Side Arms
| Hyper Dyne Side Arms | |
|---|---|
European arcade flyer of Hyper Dyne Side Arms.
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| Developer(s) | Capcom |
| Publisher(s) | Capcom/Romstar (US) |
| Designer(s) | Game designer: Yoshiki Okamoto (as Kihaji Okamoto) Noritaka Funamizu (as Poo) |
| Composer(s) | Ayako Mori |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, PC Engine, PC Engine CD ROM, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum |
| Release |
Arcade
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| Genre(s) | Shoot 'em up |
| Mode(s) | Up to two players, simultaneously |
| Cabinet | Upright |
| CPU | Z80 (@ 4 MHz) |
| Sound | (2x) YM2203 (@ 4 MHz) |
| Display | Horizontal orientation, raster graphics 384 x 224 pixels, 1024 colors |
Hyper Dyne Side Arms (サイドアーム?) is a 1986 side-scrolling shoot-'em-up arcade game developed by Capcom. The player takes control of a flying mecha suit who must battle an alien army. Side Arms uses a two-directional attacking system similarly to Capcom's previous shoot-'em-up Section Z.
An evil alien empire known as the Bozon are launching a full-scale attack on Earth. As either Lt. Henry or Sgt. Sanders, the player must pilot a giant space mecha known as a "Mobilsuit" to defeat the aliens. Up to two players can play simultaneously.
The controls consist of an eight-way joystick for moving the Mobilsuit and three action buttons. Side Arms uses two shooting buttons, one for shooting to the left and the other to the right. The third button is used to change between the weapons acquired by the player. There are five types of power-ups that can be acquired by the player: a speed upgrade, an orbital bit that will provide additional firepower with the standard gun, a shotgun with shoots in a fan-shaped range, a three-way shooter, and a mega bazooka launcher that fires a laser beam. The player can choose what power-up their mecha will receive by shooting the power-up icon until getting the item they want. All of the weapons, as well as the mecha's speed, can be upgraded up to two or even three levels depending on the item. There is also a speed downgrade that will reduce the Mobilsuit's speed by one level. There are also two "Auto" power-ups, shaped like the enemy characters from Vulgus: one is shaped like the "Yashichi" and allows the player to fire continuously with either firing button held down; while the other, which is shaped like the "Sakichi", allows the player to shoot upwards, downwards and forwards at the same time, but at a slower rate than the regular shot.
In addition to the standard power-ups, there are two special combination power-ups shaped like the Greek letters α and β that will combine the player's Mobilsuit with an ally. This allows the player to do an eight-directional attack at the same time as their regular attack. When two players are playing this power-up will combine both players' suits instead. One player will move the combined suit and perform the regular attack, while the other will provide the eight-directional attack. If the combined suit gets shot by an enemy soldiers, it will revert both suits into their regular separate states.
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Wikipedia