What I adore about that game is how you can go between “damn, that mission is impossible” and “well, I beat it with S rating” in half an hour.
The interesting bit in the last mission of the first game is that you can choose two other commanders to assist you. And unlike some previous missions, you can control them directly.
Now I see why the two games were bundled together. It’s not just the same game storywise. Black Hole units are introduced on the 23rd mission out of 24. So even in the original game, they created all those gorgeous sprites not for the sake of two final missions, but because they probably knew they’ll be working on a second game right after.
Speaking of Sturm, the only CO of Black Hole present in the first game.
His skills are different to all other COs except Drake, because they don’t rely on boosting your units. Instead, Sturm just drops a meteor on them. And while it can’t kill any unit, it drops all units to 1-2HP, which is basically the same. The only CO that can wreck you badly even while loosing.
