Arcade Archives: Quester

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Quester (Namco, 1987)

This one's shown up everywhere else except the UK store. The US, France, Italy, Germany and the rest of Europe, it's on all those other places except the UK which, annoyingly, is where I happen to live. At least getting Japanese points isn't so difficult these days, even if I'd rather have just paid the six quid to get it easier. Oh well. So, we're just providing US links this time~

Arcade Archives (previous-gen consoles)

PSN

Switch

Arcade Archives 2 (current-gen consoles)

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Switch 2

Xbox

Just the one ROM for this one, which means there's no Quester Special Editionm that's the one with designs sent in by fans to NG Namco Community Magazine and printed in the November 1987 issue (Wikipedia has the page wrong, it's on Page 24). Preference Settings allow you to display the current round and time elapsed to the side of the screen (there's a handy Round Select setting too, but that's a dip-switch on the original cabinet). You can also use a USB mouse or the JoyCon 2's mouse functionality to simulate the original paddle controls, or adjust the sensitivity of the left analogue stick for analogue control.

This is a bit of a milestine release, as it's the final non-3D Namco arcade game that was previously rereleased on the Wii Virtual Console in Japan that's made it over to Arcade Archives. The only ones left now are Starblade, Solvalou and Cyber Sled! As for Quester itself, this is Arkanoid by way of Namco. This has a few different gimmicks, mind you, and one of them is actually pretty neat- once your ball hits the walls (oo-er, missus) enough times, the ball slows down and splits into three which can make it a lot easier to finish up a stage, plus there's special blocks that both speed up and slow down the ball when you hit them. There's also a few power-ups for things like making your paddle incrementally bigger and little barriers that clone your ball when you get them trapped inside, plus bonus stages where you can mash the button to unleash dozens of balls at once! Unfortunately, there's also perhaps one of the most annoying gimmicks I've seen in a Breakout-style game, blocks that constantly spawn new blocks unless you destroy the spawner, and it's actually possible to get stuck for ages trying to get rid of the bloody things. Not ideal, really, but the presentation is pretty nice, with that Namco System 1 gradient look to it and different dings for the different block types the ball bounces off of. Still, I've been spoiled by OOParts when it comes to this kind of game, sorry!