Taito keeps popping up in my life. Not that I’ve been avoiding them, I guess I’m just now realizing how many interesting titles I’ve let slip by. And while looking for more arcade compilations to dive into, I tripped across Operation Night Strikers by M2. Except, what drew my attention was my recognition for Night Striker, which, despite my vague familiarity, I still got mixed up with A.B. Cop by Sega, a somewhat similar game with a sugar-induced nightmare of a Game Over screen.

But this is a compilation, and when I looked closer at the four games, I recognized Space Gun from a scene in Hi Score Girl that piqued my curiosity, so I knew I had to dive in. There’s also Operation Wolf and Operation Thunderbolt, but everyone’s heard of Operation Wolf. I just happen to have the Famicom version sitting on my desk because I was playing it recently.

Anyway, M2 put ports of these games together, and it’s a rather neat package. I’m first going to give a quick look at the games, then we’ll talk about the port. As an advanced warning, I’ll likely do longer breakout reviews of, at the minimal, Night Striker and Space Gun. Because everyone has already heard of Operation Wolf, right?

OPERATION: WOLF

Everyone’s heard of Operation: Wolf. Released in 1987, it’s essentially the seminal arcade lightgun game, and it’s about what you’d expect. You’re an army dude, and you shoot at enemy army dudes. Sometimes civilians and POWs will run across the screen, and you have to try to avoid shooting them.

What was rather unique about it at the time is that the screen pans as you shoot, which makes it an interesting mid-point between a shooting range, such as Hogan’s Alley, and rail shooter, like Virtua Cop. It’s simple fun. You’re given a tally of the enemies and vehicles that will be in each level, and you have to survive until the end. There’s a lot of variety between levels, and you can throw grenades, trying to strategically capture as many dudes in its blast radius as possible.

Operation Night Strikers features the U.S. version, the superior Japanese version where you can choose the level progression, and easy versions of both. I should probably stick to the easy versions, since, for the life of me, I can’t beat the last level in the normal version.

OPERATION: THUNDERBOLT

The main feature of the sequel is the addition of a second player. But beyond that, Operation: Thunderbolt is quite a bit different. It’s a lot more chaotic, there’s sprite-scaling, so some of the levels have you travelling along a road, and you can continue from the exact spot you died rather than having to repeat a stage.

It’s still pretty fun, but it’s not as solid as Operation: Wolf. It’s a bit goofier, which kind of foreshadows some of Taito’s more over-the-top games of the mid-’90s. There’s less difference between the Japanese and U.S. versions of Thunderbolt, but the port also includes a tweaked, single-player-only version.

NIGHT STRIKER

Night Striker is kind of like a cross between Space Harrier and OutRun. You fly a hovercar through each level, and once you beat that area’s boss, you get to choose where to go next from between two paths. Someone at Taito was clearly a fan of Sega’s SuperScaler titles.

Unfortunately, one of the most appealing parts of Night Striker in the arcade is that, just like Space Harrier, it was a “full-body” experience. You sat in a cockpit that would tilt based on the direction of your in-game hover car. But, unlike Space Harrier, I enjoy Night Striker without requiring that full experience. It’s an entertaining little game. Simple, but backed up by small details. The end of each route gives you an upgrade. One gives you a support ship, the next turns you into a mech, and another ditches your hover car for a normal motorcycle that requires you to drive on the ground (though, you can jump.)

M2’s port also provides the suggestion that you try a “pacifist” run. For this approach, you just don’t shoot anything (M2 also suggests you don’t hit anything). You’d think bosses would be a problem, but they’re all on a timer, and once the time runs out, they just leave and you advance. It’s really enjoyable, and is probably my preferred way to play.

SPACE GUN

Dumb name, but it’s my favourite game in the bunch. Like the Operation titles, it’s a lightgun game. However, Space Gun is extremely influenced by the movie Aliens. You mostly find yourself slowly walking through tight corridors, shooting creatures that run out of the darkness. You can blow their limbs and even their heads off.

It’s straightforward and short, but it’s also extremely inventive. One unique aspect about the arcade cabinet was a pedal that players could push to step back in reverse. This allows additional time to hit an incoming alien or allows you to double back if you missed a power-up. Some levels have you crossing planet surfaces in a vehicle. The last boss wobbles in front of a control console that you have to avoid shooting, which really adds to the pressure. Great stuff.

THE PORT

It’s nice to have a compilation of four really enjoyable titles. The port, as far as I can tell, is solid. M2 usually does great work. With that in mind, I went with the Switch version because folks were complaining about the PC port. Something to do with the mouse implementation not working well with PC lightguns.

It’s nice that they included all the different regional versions for each game, and they provide a small explanation of what is different.

Interestingly, the console ports (Famicom, Master System, Genesis, etc.) are not included in the base game. Instead, you can buy them as DLC. It’s weirdly expensive, considering the fact that the console versions are inferior to their arcade counterparts. At the same time, I totally understand. Only weirdos like me care about that sort of completion. It takes time and effort to include the games, even when they’re just being emulated. And since most people aren’t going to care, it’s a way to offset the additional development costs. It’s the weirdo tax.

The Switch version allows you to use gyroscopic aiming, which is a rather effective way to make up for the lack of lightguns. You can even hold the controller upright and use it like a flight stick for Night Striker. However, when it comes to aiming, even at the highest sensitivity it was sometimes difficult to push the reticle to the margins of the screen. Even then, it would often lose alignment and have to be reset. Like a lot of games that use gyro, recalibrating is done with a single button, but it’s still a bit less than ideal.

ONE MIGHTY S

A big problem with Operation Night Strikers is that a significant portion of the appeal of the four games included were their hardware. Three lightgun games and one cockpit. You can only ever capture a piece of the entire experience.

With that said, I believe there are two types of M2 ports. The first are when companies contract them for a job, and the others are when M2 contacts companies because they really want to port one of their games. I think Operation Night Strikers is in the latter category. In particular, it seems that someone at M2 really loves Night Striker, and not just because it takes up the largest portion of the title (while Space Gun is just the pluralizing “S.” Disrespect.) The number of extra widgets surrounding the screen that invite you to learn the game in different ways just sells that passion. You can tell that someone who really knows the game was in charge of the port.

It’s somewhat of a high pricetag for four simple arcade experiences that you can burn through in a couple of hours. That’s often the nature of arcade ports, though. However, all four of these games are worth playing, two of them allow you to rope a friend in, and they’re all readily replayable. Personally, I think Space Gun alone makes it all worth it. It helps that most of these are relatively obscure. Except Operation: Wolf. Everyone’s heard of Operation: Wolf.

7/10

This review was conducted using a digital version of the game on an original Switch. It was paid for by the author.