Here is a high scoring 1 credit clear playthrough of Ghost Squad, using the SPR-11 and all Mission Levels at 8.
I'm playing this on the NTSC Wii version of the game, using an emulator. With how much I have played this way, and on an actual machine, I feel that this is accurate enough. The only differences are frameskips that happen when loading or in cutscenes.
Ghost Squad is an arcade light gun game released by SEGA AM2 in 2005. It has no hiding mechanism, so you have to shoot enemies before they hit you. A marker and sound effects happen when you are about to get hit. The gun controller has an action button which is used in events, and a shot type selector switch. The standard difficulty in this game isn't too hard, however trying to score higher is hard.
The unique feature of Ghost Squad was that the arcade version had a memory card to save your progress. At first you can only play each Mission on difficulty Level 1, and beating the boss successfully would let you have access to the next Level, which goes all the way up to 16. Playing each Mission on Level 8 is regarded the best for score, playing at Level 16 is a real challenge, and very hard to 1 credit clear consistently.
Along with extra difficulty Levels, the card stores experience points, which increase your Level (not to be confused with Mission Levels), upwards to Level 99. This unlocks more weapons and costumes to choose at the start of the game. Thankfully the SPR11, which is seen as the best gun in the game is awarded at Level 23, so you don't have to play it for too long until you can play the game properly. There are guides on GameFAQs going into detail about all the weapons.
Because of the arcade version having a memory card, if playing on the original arcade version, you'd need a card if you can find one and the card slot to work (and it not jammed up too!) to be able to play the game with a weapon like this. The arcade version was re-released as Ghost Squad Evolution, which allows you to choose any weapon and outfit without a card. There was also a cardless version released in some countries which gave you some basic weapons and would only allow up to Mission Level 4.
Throughout the game there are selectable branches, some are a lot harder than others, the route I take in this video is seen as the best route for scoring.
There is a scoring issue with the very first arcade version, shooting an enemy quickly awards 800, shooting the head awards 600, shooting the enemy quick and in the head only awarded the head shot, which gives just 600. This was fixed in version A which awards a Quick Good Shot, awarding you 1200.
The scoring system feels refined in Ghost Squad, awarding points to shooting quickly and accurately, shooting multiple enemies with one shot awarding Double Downs, the hard to achieve 2 Body 1 Head, and 2 Body shots (yes, it displays them the wrong way around)
There is scoring for clearing the events during the game at 10/5/2k, it is really difficult to get the 10k on the hand-to-hand quick time events. There are end of Mission bonuses, 10k for clearing the mission, a bonus that doubles up for every event cleared and a important accuracy bonus.
Sadly there are some frustrating parts to scoring, such as failing the Mission 2 boss, which is rather easy to do. In the original arcade version, you could just shoot anywhere in the first 2 seconds and it awards all the points for clearing the Mission. The 3 huts in Mission 3 are a pain too, the game seems to glitch with counting up which one of the three should have the hand-to-hand event, choosing the wrong one will cut 45k from your score.
The Wii version of Ghost Squad allows you to remove the cursor, and awards you more points for doing this, but by doing this, it makes the scoring incomparable to the arcade version.
Sometimes enemies don't shoot, or sometimes they do shoot unlike normal, this can play up with lining enemies to get Double Down. Sometimes it can be worth more to take the hit, but it doesn't look as professional to do this! However a good tip is that if you leave an enemy to the point just before they will hit you, and then shoot you, the next enemy won't shoot as quick, this also happens if you get hit too.
00:00 - Intro
01:37 - Mission 2
09:57 - Mission 1
20:48 - Mission 3
32:30 - Ending
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