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The game was playable in America on the Sega Channel cable service and has been reissued for PlayStation 2 as part of the Sega Ages Treasure Box disc. The Sega Ages version, whose disc also includes Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy, removes the sprite display limit, which makes the game run in a smooth frame rate without any slowdowns in big boss fights with explosions. Also, the player can select either the sprite-based pixelated graphics of the original game, or a new non-pixelled mode, which gives them a hand-drawn look re-created by Treasure.

The game was re-released again on the Wii's Virtual Console download service in Japan on October 9, 2007, in Europe on November 2, 2007, and in North America on November 5, 2007.

Alien Soldier is unique among side-scrolling shooters in that, instead of long levels with several minor enemies before reaching the boss, the levels are notably short and easy before reaching a boss. This results in the game being mostly boss fights. The game has 25 levels and 31 bosses in total, and two difficulty levels, Supereasy and Superhard. The difficulty of the two levels is largely attributable to the lack of continues (and password-based "saving") available in the Superhard game.

The Youtube clip linked on this page is a sped-up version of gameplay.