Hyper Dyne Side Arms (Arcade, PC Engine, Amiga, other formats, Capcom 1986)

[Randorama]

Duplication is a useful art when readers may focus only one specific section of a forum at a time. Time to brush up your real mecha anime genre knowledge, Zeta Gundam-style, because we are going to discuss a Capcom classic shmup from the 1980s. As I mentioned in the squibs thread and in the previous reviews, we will focus on 1980s gems for most of 2025: we will celebrate the "chaos" and creativity of shmups (and other games) in this decade. Without further procrastination: (2400 words, or 6 pages in times new roman, size 12, single space; the usual disclaimers apply):

Side Arms (Capcom, 1986) is a HORI(zontal) scroller shmup that pits two pilots and their mechas as the last hope of humankind against an alien invasion. A game rife with references to anime and manga, Side Arms features a control system similar to Capcom’s early title GunSmoke. the joystick controls the mecha(s) movement, and the shot buttons determine the direction of attack (i.e. left or right). Players must clear 12 stages of variable length and difficulty and then face the aliens’ emperor in the mothership’s core. The game has received several ports across the decades (e.g. Turbografx-16, then PS2 via the Capcom’s Classics Collection ), and inspired Cave’s DeathSmiles for its control system. The game is probably one of Capcom’s lesser-known early games, but it aptly represents the company’s early pursuit of unique game design ideas. In the remainder of this review, I will discuss what ideas form this multi-faceted uniqueness.

A bit of historical context can certainly help readers in appreciating this game’s freshness. In 1986, Zeta Gundam concluded the franchise return to TV, and Studio Ghibli’s Nausicaä was a still exerting its influence in manga and anime. The Real Robot genre was at its zenith of popularity, and the Macross franchise was also highly influential. Videogames still did not have enough processing power to feature anime-like visuals and City Pop OSTs, but VG artists were nevertheless pursuing cross-media contaminations. Taito joined forces with Tatsunoko for Darius’s design, and one could write several books on Konami’s pilfering of movie and music (western) icons. Side Arms contains homages/rip-offs from the three aforementioned anime sources and a few other series and, in general, acted as a pioneer of the “mecha shmup” micro-genre. It thus viscerally incarnates a 1980’s “Otaku Zeitgeist” facet.

The game’s plot is simple: the Bozon empire decides to invade Earth and it is up to two valiant mecha pilots to save the planet. Piloting their trusted α and β mechas/Mobilesuits (P(layer)1/Lieutenant Henry and P(layer)2/Sergent Sanders, begin the fight for the survival of life on Earth once they return to Earth from orbit. Players must thus battle the Bozon armies through 12 stages that begin over a submerged Tokyo (Stage one), and then move to the Bozon’s underground base (Stages two-six). After this first stanza, players/characters invade the enemy’s mothership (Stages seven-11) and then battle the Emperor’s warship in the ship’s core (Stage 12). The game does not feature a full-fledged ending sequence beyond showing the credits. However, it represents one of earliest shmups, and possibly arcade games in general, offering a “proper” 1-CC opportunity (i.e. no loops). It thus presented a novel format to the arcade game experience.

The game mechanics also present some noticeably innovative aspects. Similarly to Capcom 1985’s predecessor Section Z, the game uses a three-button layout. The A and B button are the fire/shot/attack buttons. The A button allows players to shoot in the left direction, and the B button allows players to shoot in the right direction. The joystick controls movement in eight directions; thus, players must use the two buttons to decide in which direction to shoot. The C button allows players to choose which weapon to use among a potential of five weapons: “BIT”, “Shotgun”, “MBL”, “3-way” and “Auto”. Aside Section Z, Capcom 1988’s Forgotten Worlds acts as the third title in a “multiple direction” shmup series, even if it is based on rotating joystick controls. Cave’s Death Smiles games act as explicit legacy sequels, since they feature near-identical control schemes to Side Arms.

The five weapon types activate once players collect their respective icons, or by shooting at a multi-purpose power-up icon. The icon starts with a BIT power-up, which triggers spherical options circling the player and shooting single shots. Players can collect a maximum of three BIT power-ups, and then obtain 100 points per icon. If players shoot the multi-purpose icon, the icon changes into a red “Pow” power-up increasing movement speed by one level (max, three levels). The next power-up is the Shotgun (two levels), and then a speed power-up again. The third and fourth weapon power-ups are the M(obile)B(azooka)(Laser) (one level), Speed up, and 3-way (two levels). Afterwards, the purple “Pow” power-up appears and allows players to speed down, if the speed level is three or two. The “Auto” power-up comes in two variants: a full frontal, powerful stream, and a weaker 3-way (frontal, up- and down-ward) stream.

Though the power-up system certainly pilfers from Konami’s Gradius via a slightly simpler activation mechanism, it provides some key innovations. Each weapon has different maximum levels; the “single stream” variant of the “Auto” weapon is also one of the earliest examples of (overclocked) auto-fire in shmups. The game’s most noticeable feature is however the “absolute fusion”, αβ power-up: players can shoot secret spots to reveal this icon and fuse the two mechas into a single unit. In single player mode, the other mecha appears on the screen, all enemies become frozen in place, and subsequently the two mechas fuse into a single unit. In two player mode, the mechas directly fuse at the centre of the screen. Either way, the fused mecha shoots an additional eight multi-directional bullets, with patterns based on which player collects the icon. Furthermore, the fused form can withstand two hits before reverting into normal form.

The fusion form warrants more firepower and the equivalent of a 2 H(it)P(point) armour in 1P mode. In 2P mode, it introduces a co-op feature: the player collecting the icon controls the fused mecha, and the other player controls the attacks’ direction. The mechanic is quite rare if not unique, since it forces players to truly cooperate when playing. The 1P mode is certainly less demanding and, if properly used, it warrants characters/mechas with constant armour. If the fused mecha has already received a hit, get hit one more time before collecting a new αβ power-up. The mecha will metamorphose back to a 2 HP armour level. Aside power-ups, bonus point items hide across stages and appear when hit (e.g. the 3k points strawberries). The Mobi-chan icon gives one extra life aside the one at 100k: four Mobi-chans are scattered across the 12 stages, as players can easily find out.

Side Arms is a game that runs on an early Capcom board (“CPS-0”?), and so its visual and aural power appear modest even by 1986 standards. However, the game’s visual strengths lie in how the programmers exploited this reduced power in full. Both characters/mechas sport detailed designs and include a lot of detailed parts, notwithstanding hardware limits on animation frames. Most enemies are also well-animated (e.g. the basic zaku ripped from Macross) and feature interesting attacks patterns and movements. Most noticeably, the fusion form has two intriguing, bulky variants based on which player/character collects the αβ power-up. Both are reminiscent of early Transformers models. Stages’ backgrounds are mostly static, but riff on anime series (e.g. Macross for the final three stages) and feature vibrant if limited colour palettes. Players can certainly enjoy spotting the several anime visual homages and several sections including flickering starry skies (e.g. Stage one).

The OST by Takashi Tateishi, an early Alph Lyla member, offers a similarly simple though interesting experience. The game features particularly loud, very 8 bit-style sound effects. Each weapon has a distinctive sound, and the MBL sound seems sampled (or, perhaps, just ripped off) from the equivalent weapon in Zeta Gundam). Most stages feature up-tempo but vaguely defined themes that could fit well in most robot anime. The game features four recurring bosses increasing in fire-power and aggressiveness at each recurrence but always appearing with their own repeating theme. Stage 10 and 11 involve a more dramatic theme including a fast-paced beat underlying the fact that players have entered the enemy mothership’s inner core. Stage 12 features a funereal march for the final boss’ battle. Though perhaps straightforward in style, the OST aptly creates the kind of atmosphere one would expect from 1980s Robot anime.

My compact discussion of the game’s audiovisual presentation may have led you into thinking, perhaps, that the game’s difficulty may be Side Arms’ key aspect (or Facet in our terminology). I confess that this potential fear should not be borne out; however, let me explain why this eventuality may be the case. In my view, the game’s difficulty evenly distributes among two facets: basic game mechanics and stage/level design/layout. These two aspects do not involve any consistent interaction to the best of my experience: I evenly split the 50 total points used in our assessments between the two facets, for 25 points. You may have noticed that I proposed a similar analysis for Capcom’s Black Tiger in an earlier squib. In general, I believe that difficulty in Capcom’s early games lies in learning how to play and learning how to “solve” stages/levels as survival puzzles.

The next few paragraphs motivate the case for Side Arms as follows. The basic game mechanics become quite intuitive after a little practice, but the use of specific weapons presents two hidden challenges. First, BIT and 3-way weapons are not powerful, but they are simple to use; the shotgun has a slow shooting frequency and is not powerful, whereas the MBL shoots slow but powerful, armour-piercing lasers. Both types of Autos are quite powerful, and their fast-shooting frequency is rather helpful. Crucially, when a character/mobilesuit dies, they lose their current weapon and respawn with the next active weapon in the inventory (BIT, shotgun, MBL, 3-way, Auto). Players must thus quickly change weapon when respawning to avoid a quick second death by e.g. using shotgun or MBL and end up quickly overwhelmed. Two points are thus for learning how to use the weapons and how to recover from death.

The fusion mechanic can be very useful when players learn all the locations for the αβ icons: players can enjoy up to six armour HPs per stage (e.g. Stage 10). However, characters only get back two full points when triggering the fusion mechanic a new time (again: downgrade, upgrade again). This facet requires some practice before players master it and using it on latter stage is always risky; so, it warrants one difficulty point. The four boss types require some practice apart from the first boss, which also appears only on Stage one. Personally, I suggest players to use the MBL for boss fights, but any weapon is OK after mastering them (except the shotgun: avoid it like the pest). The final boss also requires some (but not much) practice, though it is overall a relatively easy challenge: four difficulty points for learning these four boss types.

The game features multi-directional scrolling on some stages, which renders the action in hori mode a bit tricky to handle. Stages two and five have short ascending and descending passages, but Stages three, six and eight scroll downward, downward, and upward, respectively. Memorising enemies’ spawning points and killing them before they shoot is always useful; on these stages, it is almost necessary. These vertically scrolling stages thus collectively deserve one difficulty point. Stages nine, ten and eleven (i.e. the Bozon’s base inner core) deserve a point each, instead. They are replete with enemies and thus require pre-emptive killings via rote learning of enemies’ placement: practice them and be sure to quickly kill as many enemies as possible. Finally, re-spawning grants no more than half a second of i(nvicibility)-frames: avoid multiple successive deaths that can occur by simply getting distracted and getting a hit as soon as invincibility wears off.

Interestingly, playing for score requires no extra considerations or effort. Most bonus point icons lie hidden around stages, but chances are high that you will shoot and reveal them while trying to kill enemies. Collection is also simple and usually risk free: pick icons up once the screen is clear of enemies. Note, furthermore, that power-ups for maxed out weapons grant 100 points, and slowly but inexorably add up to the final score. My total score is thus 14/50 difficulty points; I would place the game in the middle intermediate bracket of difficulty. The difficulty wiki places this game at a lower 12, however. As always, divergences may revolve around how the wiki compilers have evaluated difficulty facets, and which facets they may have considered. In other words, opinions and methods can differ across evaluators: please do not lose too much sleep over these numbers and minor divergences.

To conclude: Side Arms is a hori shmup in which players control two mechas/mobilesuits and fight against the Bozon, an alien empire invading Earh with genocidal intents. The game features a control scheme that allows players to shoot in either left or right direction and to choose one out five types of weapons. The game also features the fusion power-up mechanic, triggered via the αβ icon: the two mechas fuse and create a more powerful character. The game offers an intermediate challenge and some charming audiovisuals that pay a clear homage to classic mecha anime, in particular Gundam Z and Macross. Players who want to explore one of the earliest mecha shmups and a bona fide Capcom classic title will certainly enjoy the game. Be sure to try it, anyway: history lessons are important, and Side Arms is also a gloriously fun lesson to learn.