Reviewer’s Note: Operation Night Strikers was reviewed on a Switch 2.
If the title Operation Night Strikers throws you for a loop, you’re not alone. At first blush, it’s difficult to determine if it’s a new game, a remaster, or a collection of older games. In truth, it’s a compilation of four Taito arcade action games from the 80s and 90s: the military light gun game Operation Wolf and its direct sequel Operation Thunderbolt; the scrolling shoot-’em-up Night Striker; and the sci-fi light gun game Space Gun. Perhaps more importantly, it’s a product of M2, which is arguably the best, most meticulous porting studio in the industry.
The first and oldest game is Operation Wolf (1987), a highly influential title that went on to inspire many light gun games in the 80s and 90s. In it, you assume the role of a special forces operative deep in enemy territory. Through six horizontally-scrolling first-person stages, you must defeat soldiers & armored vehicles and rescue as many hostages as possible.
Looking back, Operation Wolf was ahead of its time, both visually and mechanically. There’s a sense of depth and realism here, thanks to detailed sprites of different sizes, and a feeling of forward progress thanks to narrative interludes and a stage select option (at least in the Japanese version). As for the gameplay, it’s very much a guilty pleasure. As a one-man army, you’ll tear through the opposition, moving your cursor as quickly as possible to shoot down troops, helicopters, and even enemy projectiles like grenades. On the downside, the stages are quite short. The original developers at Taito made up for this by flooding the screen with enemies, resulting in several difficulty spikes. Clearly, this game was meant to eat your quarters.
Things are slightly more manageable in its sequel, Operation Thunderbolt (1988), mostly because it supports two players simultaneously. It’s still no walk in the park, however, particularly in the later levels. The biggest problem is that the moment-to-moment action is too busy and hectic, with far too many dashing enemies and projectiles. As a result, it’s less measured than its predecessor. Still, it’s worth checking out, due to two-player functionality, improved graphics, and brand new psuedo-3D stages.
The highlight of the collection is Night Striker (1989), which is an unlikely amalgam of Sega’s Space Harrier and Taito’s own Darius. It’s a behind-the-back scrolling shooter in which players pilot an armored anti-gravity car. What makes the game special, apart from its striking pseudo-3D graphics, stunning futuristic backgrounds, and fantastic otherworldly tunes from Taito house band Zuntata, is the ability to choose different paths at the end of each stage, à la Darius. There are 21 total stages, but you can only see six of them on each run. Consequently, the game has significant replay value.
Regrettably, it’s fairly simple on a mechanical level. You move around the screen, dodging projectiles and firing at the bad guys. And that’s it. If this game had more offensive options — lock-on missiles, screen-clearing bombs, alternative fire modes, etc. — it would hit that next threshold of greatness. Even without, though, it’s an often thrilling time.
If you’re looking for alternative fire modes, look no further than the final game in the collection: Space Gun (1990). This is arguably the finest light gun game in the collection, due to superior pacing, deeper tactical gameplay, branching paths, and the unusual ability to backtrack. Set in space in 2039, Space Gun is a sci-fi horror game heavily inspired by Alien. You’ll roam through claustrophobic corridors and across alien planets fighting grotesque creatures. But you have to be smart about it. That includes deploying specific sub-weapons (fire, shock, explosive, and freeze) at the right time, backing away from trouble, and targeting alien appendages, in the style of Dead Space, to interrupt attacks.
Like Operation Thunderbolt, Space Gun supports two players at the same time. In this title, however, the gun functions differently depending on the player side. The left side is a pulse gun, which is weaker but recharges more quickly; the right side is a plasma gun, stronger than the pulse gun but slower to recover.
The four games in the collection are only part of the equation, however. The other part is the customization framework M2 has layered over them, which grants players an obscene amount of customization. They can alter the difficulty, choose from several filter and wallpaper settings, and toggle on and off a huge assortment of “gadgets” — optional windows on the left and right sides of the screen that share behind-the-scenes logic from each game. These include the names & composers of in-game music tracks, your game ranking, accuracy rate & number of hits, and, in the case of Night Striker, branching paths, cleared routes, run bonuses, and even total frames spent driving. It’s really remarkable. Or it would be, if it was from any company other than M2, for which these sorts of bonuses have become standard issue.
M2 also made sure that those playing the light gun games had plenty of control options. You can aim in Operation Wolf, Operation Thunderbolt, and Space Gun with the left stick, with the built-in gyro, or by using the Joy-Con as a replacement for the physical arcade gun. I enjoyed my time with the Joy-Con the most, although I found myself recalibrating more than I would have liked.
Outside of these screen, gadget, and control options, the developer provided US, Japanese, and international variants of the arcade games, alongside remixed “easy” versions. It has also provided players with detailed user manuals, a few dozen achievements, and the option to record and upload their own play data (or download and view top ranking players’ data).
What it doesn’t provide, unfortunately, is a collection of console ports of the four included arcade games. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal — the home versions are generally inferior after all — but the menus in Operation Night Strikers call attention to their absence. You see, there are placeholders for each port, but they’re covered with a lock icon and the words “downloadable content”. As a result, it feels like the collection shipped in an incomplete state.
But that’s not exactly the case. In fact, the four games included feel more complete than ever, thanks to helpful manuals, eye-opening gadgets, multiple control and display options, several regional variants, remixed “easy” modes, and the ability to save and upload play data at your convenience. And while some of the original warts remain — Operation Wolf is imbalanced, Operation Thunderbolt is too hectic, and Night Strikers is insufficiently complex — they’re less problematic than before.
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