Forgotten Gaming- Shadow Squadron

Name- Shadow Squadron

Platform- Sega 32X

Developer- Sega

Released- Mid-1995

The poor 32X. It was conceived and marketed as Sega’s second pillar for the 32-bit generation, a cousin to the superior Sega Saturn. The 32X was the Sega Genesis’ second major add-on, and was designed to extend the life of the Genesis, as to not alienate its solid userbase as newer, more powerful consoles were being released. In Sega’s perfect world, the Saturn would dominate and the 32X would tag along, even if it was just for a few years. 

Unfortunately the Saturn did not set the world on fire, and a brash decision was made by Sega to discontinue everything and throw its full weight behind the Saturn, hoping the newly-freed resources would make the Saturn a more viable platform. Hitching themselves completely to a falling star made no sense then, and makes no sense now. Nothing would have made the Saturn better save for different hardware, which no amount of software resources would be able to fix. To Sega of America’s chagrin, Sega of Japan made the final decision and the Genesis, SegaCD, GameGear and 32X were all unceremoniously killed in 1996. 

Why am I saying all this and not talking about the actual game yet? Because the 32X was a much more capable piece of hardware than anyone gave it credit for, and Shadow Squadron is one of the best examples of what the 32X could do.

Still photos do not justify how cool and effortless these hyperspace scenes are. 

Shadow Squadron is a fully 3D space sim/shooter. Like virtually every title in the 32X library, development time and costs were tight, and the game was rushed out the door. Thus we have a game with few play modes, only 6 stages and very little else. Given more time and love, Shadow Squadron could have been a deep and engrossing experience, right up there with fellow Saturn and PlayStation games. But as it is, the game is little more than an arcadey proof-of-concept.

But I’ll be damned if this isn’t an extremely fun game to play.

Each orange ship is an enemy target. Blue dots are optional enemy fighters. Good luck!

After a hyperspace cutscene and mission briefing, each stage plops you into deep space along with several enemy battleships. Your job is to take all of these massive ships down. Yes there’s a paper-thin story, but in this arcade-like setup it is irrelevant. Between these ships are the occasional asteroids and a few small enemy fighters, though they are usually optional to take down also. Destroy everything noted in the briefing, and you hyperspace to the next stage. It’s very simple stuff.

Each enemy battleship is like a puzzle. Granted you could just fire at it randomly and it will explode eventually, but the real fun is in finding the weak spots. Certain pieces of fuselage are more prone than others, and if you find a super-weak spot you could take the whole ship down almost at once. The game gives you such an absolute freedom of movement that you are encouraged to approach these ships at any angle and inversion to take them down most efficiently.

Feel free to tackle this ship however you see fit. The choices are all yours.

And that is perhaps what makes this game so… fun. You can see anything from any angle, and go anywhere you want. Open-world games are taken for granted nowadays, but with a game as primitive as this you expect limitations. Shadow Squadron has none. Playing this game feels so liberating, almost joyous. All the game says is ‘destroy this thing,’ and gives you every freedom to do it the best way you see fit. And you do. And you keep doing it for 6 stages. You'll fail until you finally beat the game. And then you'll play it again one day, and remember how much fun it is, and it will become your new mini-obsession until you beat it again. This kind of adrenaline is what I thrive off of, and it's my life's mission to share it with you, the reader.

It's called nostalgia. And it’s an amazing feeling.

There's such a simple elegance to these kinds of graphics. Abstract yet effective.

As for graphics, I hope you like flat, non-textured polygons. I’ve always loved this style, as it’s so fledgling and experimental. Everything is clean, sharp and defined. No textures that could get muddy, no complications to distract you. Plenty of color though, cycling through their palettes and imitating flashing lights, finding every color the 32X was able to render.

Music is provided by the Genesis, as the 32X didn’t help much in the sound department. Each stage has its own theme, and at this point in time Genesis chiptunes were as sophisticated as they could be. The music is quite catchy and has even found its way into other fan-made games, notably Sonic Megamix.

Massive sprite explosions, random flying triangles, silky smooth framerate, what's not to love?!

The game has a 2-player co-op feature, where one player is the pilot and the other is the gunner. I’ve never had the pleasure of trying this mode with someone but I could imagine it’s good fun if you’re both skilled and in the mood. There are two different ships you can play with, each with their own unique play styles and abilities. One of the ships also allows you to play on-rails, where all you do is shoot as the ship flies in a fixed path, but this surprisingly sucks so much fun out of the game. Thank goodness it’s merely an option, though it’s still fun to explore out of curiosity. 

The 32X was tongue-in-cheek marketed as ‘a poor-man’s entry into 32-bit gaming,’ and that’s exactly what this game looks and plays like. To its credit, the 32X holds nothing back from this game, and allows it to do and be what it is, with no compromises. The only thing that held this game back from being more was its development time and general apathy toward the 32X in the first place, which is a shame. With more games as technically impressive as this, and a lot more love and support from Sega, the 32X could have held on for longer than it was allowed. But at least we have Shadow Squadron, and with it we could at least have a fleeting glance at what kind of future the 32X could’ve had.