Gaming Hell

Oh no, an arcade wrestling game! I'm so out of my league here! I'll do my best though. Believe it or not, this is often cited as one of the first wrestling video games ever made, and as pointed out by ohfivepro, the game's planner, Takashi Yoneda, loved pro wrestling and was a newcomer in the industry, who wanted to make a wrestling game because none existed at the time, and not only was it a hit, but Technōs would also make bank with more arcade wrestling games many years later, so this pioneering work paid off. Sunny and Terry, the underdog player team, must face off against the heel team Bloody Mask and Mad Bull Giant (who's immune to some moves because he's so big) in a tag team match, complete with getting out of the ring (watch out, Volence Caesar Sr. might show up if you're outside the ring to cause trouble), tagging in and out and all the hits, grapples and throws you can handle.

As for how it plays, it's quite strange at first, and a lot of people are flummoxed by the move selection system- once you get into a favourable clinch (as a hint, the position of you and your opponent's hands is important!), a little menu will pop up and you have to press the Select button to cycle through moves like headlocks, body slams and piledrivers, with more powerful moves near the end of the list requiring more mashing- but all things considered, it kinda works! You only get a few seconds to select your move, so it's not sometihng that massively slows things down, and you eventually get the hang of it. As this is a tag match, you can also switch to your other character which is essential to stay in the match, as you'll eventually wear out, becoming slower and more prone to getting pinned. I'm not a huge wrestling person (Ring of Destruction is more my scene) but even I gave this more than a few goes, and there's obviously a lot of love for the sport here, with an impressive amount of detail for 1983 like the audience moving around, the little intro with the referee and managers and the crunched-down voices that are really charming.

This rerelease does have a big problem though- as mentioned, this is the Japanese ROM, which actually matters here. The moves you select are in Japanese with no English in sight. The manual does try and help you out here, as it lists every move as well as how many button presses it takes to execute it. You'll eventually learn what wach move is but this is really unfortunate for a wider audience who might be expecting the old English Data East release given the game's storefront title. This has happened in the past- Liquid Kids and Tecmo Stackers use their English names but don't include the English ROMs- but this is definitely more affected by the lack of an English mode than most. There is at least one case where the English version was patched in later- Ninja Emaki- but if I understand it right, getting different versions of games in these ACA rereleases is contingent on finding a PCB and also making sure there's no legal hurdles (which is why there's no Midway or Atari versions of many Namco games on ACA) so while I am a little hopeful this can be updated to add the English ROM, I wouldn't hold my breath.

... By the way, it's the NES port that has the heel team called the Strong Bads, not this arcade version. Sorry!

If you want more information, Retro-Wres has a rather long write-up on this game, so I'd better defer to the experts on this one.

April is the month of idol birthdays, which means we have You Watanabe (17/04) from Love Live! Sunshine!! and Maki Nishikino (19/04) from Love Live! School idol project. These two are real favourites so it's always nice to draw them this time each year, and I try to find costumes that have some kind of similarity. This year, it was short hair! Sadly, I'll never get any good at drawing characters to-scale with one another- once I start drawing, the scale is just whatever I'm feeling that day. Just imagine the camera's a little closer on Maki this year.

From Fushigi Mahou Fun Fun Pharmacy, it's Potpourri the little witch and her magical friends, Pinch, Laluu, Shibu, Grim, Garu and Rick! A short-form anime series (with 11-minute episodes and the occasional 23-minute special) that originall aired as part of an anime block, Anime Shūken DX! Mi-Pha-Pu, it's an excellent mahō shōjo series with a great protagonist, Potpourri, an energetic girl who learns she can be a witch from Miss Fukiko of the titular pharmacy and gets into all sorts of mishaps and adventures in the Smiling Ginza, with Miss Fukiko keeping an eye on her but only involving herself if Potpourri gets really in over her head. It's brilliant, you should all watch it, and Potpourri's outfit design is absolutely peak, bless her (her mom made her outfit and one episode shows she has an entire drawer of the exact same outfit, good). After watching the full series, of course I had to draw her!

OOPS!! GUESS WHO'S A BIG DUMMY WHO FORGOT TO POST THEIR MS PAINT ART TO THEIR DREAMWIDTH?? Me. It's me. There's, like, extra steps to putting art on here, so I just forget, sorry!! Ahem. From the top, then, we have...

* UFO-co from Space Invaders Extreme! this was a warm-up both for the UFO-co navigator I was adding to my stream that week and the next drawing, I really love her design so I've drawn her a lot!
* Ellen Joe from Zenless Zone Zero! Ellen Joe is one of my favourite ZZZ characters but it's always intimidating to draw characters like this as there's so much detail to her that it takes a long time for me to draw everything out. Still, I'm really happy with how she turned out, capturing her lazy, sleepy vibe quite well.
* Cat Girl from Catrap! No, really, check the manual, her name is just Cat Girl. She's just called Pit Girl in the Japanese version, Pitman. One of my favourite Game Boy puzzle games, she design is very simple but very cute.
* Anne from Gekirindan! I went through a bit of a Taito phase here, although really, there's always time to draw a Taito cute. Anne's the pilot of the P1-side space helicopter in time-travel shmup Gekirindan, and I get the feeling there's not that much art of her, which is a shame.
* Woolen from Puzzle Bobble 2! More Taito cutes? Yes please. Woolen is one I really like from the early Puzzle Bobbles.
* Cleon from Puzzle Bobble 4! Definitely not my favourite Puzzle Bobble game (that's a mild understatement), but Cleon is absolutely one of my very favourite character designs from the series, she's very tepidsnake-core as she's a sassy little imp. This has both her 1P and 2P palettes because the 2P palette is my favourite.
* Arle Nadja from Puyo Puyo / Madou Monogatari! Did you know Arle's coming to Sonic Racing CrossWorlds? She is! So, I had to draw her, obviously.
* Haruka Amami from THE iDOLM@STER! I've only drawn Haruka once before, which definitely seems like some kind of crime. She really grew on me after watching the anime series, so I decided to draw her in her Namassuka!? Sunday uniform as that's one of my favourite episodes. It's the one where she gets bopped by the box, something that's based on a true story!

I promise I won't leave it so long next time, the writer lied.

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Actually, it's a Neo Geo game this time! It's Pop'n Bounce (Video System, 1997)


Yes, this is just an ACA release with no ACA2 version, which means no PS5, Switch 2 or Xbox Series reelase. Also, despite the other ACA Neo Geo games showing up on Xbox One in the past, this one hasn't. Don't be too down though, Xbox owners, in this week's Hamster stream they announced that almost all of the Xbox One ACA Neo Geo games have been added to the Xbox Play Anywhere service, meaning you can play them on Xbox, PC or compatible handheld devices, and they've had their UI updated to the ACA2 style. They said not all games have been added to it, and I think this refers to the ACA2 version of The King of Fighters '98 and the delisted football games, so it's basically all of them. Anyway, Pop'n Bounce does have a feature not seen in any other Neo Geo game, paddle support, so you can play with with either a normal joystick setup or with a USB mouse for analogue control

You thought the Neo Geo was finished on Arcade Archives? Not a chance, pal! An ACA version of Pop'n Bounce was included as an exclusive game in ACA Neo Geo Selection Vol. 10 that released at the end of last year for the Switch exclusively in Japan, but now here's the game on its own, This is a strange one, as it didn't release in Japan when it was new- as explained by ohfivepro on Bluesky, around 1997 Video System and Visco (whose credit is found on the Pop'n Bounce and Sonic Wings Limited flyers) ran into difficulties and cancelled or delayed many of their arcade games, with Pop'n Bounce in particular releasing in the West instead (others, like Captain Tomaday and Ganryu getting released a few years later instead). It still has a Japanese language option (under the name Gapporin) but this is standard for Neo Geo releases, as the game's region is picked by what BIOS you're using, so that's included here too, but what a strange situation! The game itself is even stranger- this is the only paddle-and-ball game on the Neo Geo, so it has support for a paddle controller, but unlike The Irritating Maze which used a trackball and I know exists because I've played a cabinet myself, I can't find a photo of any Pop'n Bounce cabinet using a paddle. I imagine it was probably an option to convert an old paddle game, but as Lord BBH pointed out in his Neo Rank Masters episode on the game, to have this setup you've have to dedicate a cabinet to it, so if you have a multi-slot MVS, you'll be limited to this one game 'cause no other Neo Geo games use a paddle. Not a great situation for an arcade operator to be in!

... Oh, right, I'd better talk about the game, huh? It's a Breakout / Arkanoid-style game where you have to clear the playing field of blocks (the field only takes up half the screen to allow for two-player battles) but with a few interesting twists. For one thing, depending on your settings, blocks (represented by different creatures in ever round, with Rabio from Rabio Lepus appearing in the final round!) can move down the playfield when there's a gap, and this can lead to blocks of the same colour fusing together, becoming larger and eventually dropping power-ups for you depending on their colour (mostly typical of the genre like a larger paddle and the ability to shoot lasers). There's also a decent bit of variety in the level designs, with bombs that blow up small areas of blocks and items that blow up all blocks of a particular colour, but what's interesting is the layouts are randomised- each round has a few different layouts that they can be that's picked at random in each playthrough, so you'll have to play a few times to see them all. Finally, there's the ultimate technique, the ATTACK- if you hit the letters at the top of the playfield spelling out this word, then your paddle extends to almost the entire bottom of the field and a load of ultra-fast balls show up to decimate all the blocks! Hitting the top does speed up the ball though, so you'll have to be skilled to pull this off. There's even a versus mode where you battle against another player to clear your board before they do, while sending nuisance enemies over to their side of the screen. This is definitely best played with something simulating the paddle though, the joystick isn't ideal for this kind of game, but it's nice to see this one get reissued as it's pretty cute. And hey, Breakout / Arkanoid fans have been eating pretty well with ACA lately, haven't they? Good for them, good for them.

Now, you might be wondering, is this a sign that more ACA Neo Geo games are in our future? Well, don't get too far ahead of yourself there, sport. The remaining Neo Geo games that don't have an ACA equivalent are mostly games that have some kind of obstacle to overcome before a rerelease can happen, so just for fun, here's an organised list of those remaining Neo Geo games, divided into groups based on the most likely reason they haven't shown up yet:

Four versions are included here, with Japanese and English versions of the Standard /SD (simple up-down gear shift) and Deluxe / DX (six-gear shifter and clutch) cabinets. The main regional differences are the language and the silhouetted dancer (whose actual model is naked! NSFW, of course) on the City course being replaced with a lit-up arrow sign in the English release. That's why I went with the Japanese version of the Hamster trailer this time, that silhouette is important. No exclusive Preference Settings here (I thought the car selection was, but nope, that's in the Service Mode menu) but you do have plenty of analogue control options and, on ACA2, there's Split Screen Mode with support for up to four players at once so you can see the exclusive 'waiting for entry' screens at your leisure. As with other 3D Namco games, this is double the price of normal Arcade Archives releases. Worth it, though.

This is Radio 765 comin' at you live from Rave City for the Rave Racer competition, the engines sound like they're ready to go! We've got twelve revving roadsters out there ready to take on four exciting racetracks- the City with its elevated highways and the famous hilly descent, the Mountain with its spotty use of safety barriers (careful out there, or you might have to take a different route) and both the short and long courses in the nearby Ridge City, always a welcome sight on race day, especially since they finally finished that under-construction part of the long course! Whether they're using automatic or manual transmissions, these drivers know they've gotta use every trick they've got to stay on top, from drifting through turns to slipstreaming off other cars, so the action's gonna be flaming hot! Racers, start your engines, and let's get it on!

We're only two months into 2026 and we already have another Namco all-time great hitting Arcade Archives, and about time too- it's taken 31 years for Rave Racer to finally come home. While Namco did release Ridge Racer 2 in 1994, it was more of an upgrade to the original than a follow-up, as while it added the rear view mirror support for up to eight linked cabinets to race against one another and a new soundtrack (and a much ruder version of the announcer), it still used the same course. Rave Racer is a full-blown sequel with the short and long Ridge Racer tracks returning but with the brand new City and Mountain tracks, a new slipstream mechanic (you have to get really close to your rivals to get a boost), a view change button to see from behind the car, altered physics (bumping against opponents feels slightly less like you're getting pinballed around), another new soundtrack with 12 tracks to choose from (and a new set of announcers, including other racers trash-talking you) and a fresh look with a slightly more realistic colour palette. Oh, and I've got to mention the leather jacket-wearing lady shown in the game's title demo- contrary to popular belief, it's not series mascot Reiko Nagase, but instead a woman who was given the name "Rave Reiko" by fans and used in Gamest, but she's earned a place in the heart of gamers who ever saw that attract mode.