Much of my formative video game years were spent playing two genres: the side-scrolling beat’em up and the shooter. Both were popular in the 16-bit days, but have since largely vanished from the gaming consciousness, save for cameo appearances on PSN or XBLA or the DS.

I played many shooters on my Genesis, and forged my love through repeated run-throughs of the magnificent Thunder Force III. But my addiction took root with M.U.S.H.A., a quirky vertical-scrolling effort that featured all the characteristics of the genre: huge enemies, upgradeable weapons, and thousands of glowy balls of death on the screen. It was formula, but it was formula perfected.

M.U.S.H.A. stands for Metallic Uniframe Super Hybrid Armor and you play a girl who’s draped herself in the mechsuit and taken it upon herself to wage war against an unstoppable onslaught of foes. Granted, it’s not the most Shakespearean of narratives, but it gets the job done.

To aid you in your sprite-nuking holocaust are a series of weapons upgrades that cater to different player styles: go big and deadly with the fat green lasers, opt for defense with the circling blue bubble or toss out a crapload of tiny bombs with the red upgrade. In addition, you have two little sidekick lasers that you can program to shoot backwards, forwards, sideways, in an orbital pattern or you can free them up to fly out and attack anyone they wants (which, unfortuantely, leads to their prompt disintegration fairly quickly).

Where M.U.S.H.A. excels is in its hyper-fast, twitch gameplay. There are a lot of things going on at once and as is the case with the shooter genre, your reflexes and tiny yellow energy ball dodging skills will be critical to success. Stages are varied, ranging from volcanoes to plains to caves to a dope fight across a lightning-streaked sky to a bad-ass battle on the enemy’s base ship to the final smackdown in the guts of a space station.

Thankfully, the game isn’t soul-crushingly impossible. When you’re fully-powered you’re a force and can dismantle most foes with ease. The head boss is a pain, though. You’re trapped in a tiny compartment with a huge green ball bouncing around, where one collision equals an apologetic letter from the M.U.S.H.A. bureau to your parents.

The graphics are bright and colorful and vary greatly from stage to stage and the bosses are huge and interesting-looking. The music stands out as well. And apparently this is a rare, highly sought-after game that goes for like $60 on eBay. I think I got it for a buck or something at a yard sale.

Vintage Verdict: Not Guilty.  Mech yeah!