I couldn't exactly tell you what it is about Side Arms that I like so much. I had never heard of it before it appeared in the virtual arcade of Street Fighter 6's Battle Hub, but immediately upon playing it I clocked it as something of a pseudo sequel to Section Z, a more fondly remembered Capcom shooter from the era.

Side Arms starts incredibly strongly, taking the two button directional shooting from Section Z and combining it with a Gradius style weapon system and really excellent graphics and sound. Side Arms revels in spectacle, and this is exemplified no better than when you find the secret AlphaBeta power up which has both Player 1 and Player 2 to combine into a super robot with a devastating 8 way attack. There's an adorable little transforming animation where the two ships combine and you then gain an extra hit point.

I love the environment design, which manages to stay nice and varied for its entire runtime, but unfortunately the same can't be said to the bosses, which there are only two for the whole game.

Aesthetically a lot was clearly taken from popular robot anime of the time (stage 4 has little Zakus jumping around as enemies and its very cute.) but honestly there's a lot of charm here. The protagonist Mobichan would go on to appear as an easter egg in many other Capcom games, notably on the title screen of Street Fighter 2, and I just don't know, the whole thing is so endearing to me. It's not a perfect game and there are many better shooters out there, but I've got a lot of love in my heart for it.