Uploaded July 2022 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Full Run of Area 88 (エリア88 ), also known as U.N. Squadron, developed by Capcom. This is the Japanese version that has the bonus level which is missing in the World versions. Also, autofire=autowin.

Stage Listing:
00:00 - Mission 1
01:19 - Mission 2
03:23 - Mission 3
05:21 - Special Mission
06:06 - Mission 4
08:26 - Mission 5
10:49 - Mission 6
13:17 - Mission 7
15:48 - Mission 8
17:45 - Mission 9
20:07 - Mission 10 / Final Boss
26:30 - Ending / Credits

Like most I am far more familiar with the console version of Area 88 (UN Squadron for those living in the West), which was one of the few shmups I owned back in the day for the SNES. Now, many years later I've finally come around and cleared the arcade version, so I guess I need to compare the two. Well honestly I would have to say that the arcade version is the lesser version.

Arcade Area 88 is a far more straight forward game, you don't need to pick stage order or worry about upgrading to different ships for the late game. You still get to pick and buy weapons and armor at the shop, but honestly it isn't even necessary since the game is on the easy side (especially if you employ 30hz autofire as I did).

Since your money gets converted to score at the end of the game, there is even less reason to buy items if you are playing for score. So scoring really just breaks down to killing all enemies, collecting the secret items (the little astronaut guys, and a few others that are scattered throughout the stages), and never spending your money.

Finally, you can also boost your score by farming the turrets on the final boss, which apparently can be done forever, although it is no easy task to do it without getting killed. In this run I farmed a bit during the process of killing the final boss core and boosted my score just over 1.8 million.

Area 88 is a fun game and very easy to get into, even if it can't live up to the console version.