meaningful plots. 

There's a side-effect to the original branding though: games based on outside brands rarely get re-released on virtual consoles. So U.N. Squadron has never been available digitally on modern systems. So recently I bought the game on eBay and replayed it. It's really nice - it has aged quite well, assuming you can overlook the above-mentioned need to be stingy. After beating it again on Easy, I went for some additional runs: Beat on Normal, Beat on Easy without the Efreet (so I could use the Thunderbolt on almost all the levels, including the last one), Beat on Easy without using any continues (which required me to use my least-favorite character so I could power up my main weapon faster).