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tepidsnake This week's Arcade Archives release is... Top Speed (Taito, 1987)
There's also been a bit of news in the Arcade Archives world this week, with Rave Racer getting a date (26th February, I will be rotating in excitement until the release) and a new line of rereleases from Hamster, Console Archives! As the name suggests, this focuses on console game rereleases releasing on Switch 2 and PS5, starting with Cool Boarders and Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos and with future titles mentioned by gosokkyu including the Famicom Doraemon game, Monster Farm Jump and Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (!!!). There's a pretty eclectic selection of publishers and games already, which is nice!
However... To let you know, I won't be covering Console Archives the way I cover Arcade Archives. I'm a rotten little arcade rat at heart, that's where I live, and while some of the games teased for the lineup are interesting (Rhapsody already has a modern rerelease but I'm OK with giving people another option) they're just not the sort of thing I'd be motivated to cover on a weekly basis like I do with ACA. There'll be other people out there to tell you aobut the Console Archives releases I'm sure! Hopefully you'll understand, and we can continue to look at Arcade Archives games on a weekly basis. Thanks!
Arcade Archives (previous-gen consoles)
Xbox
Both the Japanese (Full Throttle) and English (Top Speed) versions are included (although a UK flyer does show the Full Throttle name), but no extra Preference Settings outside of being able to toggle the Hi / Low Gear display on or off. There's also no fix for the old Taito trick- if you get a Game Over on the final stage, no matter whether you've enabled continues or not, that's your lot, get off the machine, kid!
Before Chase H.Q., there was FULL THROTTLE. Or TOP SPEED if you prefer. In the wake of Sega's 1986 smash hit Outrun, Taito decided to try their hand at the driving genre, running on hardware later used for Operation Thunderbolt with sprite scaling and zooming being the order of the day. You're not looking to outrace people here (outside the nuisance traffic, some of which appear to be Sunday drivers and will not get out the way!), it's just you, a souped-up car (a Mazda RX-7 according to arcade-history, I wouldn't really know) with two gears, three blasts of nitro per stage and a vicious timer to beat. Can you make it to the end of the course in time?
The usual hazards in games like this are present like billboards, trees, cliffs and houses to crash into, but this also has a variation on the Outrun path-split as while you always head to the same destination, the road can fork multiple times in one area so you have plenty of track segments you won't see in a single playthrough. You'll want to master those segments though because this game goes at a breakneck speed throughout, and you'll need those nitro speed boosts to make it to the checkpoints, the timer is pretty strict and one or two crashes will end your run. At least you can activate continues here, although they get cut off on Stage 5, so be careful. The presentation is pretty good too, with bold colours, some tunnel sequences that are really convincing and, of course, some of the hottest jams in existence (although they're somewhat drowned out by the engine noise!) Many of the elements seen here would be seen again in the more well-known Chase H.Q., but don't let the lack of criminals to chase down put you off- this is a tough driving game that you might not clear on your first attempt, but you'll have fun trying!
PSN
Switch
EU
Arcade Archives 2 (current-gen consoles)
PSN
Switch 2
EU
Xbox
Both the Japanese (Full Throttle) and English (Top Speed) versions are included (although a UK flyer does show the Full Throttle name), but no extra Preference Settings outside of being able to toggle the Hi / Low Gear display on or off. There's also no fix for the old Taito trick- if you get a Game Over on the final stage, no matter whether you've enabled continues or not, that's your lot, get off the machine, kid!
Before Chase H.Q., there was FULL THROTTLE. Or TOP SPEED if you prefer. In the wake of Sega's 1986 smash hit Outrun, Taito decided to try their hand at the driving genre, running on hardware later used for Operation Thunderbolt with sprite scaling and zooming being the order of the day. You're not looking to outrace people here (outside the nuisance traffic, some of which appear to be Sunday drivers and will not get out the way!), it's just you, a souped-up car (a Mazda RX-7 according to arcade-history, I wouldn't really know) with two gears, three blasts of nitro per stage and a vicious timer to beat. Can you make it to the end of the course in time?
The usual hazards in games like this are present like billboards, trees, cliffs and houses to crash into, but this also has a variation on the Outrun path-split as while you always head to the same destination, the road can fork multiple times in one area so you have plenty of track segments you won't see in a single playthrough. You'll want to master those segments though because this game goes at a breakneck speed throughout, and you'll need those nitro speed boosts to make it to the checkpoints, the timer is pretty strict and one or two crashes will end your run. At least you can activate continues here, although they get cut off on Stage 5, so be careful. The presentation is pretty good too, with bold colours, some tunnel sequences that are really convincing and, of course, some of the hottest jams in existence (although they're somewhat drowned out by the engine noise!) Many of the elements seen here would be seen again in the more well-known Chase H.Q., but don't let the lack of criminals to chase down put you off- this is a tough driving game that you might not clear on your first attempt, but you'll have fun trying!
There's also been a bit of news in the Arcade Archives world this week, with Rave Racer getting a date (26th February, I will be rotating in excitement until the release) and a new line of rereleases from Hamster, Console Archives! As the name suggests, this focuses on console game rereleases releasing on Switch 2 and PS5, starting with Cool Boarders and Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos and with future titles mentioned by gosokkyu including the Famicom Doraemon game, Monster Farm Jump and Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (!!!). There's a pretty eclectic selection of publishers and games already, which is nice!
However... To let you know, I won't be covering Console Archives the way I cover Arcade Archives. I'm a rotten little arcade rat at heart, that's where I live, and while some of the games teased for the lineup are interesting (Rhapsody already has a modern rerelease but I'm OK with giving people another option) they're just not the sort of thing I'd be motivated to cover on a weekly basis like I do with ACA. There'll be other people out there to tell you aobut the Console Archives releases I'm sure! Hopefully you'll understand, and we can continue to look at Arcade Archives games on a weekly basis. Thanks!