YMMV / Ghost Squad (2004)

• Default Setting Syndrome: Don't expect any player at the arcade to use anything other than the default weapon, costume, and mission level. Ever. If you're lucky, you might see someone change their weapon or costume. This gets worse when GHOST Squad Evolution is involved; most players don't bother to poke around with the weapon, costume, or level settings, making the upgrade largely pointless.
• Demonic Spiders: Knife Mooks in higher levels, due to the increased reaction time required. It's easy if you know beforehand, but still.
• Funny Moments: If you get a Hand-to-Hand Combat scene in Mission 3's "pick one of the three cottages" event and succeed, the following cutscene shows, among other things, your Player Character punching one of the hapless mooks in the crotch.
• Game-Breaker: The TR14 and SPR11, for their ludicrous penetration that makes killing enemies a cinch. Potentially also the CPG7 Uzi Sub-Machinegun, which, while having a lesser amount of ammo, has a quicker reload time and an equally powerful penetration rating. Being able to hit enemies that are taking cover or before they get a chance to strike also means a lot of Quick Shot bonuses, and you can also get Double Down bonuses if you shoot through one enemy into another. Naturally, these weapons make up the bulk of high score tables on versions of the game that allow access to them.
• Good Bad Bugs: Mission 2 still awards you the full end-of-mission bonuses if you fire before the boss's third shot but miss. This only applies if you're not trying to level up the mission though, as a mission level-up requires clearing the mission proper.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Many players' reactions, particularly to the Wii version. No matter how many the unlockable contents are, the game still only has 3 missions that intended to be completed in one standing and each of them is, by comparison, shorter than Virtua Cop missions, with no exclusive final boss mission. The game offers 20 variants of each of the game's 3 missions, but very few cares.
• Narm: On Mission 3's mine-defusing segment, your CO helpfully warns you that "THE MINE WILL EXPLODE WHEN THE TIME BECOMES 0!"
  • Don't forget the part where the frickin' president of the USA gives you an high-five after you rescue him.
• Narm Charm - Zimone's VA should be given a medal for clearly not taking his role seriously.
  • I THOUGHT I SMELLED RATS. EEEE-LIMINATE THEM!!!
  • HA! DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TO AIM...?
• Polished Port: The Wii release, though lacking the 60 frames per second of the arcade original, not only features all of the content from the arcade version but also it is superior to the arcade version due to the option of having a reticle or not, online leaderboards (until the Wii online service went out), more difficulty levels compared to the arcade original, a training mode, Ninja mode and Beach Party mode, and even multiplayer modes for up to four players. This especially holds true in the United States, where most arcades opted for the worst version of the game (the one with no card slots and only a fraction of the content of the carded version available) and didn't bother to order the Evolution kits.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The version that was released in most arcades in the US disables the card save function and thus strips out most of the game's content, leaving you with only four mission levels (leaving many branches exclusive to levels 5 and up inaccessible), four costumes, and four weapons, none of which are particularly standout; the one weapon with piercing projectiles only has "weak" penetration, unlike the shoot-through-practically-anything properties of the TR14 or SPR11. However there is Ghost Squad Evolution which makes all of the content from the card version unlocked the moment you insert the coin, but not every arcade with a no-card cabinet has it as Evolution runs on newer, more expensive hardware.
  • The best scoring route on Mission 3 involves doing the first Hand-to-Hand Combat scene. Problem is, that H2H sequence is randomly given to you, as it's one of the outcomes of the "pick a cottage" event and you have a 50% chance of getting it (the other 50% is just a normal shooting scene, and the cottage with white smoke is guaranteed to have McCoy, ending the scene with no further point opportunities).
  • The RPG-style rank up to unlock guns and character models gimmick, since there is only three missions to play around with. Sure, raising the difficulty unlock alternate scenarios, but that's only the game could offer, see "It Short, so it's Sucks" above. This is exempt in OPERATION GHOST.
• Scrappy Weapon: The shotguns are not particularly well-liked due to the fact that it's easy to Double Down hostages by mistake, costing you needless lives.