tepidsnake | Entries tagged with arcade archives

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Spinal Breakers (Video System, 1991)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

The Japanese, International and US ROMs are included, the main differences being to the first stage, which was renamed from Germany to Europe in the International and US ROMs and a gate was completely removed from the background in the US version because, well, it was the Auschwitz gate. That gate has also been edited in the Japanese and International ROMs for this rerelease- the sign with text above it has been removed. The Red Cross has also been removed from a health item. Preference Settings allow players to display their current kill count and hit rate (using the in-game font, displayed in the border to the side of the screen).

HILDROIDS. They were living organisms created by mankind to do tasks too dangerous for normal humans, just workers and nothing more... But in the aftermath of a nuclear war that no-one knows the starting point of, the Earth's axis shifted and this changed the Hildroids, making them start to think and act on their own, killing their human hosts. As decades pass, Captain Waffle awakens from hybernetic stasis aboard a space station, and notices the Earth's axis shifting again, but this time... People and creatures of the past begin to appear, and the Hildroids take over their bodies and even start to change history. If the Earth's axis shifts again, it might be too late, and the Hildroids might change the past irrevecobly! Leaving his wife and daughter behind, Captain Waffle heads down to Earth in a one-seat escape ship, determined to end the Hildroids, find the cause of the nuclear war from long ago and save the past. It won't be easy- the shifting axis sends him through Nazi Germany, Ancient Greece, even prehistoric times with Hildroid-parasitised dinosaurs and cavemen baying for his blood! Can Captain Waffle do the impossible and save the past, present and future?

A crosshair shooter with horizontal scrolling a bit like SNK's NAM-1975, this has most of the mechanics you'd expect from a game like this- movement of the crosshair is tied to character movement unless you hold the button to fire wherein your target reticle speeds up, destroy background objects for fun and items, etc.- but there's a few odd things outside the plot. Most importantly, rolling from side to side, usually a 'get out of trouble' button in this genre, does not give you invincibility frames, so if you brush against any bullets or projectiles mid-roll, you're taking damage. The thing is, Waffle's roll brings him very low to the ground, so the trick is to use the roll to 'duck' under projectiles instead of using it with wanton abandon. There's also quite a few items including stronger normal bullets and grenade launcher rounds which are very handy for clearing the screen and uncovering more items. Finally, each stage has a time limit but you don't need to worry about that too much, you mostly have enough time, but if you let it run out, well...

If that story hasn't clued you in, Spinal Breakers is a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Fight Nazis, dinosaurs and horrible flesh-creatures across mulriple time periods! Destroy background objects like trees and corpses that explode into piles of gore! The final boss is just a gigantic pile of gore and wires trying to kill you to start a nuclear war! The protagonist is called Captain Waffle!! (That last one, according to the Hamster stream and as translated by Gosokkyu, is because the development staff really liked the waffles at a local convenience store, so they added a waffle item and named the hero after them) The whole aesthetic is very low-rent, back-of-the-video-shop VHS stuff, and while it can be in bad taste at points- at least they removed that sign in this version, but the corpses exploding are really grim and the bad multiple endings, showcased in LordBBH's 1CC video, are bleak (CW: implied suicide)- I kinda like it. Very video-nasty style, it has to be one of the gorier pre-Mortal Kombat games in the arcade, and it plays... Fine. It's a little clumsy in its implementation of the roll meaning some attacks are just going to hit you, the scrolling is a bit slow and Waffle is a gigantic target, but I think this game activates the part of my brain that loves shlocky horror movies and it's pretty satisfying to nail each enemy, especially with the crunchy sound effects and super-detailed sprites. This is not a game for everyone and you might prefer to stick with the likes of Cabal and NAM-1975 that are more polished and better games overall... But this one is memorable, you'll remember it long after you play it.

Oh, and if you recognise Waffle, he's in another Video System game as a secret character in Aero Fighters 3, piloting the Diabloon from Turbo Force! The Aero Fighters series has a lot of characters from all over the Video System world, including Lethal Crash Race, Karate Blazers and even Tao Taido. It's a vast universe.

Also, no, you don't break any spines in Spinal Breakers. Boo.

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Ridge Racer (Namco, 1993)

Arcade Archives (previous-gen consoles)
PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Arcade Archives 2 (current-gen consoles)
PSN
EU
US

Xbox
EU
US

Switch 2
EU
US

Surprisingly, the PS4 and Switch ACA versions retain most of the features and menu UI of the ACA2 release on current-gen consoles, but if you buy the previous-gen version first, you'll get a discounted price for the current-gen version, just like ACA2NEOGEO The King of Fighters '98. Four versions are included- Japanese and English versions of the SD model (which used a simple up-down gear shift for changing gears in MT) and the DX model (which had a six-gear shifter and a clutch you need to use to switch gears- in this version, the gears are shown on-screen and you use the right analogue stick to switch gears). Preference Settings include adjusting the difficulty of each course (as far as I can tell, this was a standard option in the game's Test Menu so I'm not sure why they didn't put them in the normal Settings menu, oh well). You can also adjust the analogue control sensitivity although it's a bit hidden- go to Settings > Buttons > Custom Button Settings > Sensitivity Settings and adjust the Maximum Angle of Handle until it feels comfy for you (personally, around 360 works well for me).

Alright everyone, one minute to go, are you ready? The engine's sound like they're ready to go, are you all set? Here in scenic Ridge City, Seaside Route 765 is our racecourse for today, with 13 cars revving up and eyeing up that chequered flag, and you're one of 'em! Our enthusaistic announcer, Micheal Guinn, will be cheering you on the whole way, so get ready! There's four different difficult settings here- Novice and Intermediate cap your speed a little and have a shorter course, while Expert and Time Trials / T.T. expand the course with an under-construction area and use faster cars (with T.T. going up to 220kmph!)- and if you want to win, you'll have master the art of drifting. While turning a corner, let off the gas, tap the brake and quickly go back on the gas and your car will start sliding to make sharper turns without having to brake or slow down too much. Correct yourself before the road straightens and you'll be one genius of a driver! Can you prove yourself as a real ridge racer and beat the lap times for all four difficulties?

Well, here it is, the most important video game release of the year. Only joking a little, really! This is the first Arcade Archives release of a fully-3D arcade game. That's a big deal! 3D arcade hardware from this era is not the easiest thing to emulate, and while there have been rereleases of them across the years, Namco in particular haven't done it that often- while there's outliers like the arcade Tekkens and Starblade on the PS2 version of Tekken 5, they usually go for rereleasing the Playstation ports which are of course excellent but often not quite the same as the arcade version. Ridge Racer on PS1 in particular was an amazing port with a whole load of extras but it was locked at 30FPS and didn't look quite as clean. That PS1 port also has never been rereleased, despite a certain infamous reveal, so the original Ridge Racer has been MIA for a long time.

This arcade version may be missing those extras (mostly the different cars you can select and reverse / mirror courses) but it's got that solid 60FPS and the sharpest texture-mapped polygons Namco's System 22 hardware can muster, and it looks and plays like a dream. Once you mess around with the analogue sensitivity settings in this- by default using the d-pad feels very close to the PS1 version but I think I prefer the analogue controls- you'll be sweving and drifting with the best of them, and even 30+ years later, it's a really satisfying game, one you want to keep trying until you can master those corners and bring those lap times down. It may only be one course with one variation, but there's enough to the drifting that you'll want to get a good handle on it and keep trying. The presentation is great too, with a selection of thumping tunes provided by Shinji Hosoe, Ayako Saso and Nobuyoshi Sano, the bluest of arcade skies and while not as chatty as later games, the announcer has just the right energy to go along with the whole package. Ridge Racer is great, is what I'm trying to get at. You should play it.

Oh, and if you want to see more Ridge Racer promo stuff, I highly recommend ohfivepro's Bluesky page, they've been uncovering some treasures! Look at the size of that Full Scale cab!

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Super World Court (Namco, 1992)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Both the Japanese and English ROMs are included, with the original typos (one of the courts takes place in the Franch Open) in-tact in the English version. No Preference Settings this time, but there is an odd edit- every single character name, aside from CAT (the cat), TINS (the robot) and MMM (the weird frog thing) have had their names changed, so MAX is now MAT, YURI is now YULI, etc.. This is actually alluded to in the manual (they mention that some things have been changed for this version but don't specify what) so that makes a change, thanks Hamster!

Sports, sports, sports sports... We'll keep it brief as usual, but this is a follow-up to 1988's Pro Tennis World Court on much beefier hardware- this is on Namco's NA-1 board, also home to Fighter & Attacker and Tinkle Pit and while the game's logo isn't nearly as nice as the original (big fan of that colourful logo), this has a nice presentation and adds to the original's character roster (which had a robot) by adding another robot, a weird frog thing and a cat called CAT who has murdered Pac-Man and will kill again. Just giving this a quick casual go, one thing surprised me- it didn't immediately kick my ass. The previous Namco tennis games I've played have made a point of completely humbling me from the off, but I was actually doing quite well in this one, scoring some points off the opponent and even a set or two! Maybe the cat is just overpowered, that'd make sense. Sorry this one's a little brief, but sports aren't my area, but hey, at least I know not to waffle like I know what I'm talking about when I don't! Ahem.

This week's Arcade Archives release is... RyuKyu (Success, 1990)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Just the one ROM for this one exists, so Japanese only this time. Preference Settings allow players to change the colour of the colum when the location of the RyuKyu card is revealed. The title screen has been edited slightly- the Sega logo's been removed, as has the credit to ASCII Corporation, replaced with the original game's creator, Ryuji Kuwaki. The storefront says RyuKyu but the titular card is referred to as Ryu Kyu in the manual, so I don't know which one's correct. Arcade Archives has a history of not knowing where to put spaces in names (see also: Sunsetriders, Splatter House) so I'm at a loss on this one.

I don't know how to play poker.

See you next week, everybody!

... Alright, alright, I'll try. Originally a home computer game for MSX, PC-98 and X68000 from late 1989, Success released this version in 1990 and it's an odd choice for an arcade release. It's a variation of poker squares where you place cards in a five-by-five grid to get the best poker hands in a line both vertically and horizontally and aim for a target score in each round. In this version, you can't place the cards wherever you like (they adhere to gravity, like a traditional drop-block puzzle game) but you get four cards to pick from each turn, you can see the cards for the next three turns in advance, and a chart showing how many cards are left in each suit. There's also the Ryu Kyu which acts as a wild card and can lead to huge points bonuses! You have to reach the target score on each stage if you want to keep going, but you have a limited number of cancels if you made a mistake. There's even an o-mikuji between stages (and if you continue) to incrase the value of certain lines in the next round. A sequel to this was released by Success in arcades via Sega's All.Net system earlier this year, so I guess they want to strike while the iron's hot and get people to try the original. Sadly, I am completely useless at poker, so I'm even more out of my depth than usual this week, but hopefully I've given you enough of an overview to let you know if you'd be interested.

The other thing I have to share about this game is it also got Game Gear and PC Engine versions published by Face and, well, their box art sticks out a bit on the GameFAQs page! Bikinis sell card games, I guess. The Game Gear one was also the only one to leave Japan outside of this ACA version as Solitaire Poker, so that's nice.

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Nebulasray (Namco, 1994)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Just the one ROM exists for this game so no other revisions. Preference Settings allow solo players to use the player two side ship. Additionally, Nebulasray costs twice as much as the usual ACA releases, similar to Mazinger-Z and Super Dimension Fortress Macross- in the Super Xevious stream they briefly mention that this took a lot of work to get this one on ACA due to the beefy hardware it's on (Namco NB-1, which is otherwise full of baseball games, one football game and an all-time classic, Point Blank) before calling attention to the price, so I assume that's the reason. Other than that, I don't know, so don't make me tap the sign.

Gaming Hell's natural weakness, the shmup, returns again! I'll do my best. Nebulasray is an interesting vertical shmup with a pre-rendered look, receiving its first home port over 30 years after its arcade release. Here, you have the standard 'weak but wider shot range' vs. 'strong but narrow shot' choice for your standard weapon (and just like Raiden, the game cycles through the two different types when a power-up appears) but the sub-weapons, ranging from homing lasers to a close-range blast and even a shield, are time-limited, so keep an eye on their timer and don't get too attached to them! You've also got a bomb that won't completely clear the screen for you but does a lot of damage to the bosses. I think this pulls off the pre-rendered look pretty well with strong colour use and lots of scaling and rotating (like the space backgrounds, hopefully they won't make you motion-sick) although I did find myself struggling a little to determine what was safe to touch and what wasn't in Mission 3's asteroid field because of this style. Stomping soundtrack though! As usual, I have to disclose shmups are not my area of expertise, not by a long shot, so I've kept it brief, but hopefully this gives you a rough idea of what this one's like.

... By the way, they announced the next Namco Month game is Super World Court, the tennis game where you can play as a cat. That gives me a score of 1/3 on my predictions. Whoops!

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Punk Shot (Konami, 1990)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

The Japanese, International (two-player) and International (four-player) ROMs are included. Preference Settings allow players to adjust game speed and, for all versions except International (two-player), select which player side they want to use.

Only one rule on this court- no rules! It's just a little two-on-two street basketball with Stallion (1P) and Basher (2P) as the Ramblers versus their hated rivals, Hair (3P) and Spike (4P) as the Slammers on courts across the city. While it looks like normal basketball with all the long-shots and slam-dunks you can handle and has a fairly-simple control scheme that changes depending on whether you're on offense or defense, there's a few wrinkles here for something a little more violent. For a start, when you don't have the ball, there's no fouls, so you can punch and even suplex your opponent to get possession back! Each of the courts- from the park to the harbour to downtown- also has obstacles like brooms, banana peels and fires, and you can even fall in the drink and get stuck in a shipping crate!

At this point in time, Konami had a few basketball games under their belt- 1984's Super Basketball and 1988's Double Dribble- but they were pretty traditional aside from using a 'dribble' button to actually move with the ball. Punk Shot, though, is definitely more inspired by Midway's 1989 basket-brawl Arch Rivals (Punk Shot was a late 1990 release according to arcade-history, so this makes sense) with a focus on hazard-littered courts and player-on-player violence. It's mostly fine, I think I prefer Arch Rivals but this has its own charm with really great presentation and some funny touches like the crowd and the way you leap forward to suplex opponents. The main complaint I've got is that there's a few things that slow the game down, especially in the harbour court where a shipping crate can completely stop play until it's destroyed (as well as squashing the player, it traps the ball inside) which somewhat ruins the flow you might be in. Otherwise, this is a neat little variant on basketball, although everything I've said here only really applies to the Japanese version.

... That's because the International version might be one of the most over-the-top Konami 'adjustments' to an arcade game I've ever seen, even more extreme than XEXEX. The manual of this version fortunately goes over the differences in a lot of detail, but in a nutshell, the International version divides the game into quarters like traditional basketball, meaning one 'game' will go on for a lot longer... In theory. In practice, each human player now has a health meter that slowly drains as you play and also decreases when your opponent hits you or scores points, but can be very slightly refilled when you score points yourself. There is absolutely no way to play well enough to keep this ever-draining health topped up to last a quarter, let alone an entire match. Arcade sports games are a bit tricky to balance right- some games like Arch Rivals and Baseball Stars 2 just have a timer letting you buy money, but Punk Shot is especially mean about it because it pretends that you have a chance of playing a little longer, but you get so little health back from scoring that inevitably your meter will empty, and when that happens..

... Your player keels over and dies on the court (you can only see this if you're in a multiplayer game, though, otherwise the game abruptly stops to ask for more money). If you don't continue, you get taken off the screen on a stretcher and replaced with a CPU player.

Told you this was a rough court!

This week;s Arcade Archives release is... Super Xevious (Namco, 1984)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Just the one ROM exists for this game. As well as the enemy guide you would've seen in the ACA version of Xevious, the manual has a pretty robust list of differences between this and the original game, which is very handy! Preference Settings allow players to view the boot screen on start-up, adjust game speed, reproduce the title screen burn-in to different degrees, reproduce the original explosion effect for Giddo Spario, display the area number, show the Sol and Special Flag locations and view an enemy encounter table at all times.

Not to be confused with Vs. Super Xevious: Mystery of GUMP (yes, they localise it as GUMP, let's have a good chuckle about it) which was the Famicom Super Xevious (imagine Xevious with The Tower of Druaga-style secrets required to advance from one Area to the next), the arcade Super Xevious is an updated version of the original game. It makes the game harder. Much, much harder. In fact, by default, the difficulty is set to Very Hard. It changes some other things too of course (there's some new enemies and the locations of Sol Citadels and Lucky Flags have been moved, among other things) but the main takeaway is that this is for experts only. This is a game only for those who've absolutely mastered the original Xevious and want a new challenge, because for the rest of you, GUMP's Xevious forces will crush your spirit. That's me, by the way- I am terrible at Xevious, so this version scares me!! Ahem, this is also the first home version of this game since Namco Museum DS (available as a toggle for Xevious), which surprised me- I thought the last home port of that was Xevious 3D/G+ on PS1 (which also had the original Xevious and Xevious Arrangement) but, as usual, I was wrong!

In other Arcade Archives news, Arcade Archives 2: Ridge Racer is coming to Playstation 5 as well as Switch 2! I expected we'd get this (pour one out for arcade game fans with an Xbox Series X / S, no version for them) but, surprisingly, there'll be a standard Arcade Archives (1) version of the game for Playstation 4! Now that I wasn't expecting, but it's a nice surprise and good for those who don't want to get one of those fancy newer consoles to race the ridgers. Also, the next game of Namco Month has been revealed- the clue was 'first release for a home console', so who out there guessed Nebulasray, the 1994 vertical shmup? I didn't. I guessed Blazer. Swing and a miss! I'm also probably wrong about World Stadium too. Is it too late to change my guess? It is? Oh well.

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Pinball Action (Tecmo, 1985)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Just the one ROM this time, and no Preference Settings either.

Here's an interesting one, a video pinball arcade game! While there's a lot of examples of these in the home (I'd personally recommend Devil's Crush and The Pinball of the Dead), there's not a whole lot of arcade games of this type out there, probably because if you're in an arcade, there's a high chance there's going to be pinball there anyway, but pinball tables are bulky, expensive and don't let you nudge them too much before they tilt and lock you out! Video pinball, on the other hand, lets you have tables that defy the laws of space and time with multiple tables and more elements that can change dynamically, and having an arcade game in this style lets you do a lot more graphically than home consoles at the time. Pinball Action has the one main table with three sets of drop targets- hit them all then sink the ball in the appropriate hole and you'll move onto a whole new layout with different tricks for scoring big! There's some neat visual touches too, like the giant face on the playfield winking at you and the ability to nudge the table to influence the ball's trajectory to your heart's content. Sadly, I'm very bad at pinball but I'm trying (oh yes, very trying) and so I've never been able to get high scores on ths. In fact, when I streamed it, I was so bad I didn't even make it to the extra layouts! It's a bit of a shame we almost certainly won't see the follow-up, Super Pinball Action, on Arcade Archives, as that has nude images throughout, unless Hamster's willing to draw on a lot of bikinis... Oh well.

In other Arcade Archives news, the yearly-tradition of Namco Month is coming back with three titles across May and a teaser as to what they might be. The first game is 'super difficult', the second is 'first port to a home console' and the third is 'sports'. I'm almost always wrong with predicting stuff like this, but my predictions are Super Xevious, Blazer and World Stadium. Prove me wrong, Namco, prove me wrong!

Watch on YouTube

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Tatakae! Big Fighter (Nichibutsu, 1989)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Only the Japanese ROM (Tatakae! Big Fighter) is included which is a shame, as the other version out there (Sky Robo) has a different level order at the start. Preference Settings allow players to extend the edges of the game screen to see more than you most likely would've seen on a real cabinet.

It's Nichibutsu shmup time again! Not a company or a genre that I know much about, I'll be the first to admit, but Arcade Archives has absolutely been doing its best to teach me about both. This is a pretty interesting one in that you have a standard spaceship that fires straight ahead with a small hitbox but can only take one hit and is destroyed when it touches walls. Press the Transform button and you'll become a huge robot that can aim in eight directions, can take three hits and safely walk and fly against walls, but has a much larger hitbox. When you transform, you're surrounded by protective covering fire for a second, so if you time it right, you can use this to destroy enemy projectiles and even damage enemies! This is pretty alright and there's a nice variety of weapons (your craft has a secondary Beam weapon that changes independent of your normal shot, plus bombs and even and item to stop the screen scroling for a moment!) but it is a little slow for my liking, and the checkooints seem pretty rough. I think the novelty of the robot being able to fire in all directions helps smooth things over a little though, certainly one of the more interesting Nichibutsu shmups. Sorry I don't have much else to say, though!

Still, this is a pretty noteworthy release. As mentioned on arcade-history, this was one of Nichibutsu's last traditional arcade games, and from this point onwards they'd go all-in on the salacious mahjong games they'd been making throughout the '80s like Ojousan and City Love. This did bring us the completely bizarre Mahjong the Lady Hunter where the protagonist is a Batman-esque vigilante with the Nichibutsu owl as his logo, so maybe it wasnt all bad, but don't expect any of those games to show up on Arcade Archives any time soon! Still, there's a few other Nichibutsu games we haven't seen yet, in particular Dacholer and UFO Robo Dangar, so they're not finished just yet!

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Gang Busters (Konami, 1988)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Both the Japanese (Crazy Cop) and International (Gang Busters) ROMs are included. Preference Settings

"... And we'll keep you posted on the restoration efforts of the Lord British ship in the coming months. Meanwhile, in local news, the Dagrus Gang, lead by Mr. Soul, have just pulled off a daring bank heist, snatching a million dollars from the Main Street bank. Reports from the scene indicate the gang is heavily armed but, in a sign of the heist being a little rushed, some of them are still counting the money on the street! Ah, wait, I'm being told just now that two officers from the police station, Smith & Wesson, have been assigned to the case to catch the burglars and retrieve the money, with officials stating they're taking the job on 'with a sense of grim determination'. It seems they're at the scene right now, arresting any gang members they find with dollar bags and sending them to the nearest police wagon to get massive fire power upgrades. There's a giant rock on the scene as well? (Are you sure about th- you are? OK, whatever) We'll have more on this story as it develops, but coming up next on 573 News, Reiko Hinomoto is in the studio to talk about her long-storied wrestling career, stay tuned!"

A top-down shooter with a cops-and-robbers theme, Gang Busters has a lighter tone than something like Jail Break, with more exagerrated, silly character designs (especially the player characters themselves who, yes, really are called Smith & Wesson) and some light touches of humour like comic book-style sound effects and squid you can pick up and put on your head in the dock area. There's also a hostage mechanic similar to Jackal but this time, it's burglars you're capturing to send them to be arrested- each one you pick up gives you upgrades in a specific order like speed boosts and better weapons, and sending them on their way gives you limited super shots to blow enemies away. The strangest mechanic has to be the giant boulder that usually shows up during mob fights at the end of each area, this can be pushed to block shots and eventually explodes but if you can keep it until the next area, you'll get a massive score bonus and an extra life and can keep doing this! LordBBH's 1CC shows this mechanic off and it's such an odd fit for the theming of the game- I wonder if it was made for a completely different game and just shoved into this one? In any case, this one feels a little strange- it has that Contra and Jail Break thing where shooting while moving from a diagonal to a cardinal direction will mean your aim is slightly off until you fully reach the cardinal direction and vice versa, the scrolling is slow so you frequently have to stop and start when moving the screen along, and it can often feel a little cramped and awkward, but it's not a bad game and it has a goofy charm to it. Just watch out though- continues eventually get cut off, a classic Konami move!

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Assault Plus (Namco, 1988)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU browser eShop link not live, but it's there, I promise
US

No other ROMs exist, so just the one is included. Preference Settings allow players to adjust game speed, set player one's right stick to player two's left stick and rotate the direction of the player sticks.

It's Namco's twin-stick tank action game Assault, but with a plus! Two new sets of stages are available- Scenario #2 is the Easy Course, "Rehearsal for Core" if you want a breezier mission, while Scenario #3 is the Hard Course, "Battle for Core", a sturdy challenge awaiting those who thought the original Assault was too easy. New music and graphics too!... Yes, I know, I know, they probably should've bundled this with the Assault rerelease. Namco in particular, however, seems to treat updates to games like this (see also: Rally-X / New Rally-X and Sky Kid / Sky Kid DX) as completely separate games- compare this with other ACA releases of games from different companies like Rainbow Islands (included the Extra version) and Omega Fighter (included the Special version) and you can see the pattern. Oh well. If you didn't get your fill from the first Assault (or you decided to wait out for this version) then Assault Plus is for you.

We're not done this week, though! If you saw the Nintendo Direct on the Switch 2, you might've spotted a very important announcement, dropped in the middle of a development partner montage...

It's Ridge Racer! Riiiiiiiidge Racerrrrrrrrr! (Sorry, I had to).

When Dead Connection released a while back, it was accompanied by ACA2NEOGEO The King of Fighters '98 on Playstation 5 and Xbox Series, which added a whole boatload of new features (oh, and it was patched to add support for PS4 fightsticks, yay!). It seems that non-Neo Geo games are also getting the Arcade Archives 2 treatment in the future, with Ridge Racer on Switch 2 (no mention of other platforms, but we'll see) being the inaugural release, and the description of the video mentions the same set of extra features as ACA2NEOGEO (no Network Mode for this game though, it was only one-player in arcades). This is huge news- just by showing Ridge Racer, Hamster's letting us know that 3D arcade games are on the table, and if you thought there weren't enough ports of 2D games of the era, oh boy, there's a lot of 3D arcade gaming history that's just not available at home nowadays. Namco especially made huge technological strides in this era in the 3D space, and this means games like Starblade and Solvalou could be on the table in the future. And you know what, the original Ridge Racer is excellent too, I'm really glad it's finally making it home! It won't be out for a while (it releases in June, same day as the Switch 2) so I'll be rotating in excitement until it arrives.

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Land Sea Air Squad (Taito, 1986)

PSN
EU
US

Switch browser eShop links aren't live just yet, but it is on there, I promise.

The Japanese (Riku Kai Kuu Saizensen- currently undumped for MAME!), US L(and Sea Aur Squad) and International (Storming Party) ROMs are included. Preference Settings allow you to display the number of shots you've fired and number of successful hits in the current area, allowing for easier tracking of your accuracy (not available in Hi-Score Mode).

... I repeat, come in, Sergeant Sarge! The situation is desperate, so I'll be brief: the enemy army has seized eight key strategic areas and fortified their position therein, installing 40mm cannons in each of them. We have to reclaim these areas but reinforcements will take too long to get here, and we've lost enough time already. This is where you come in: as a lone commando unit, you must infiltrate these areas and destroy those cannons! We've got you a simple gun and a somehow-infinite supply of grenades, but not even this will be enough, so with a little OSP (that's on-site procurement, remember) you can commandeer the Super Mecha vehicles strewn across the battlefield. Boats, tanks, helicopters and even a train, use 'em to protect yourself against enemy fire but remember to bail if they start to explode. We're counting on you, Sarge, don't let us down, over!

Released a year after Capcom's Commando and just a month before SNK's Ikari Warriors (arcade-history's dates come from this book which is generally a trusted source), you can source at least one of the big ideas from Taito's own Front Line from 1982- that game had tanks you could jump into along the way too! There's definitely a big Commando influence here especially in terms of visuals, but it emphasises careful, well-placed shots instead of spraying and praying, making it feel like a very different game from Capcom's classic. That's because, if you fire constantly and shower the battlefield with bullets, you're gonna struggle. Instead, you really need to make each shot count and try and kill multiple enemies with single shots (or run enemies over in your tank) so that you get the Super Bonus at the end of each area, which gives you a points bonus, a power-up bonus and guarantees you'll get a helicopter in the next area. That helps a lot- Sarge can only take one hit and dying will often make things spiral and you'll just never be able to recover. I find it a pretty tough game (then again, I'm not good at Commando either) but it's very moreish and deeply satisfying once you get into it, and it's also got some Taito-esque secrets including hidden messages, power-ups based on your score and even a weird angel that can appear! Oh, and of course, it has an amazing, catchy main theme that has a harsh, unique sound to it that'll get stuck in your head. Highly recommend you check this one out!

If you'd like to see an expert play the game, I highly recommend LordBBH's counterstop run where he maxes out the score and makes it look easy! He also explains a lot of the mechanics here, so it was very instructive and helpful in putting this post together, definitely give it a look if you want to challenge the game yourself!

Watch on YouTube

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Senkyu (Seibu Kaihatsu, 1995)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Although an English ROM does exist (Battle Balls, under US license from Fabtek and other companies in other territories), only the Japanese ROM is included here. No Preference Settings this time.

Yes, yes, yes! Balls, balls, balls! In the mid-'90s, there was no longer any time for Klax, but there was a lot of time for competitive puzzle games. As explained by Masamitsu “Moo” Niitani in this puzzle game creator interview translated by shmuplations, Puyo Puyo "established a “post-Tetris” standard for falling-block puzzle games" and so in its wake, especially after Puyo Puyo Tsuu, everyone wanted to give the genre a try. This leads us to Seibu Kaihatsu's attempt, Senkyu / Battle Balls, which has elements of Cave's Uo Poko (balls adhere to gravity inside the pit) and Konami's Puzzle Taisen-dama (nuisance balls, when next to a matched set of balls, turn into a usable coloured ball) but does a few things of its own. In particular, the nuisance balls you send over to your opponent can also be blank ones that don't rest in your pit but instead absorb one of your coloured balls when they touch them, so you'll have to match something next to them to free them again. This also has a single-player Skill Tester mode that lets you play on your own, with nuisance balls sometimes being part of what you drop into the pit (a solo mode wasn't always guaranteed in games like this) so it's not just versus battles. The presentation's really cute too, although it could've done with a few more music tracks, the main one does grate a little for me! I think Uo Poko is a bit more interesting because of its unique control method, but this is one of those competitive puzzle games from the era I don't see talked about very much, so it's nice to see it get a more accessible home version.

By the way, Raiden DX fans might recognise this one- the Playstation port of that game included a demo of Senkyu as a bonus! It got its own stand-alone port to the system later on, but it's always neat to see demos in PS1 games as extras~

Watch on YouTube

This week;s Arcde Archives release is.. Juno First (Konami, 1983)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Just one revision this time, nothing fancy. Preference Settings allow players to display an eight-digit score in-game (the normal score display only shows six digits) and adjust game speed.

At last, Juno First escapes from Game Room jail! Aside from some contemporary home computer ports including C64, Atari 800, DOS and MSX, the only arcade-accurate (sort-of) version of this one was Microsoft's Game Room which is real and can still hurt you so it's nice to have an Arcade Archives release for this. As for the game itself, this really doesn't look like a Konami game of the era- this seems really inspired, especially in terms of visuals and sounds, by American arcade games by the likes of Williams, especially Defender and Stargate, and it actually plays a little like that too, albeit with vertical scrolling, a vanishing-point (similar to something like Radarscope) and you save aliens for bonus points instead of humans. It takes a little time to get used to the idea of moving freely since your movement can be slightly slow, but once you adjust to it, this is a fun little shooter with impressive presentation (the starfield background really sells the perspective well), tense shootout gameplay as you try and wipe out all the hostiles without getting blown up and a rather neat warp button, limited to three uses per wave, that can get you out of a tight spot. If you're sore that there's no Western arcade games from the Golden Era on Arcade Archives, this might scratch that itch.

Watch on YouTube

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Vs. Mystery Tower (Namco, 1986).

The Namco Curse has struck once again, with the game only showing up as 'announced' on PSN, so we'll just have to use US links only this time.

PSN
Switch

There's only one revision this time... Sort-of. As explained by ohfivepro, the game will check your console's language and call the game Vs. The Tower of Babel if it's set to Japanese, or Vs. Mystery Tower if it's set to English. This will even change the in-game title screen- I imagine this wasn't too difficult to do as Bandai Namco had already done this title switch-up for the Nintendo Switch Online reissue (and, in a later patch, the Namcot Collection reissue) and since both the home and arcade versions are on NES hardware, it's a much easier thing to do than, for example, changing Marvel Land's name to Talmit's Adventure. Anyway, the reason for the name change on the Japanese side is unclear- the box and title screen would just call the game Babel originally- but overseas is a bit easier to guess as the name The Tower of Babel has been trademarked for use with toys and card games since 2019. I dunno, that's what I'd guess anyway. Preference Settings allow players to remove the black space that appears when character sprites overlap, automatically enter passwords, remove the time-up fireball for Original Mode, display the current speed level and set an optional button to kill your character immediately for Original Mode (thanks, ohfivepro!).

There's also a fair few differences between this and the Famicom version as explained in the Hamster stream at 3:40:30- summarised quickly, you can only select Floors 1-60 rather than Floors 1-64; the Floors are all from the Famicom version but are a jumbled-up mixture of Floors from the normal game and Floors from the unlockable Pro mode (no longer available in this version); the Power limit to picking stones is removed but replaced with a timer; extra lives are given every eight cleared Floors instead of every single cleared Floor; a time-up fireball enemy is added if the controls are left alone (although this can be disabled with Preference Sesttings in Original Mode) and the Grade bonus system has been changed.

The intrepid explorer Indy Borgnine (no relation) has been searching for the mythical Hanging Gardens of Babylon... His adventures take him to the 64-floor Tower of Babel, with the gardens supposedly at the top. However, he can't just take the stairs- each floor is a puzzle that must be solved, mostly through the use of the magical stair blocks. Shaped like Ls, it takes a little strength to pick one up but Indy can haul them around the stage and create staircases with them. As long as they're just about connected by their edges, they'll magically float in place! A good thing too, Indy can't climb anything that's over his head, so he'll need these little steps to get anywhere. Spike pits, monsters and mysterious murals every eighth floor make Indy's climb up the tower treacherous and enigmatic... Is there truly something special waiting for him at the top?

Described by the Famicom manual (available on Gaming Alexandria) as 'Namco's first traditional puzzle and action game', Mystery Tower is an interesting one, and another example of Namco using the Vs. System to advertise their Famicom games in their own game centres (just like The Quest of Ki, the Vs. System version has until now never been rereleased or publically dumped). While appearing fairly simple, this is one I actually find a little confusing and difficult, mostly because I find myself frequently getting mixed-up in how to get the stair blocks to face the direction I want them to- a problem that presents itself from the very first stage! Still, this one's got multiple exits for stages, bonuses to find, infectious music, cute presentation... While this arcade version isn't currently available in Europe, you can try the Famicom version on Nintendo Switch Online if you like, and there's absolutely no language barrier, even the murals you'll need for later on in the game are just images rather than letters or words. This isn't one of Namco's better-known Famicom games it seems, so it's honestly worth a look if puzzle and action is your bag!

Watch on YouTube

Only one way to end this entry though... Oh yes, there is an IDOLM@STER version of this game's soundtrack!

Watch on YouTube

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Dead Connection (Taito, 1992)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

This game is also included in Taito Milestones 3 (this is the final 'exclusive' game from that set to get an individual ACA release) but while that release only has the Japanese ROM, here both the Japanese and International ROMs are included. This is important because the intro and cutscene text is only in English in the International version, and it's a really big part of the charm. Anyway, Preference Settings include displaying the number of remaining bullets in special weapons and allowing solo players to play on the Player 2 side.

Dateline, The Big City! Nerozzia's crime syndicate has seeped into every part of the city, but four untouchable cops from the Criminal Department- Philip, James, Eddie and Gary- start striking back. Enraged, Nerozzia's message to them is simple- "You can regret it in Hell!"- and orders a hit on the beloved Christine. Keeping anger in their hearts, the four trecnhcoats refuse to give up in the face of tragedy, and go all-out in crushing out the crime in the city, with Nerozzia at the top of their list. From the opulent Restaurant Campanula to the Nerozzia crime family garden party and even the grand opera house, each single-screen stage sees the quartet gunning down a quota of gangsters and can grab machine guns and shotguns to even the odds, as well as duck for cover and dive to avoid shots (and take out bad guys at the same time). Evil power steals on, but nothing will stop their quest for vengeance!

Oh hell yes, Dead Connection. One of my favourite discoveries through emulation, this is an action-packed arena shooter that eschews the twin-sticks of the likes of Roboton: 2084 and Smash T.V. and goes for a single stick with two buttons layout. The controls might be an issue for some, as there's a sort-of auto-aim mechanic- bullets will fire slightly to the left or right if there's enemies in those directions- but it doesn't take long to get used to it, plus the dive can save you in a pinch as it will kill enemies. It also makes up for potential control shortcomings by taking cues from crosshair shooters like Cabal with its focus on environmental destruction. It goes a step further even, as these finely-detailed dioramas have environmental hazards that can be used against the enemy like statues you can kick down stairs, tables you can knock the candles off of to start fires and even machinery to turn the warehouse stage into a raging inferno. The later stages do perhaps go on a bit too long and slowly get less and less interactive elements, but the game overall is pretty short, so as I said about 10 years ago in my short review, at least it wears thin near the end rather than halfway through.

So it plays very well, but the presentation really puts Dead Connection over the top. You've got hugely-detailed dioramas for stages, great character and enemy animation, and some of the most bonkers stage intros and environmental destruction in a game of the time. This does come at a bit of a cost, especially in co-op mode as there can be some rough slowdown, which is a shame, but that's the price of fighting crime. The story really helps as well- the intro has stone-cold classic lines like "MEN MAKING A STAND AGAINST A GIGANTIC CRIME" and "EVIL POWER STEALS ON", this continues throughout the game with diary entries before each stage explaining the story, voice clips throughout like "NEROZZIA... I'LL CHASE YOU TO HELL AND BACK" and "DON'T DIE, ANDY! PLEASE, OPEN YOUR EYES!" and even inserting a coin gets you "WE'RE COUNTING ON YOU, DON'T LET US DOWN". It's incredible, and the ending really leaves an impact, like a good Taito ending should. If you want more info, my very very old Gaming Hell playthrough hasn't aged as badly as I thought- probably needs a rewritten intro but generally it's got some good tips, if I do say so myself. In summary, play Dead Connection.

Also! This week's ACA2NEOGEO release is... The King of Fighters '98 (SNK, 1998), and unlike the normal Arcade Archives releases, these are only on Playstation 5 and Xbox Series S / X.

PSN
EU
US

Xbox
EU
US

So, I won't have quite as much to say about these Neo Geo reissues, as they most likely won't be adding any new games to the lineup, but these new versions include 15 newly-added special features detailed here including online play, time attack mode, rewind, more save states, variable refresh rate settings and more... However, a big caveat at the moment is on PS5, these releases are not compatible with PS4 arcade sticks like the HORI RAP4 which just so happens to be the one I use. That's very unfortunate. I might've sent an email to Hamster to ask about it. So, just keep that in mind, it seems to be a fine version otherwise, even if you can get KOF '98 like, four other times on PS4 alone~

Watch on YouTube

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Othello (Success, 1984)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Only one ROM is included this time, with no Preference Settings available.

Oh nice, I get a week off before Dead Connection releases next week! Still, we can use this opportunity for a little history lesson, as I learned a fair bit about Othello for this one (aside from, of course, how to play it). We'll have to use Wikipedia a little here, but the quick version is that Othello is a variant of the game board game Reversi that was patented in 1971 by Goro Hasegawa, which was licensed by a company called Tsukuda Original in 1983 to huge success (this is the name of the company on this game's title screen). From there, Tsukuda Original was succeeded by PalBox then acquired by MegaHouse, who license Othello to this day outside of Japan (thanks for the extra notes, electricboogaloofunk!).

You can't just use the name Othello though, you have to go through Othello, Co. and MegaHouse, and Hamster did go to the trouble for this release, a Success adaptation of the game from 1984. Success did a handful of arcade Othello games, surprisingly, although the favourite is clearly Othello Shiyouyo because it has some pretty excellent faces. Anyway, this is a 1984 rendition of Othello, so it's pretty basic- you can go against either a CPU opponent with five selectable difficulties at the start or go against a friend- but it does have a few extra features, specifically two help discs per match that make the best move for you and two rewind discs that scrub out the last move for you to restrategise. The giant smiley face is also a neat touch- if you're playing very well against the CPU and making the right moves, it'll smile at you! If you're playing badly, it'll eventually start to cry. I made it do that a lot when I tried it, because I am absolute garbage at Othello, and it even starts to talk to you in Japanese as you make blunder after blunder. Oh well. The music is also nice and chilled-out for an arcade game, you could almost go to sleep to this if it wasn't such an intense Othello match. Definitely more of a curiosity, and there are almost certainly better modern options, but the way I see it, not every arcade game can be a Metamorphic Force or a Riot. There is a space for smaller things like this, sometimes.

... Can we see that Othello Shiyouyo face again, please?

YOU'RE TEN YEARS TOO EARLY TO DEFEAT HER

Perfect.

Watch on YouTube

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Kitten Kaboodle (Konami, 1988)

PSN
EU
US

Seitch
EU
US

Both the Japanese (Nyan Nyan Panic) and English (Kitten Kaboodle) ROMs are included. The manual has a full guide with pictures of all 50 (!) stages showing the secret entrances for the shops, casinos and bonus games. Preference Settings allow players to adjust game speed, add an extra digit to the score display and show the current round number at all times.

Two adorable kittens find themselves stuck in 50 challenging mazes! This is a late '80s take on Sega's Pengo with a fresh coat of paint and a few bells and whistles added. Taking an older arcade game and dressing it up a bit is actually a bit of a trend with Konami arcade games around this time- there was also Fast Lane which updated Head On and Battlantis which is Space Invaders if you made it terrible. Ahem. Anyway, here you have the block-pushing of Pengo used to defeat the constantly-spawning enemies, but rather than have a set number of enemies to wipe out, each enemy you defeat drops a key, so grab four and the door to the next round opens! There's also a jump button used for dodging enemies and destroying blocks if you want them out the way, and special blocks strewn around each round can be matched up in sets of three for special effects like invincibility, time stop and screen-clearing bombs. It's a decent Pengo variation for what it is, plus it shows off some of Konami's scaling effects, just like City Bomber!

Probably the most interesting wrinkle here is the plethora of secret screens, found by destroying specific blocks on every round- these can take you to a bonus stage or, more intriguingly, a shop with helpful items and a casino where you can gamble your score! See, your score is actually money, which can be exchanged for goods and services or gambled away on a slot machine. This makes it one of those arcade games where you can actively bring your score down, even back to zero if you want. There's also boss sections that are basically Penguin-kun Wars where the computer is very difficult to defeat. To be honest, I've never actually beaten this game because 50 stages is a lot for a game like this, but the presentation is definitely very cute, and there's something pretty funny about losing a good chunk of your score to a slot machine run by a rabbit in a Playboy bunny outfit. Well, I found it funny anyway.

As an addendum, Kitten Kaboodle is something of a milestone release for Arcade Archives if you're the type of person who looks to the sky when they hear the name 'the Microsoft Game Room', as it's the 19th Konami arcade gamethat was included on that service to make it over to Arcade Archives. There's also only 19 games left, some of which like Devastators and Galactic Warriors have had no other home ports before or since. So, for fun, here's those games still stranded in the Game Room, let's hope they get free someday...

Strategy X (1981)

Video Hustler (1981)

Amidar (1981)

Mega Zone (1983)

Gyruss (1983)

Juno First (1983)

Super Basketball (1984)

Scooter Shooter (1985)

Galactic Warriors (1985)

Konami GT (1985)

Iron Horse (1986)

Battlantis (1987)

Rack 'Em Up (1987)

Hyper Crash (1987)

Blades of Steel (1987)

Trick Trap / Labyrinth Runner (1987)

Devastators (1988)

The Main Event (1988)

M.I.A. - Missing in Action (1989)

Watch on YouTube

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Märchen Maze (Namco / NH System, 1988)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

This game only has a Japanese ROM with no confirmed English version, so just the one version this time. There were rumours of an English ROM retitled Alice in Wonderland, but many years ago I spoke with btribble of UnMAMEd Arcade Games where this version was listed as a game being searched for, who confirmed that while he had been informed by someone else such a version existed, he hadn't seen any evidence himself. Preference Settings allow players to adjust game speed and shift the directional controls 45° to the right (so holding Up moves Alice diagonally up-right) allowing for slightly easier movement control.

In the land through the looking glass, all is a muddle! An evil queen has taken over and its inhabitants don't know what to do... The white rabbit knows, though. He reaches out through the mirror to Alice, a young girl who loves fairytales and is one of the few out there who can see and talk to the residents of the land. Dragging her into the mirror, she's got to save the land from the dark queen's tyrant! Fortunately, the rabbit also gives her a magic straw that can blow bubbles- mash the button for rapid-fire, or hold the button to charge up a giant bubble to bowl the enemies over. Alice is also a pretty sturdy girl, and won't be killed by just being shot at by enemies, as they just bounce her around. If she falls into a pit though, that's one life lost (unless she finds a recovery balloon that floats her to safety). Many bizarre enemies await her- smoking mushrooms, giant robots, card soldiers... But Alice will have to be up to the task if she wants to go home!

It's been quite a while since we've seen a proper Namco arcade game on Arcade Archives, hasn't it? Well, Namco published at least, as this is by the short-lived NH System who also made Blast Off and Final Blaster for the PC Engine (their entire output got a soundtrack release with really adorable cover art) before shuttering in 1990. In any case, Namco's been doing some stellar work preserving undumped Vs. System games like The Quest of Ki and Family Tennis, but it is nice to see their real arcade games again. This is one that people have been waiting for- Märchen Maze is one of the last holdovers from the Namco games rereleased via Wii Virtual Console Arcade (the only ones left now are Quester, Starblade, Solvalou and Cyber Sled) and it's a pretty interesting game. There's not a lot of on-foot isometric shooters out there (the arcade version of Michael Jackon's Moonwalker, Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters and Prikura Daisakusen are the only ones that really come to mind) and certainly none that have the unique 'take as much damage as you want but don't fall off the stage' mechanics seen here. It can take a little getting used to, can be a bit awkward when it comes to jumps (you have Alice's shadow to judge them except for the chequered platforms at the end of rounds) and it's a little disappointing that the game eventually runs out of round layouts (Rounds 7, 8 and 9 are palette-swaps of previous rounds but have different enemies). However, the presentation really sells it, it's a cute and charming game that might be a bit easier to play with the extra directional control option offered here. It helps that it's based on Alice in Wonderland, a favourite of mine. Anyway, I do have an old Gaming Hell playthrough of this game, but oh no, it's like 15 years old at this point. I probably need to rewrite a lot of this, so please bear that in mind.

As a bonus, I highly recommend the Hamster stream for this one, as alongside some development documents and sketches, they show off a video of a 1987 prototype of the game at around 1:10:20 just titled Alice. As well as a very different, more realistic artstyle for Alice, this seems to be more of an arena shooter with large, open spaces to fight in and the ability to jump down to different arenas. It's clearly very early as a lot of collision detection doesn't seem to be implemented and there's debug information on the side of the screen, but this is fascinating stuff!

Watch on YouTube

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Thunder Fox (Taito, 1990)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

This game is included in Taito Milestones 3 on the Switch. Only one ROM is included but all of the game's text is in English. Preference Settings allow players to fix scrolling misalignment glitches that occur in some stages.

The year is 199X, and the world is in crisis. A wave of terrorist activities are sweeping the globe, bringing fear over land and sea and air. There is hope, though, in the anti-terrorism team codenamed Thunder Fox. This elite unit consists of just two brave men, Thunder (P1, blue trousers) and Fox (P2, orange trousers) who enter the battlefield armed only with knives (all other weapons must be OSP- that's on-site procurement) and their close-quarters combat training that allows them to perform feats such as flying leg kicks, vertical somersaults and mid-air rolling. They can also steal enemy vehicles like jeeps, gyrocopters and jet skis to bring the fight to the enemy wherever they hide. Go, Thunder Fox, and save the world!

Thunder Fox is... It's a lot. I've seen a fair few people consider this a predecessor to Crime City, and I can see that- this is very much in the style of Rolling Thunder and even has Crime City's famous rolling attack, although here it can only be done in mid-air. It's a pretty fast game for the genre at this point in time as all your attacks can be done while you're still moving, although the controls might take a little adjustment as, unusually, this is a three-button game (weapons like handguns and rocket launchers use a separate button, as using the standard attack button swings them for a melee attack instead). It does feel a bit loose and weird at times, and figuring out how not to die to some things will take practice (although it can be done in one credit, as shown by LordBBH). What this game definitely does well, though, is be as silly as possible- this is a goofy, shlocky action movie (said affectionately) in arcade form and it goes all-in. From the first stage where lightning strikes constantly hit street lights in the foreground to blow them up, kicking robots with your vertical somersault until they explode, fighting a stick-combat master on top of a submarine where he tells you "THE TIME WHEN I WILL MEET YOU NEXT IS THE TIME YOU WILL DIE" when you beat him, the constant, unending screams of enemies as you plough through them... This is one of Taito's goofiest action games, and definitely worth a co-op playthrough if you have a partner willing to play something very silly.

If you have the time, definitely check out the Hamster livestream for this one, as it's got a lot of really interesting development documents. In particular, it shows some proposals to change the game early in development, and the changes at 57:30 are especially interesting- at one point there was a complete pivot considered, replacing all the humans with cute animals! Needless to say, a lot of people I showed this to really wish the game came out like this! Oh well~

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Gaming Hell

Arcade Archives: Spinal Breakers

Arcade Archives: Ridge Racer

Arcade Archives: Super World Court

Arcade Archives: RyuKyu

Arcade Archives: Nebulasray

Arcade Archives: Punk Shot

Arcade Archives: Super Xevious & ACA News Update

Arcade Archives: Pinball Action & Namco Month

Arcade Archives: Tatakae! Big Fighter

Arcade Archives: Gang Busters

Arcade Archives: Assault Plus + Arcade Archives 2 News

Arcade Archives: Land Sea Air Squad

Arcade Archives: Senkyu

Arcade Archives: Juno First

Arcade Archives: Vs. Mystery Tower

Arcade Archives: Dead Connection & ACA2NEOGEO: The King of Fighters '98

Arcade Archives: Othello

Arcade Archives: Kitten Kaboodle

Arcade Archives: Märchen Maze

Arcade Archives: Thunder Fox

DATA EAST FOREVER

June 2025