I'm so glad that Hamster's Arcade Archives are a thing.

[BIL]

Rabio Lepus predates Da! by almost 3 years. It released right after R-Type and Dragon Spirit, though I don't think neither was an influence for Video System's. It was oddly successful in Japan, though.

Blimey, yeah! I must've been thinking of the PCE version there.

Up on JPSN now with a customarily apropos thumbnail.

Man it's been a while, last encounter was actually from the bad ol' days of Oretachi Gesen Zoku (PS2). Totally forgot there were Novice and Amateur courses (the latter awarding 2x score).

DIP options let you select between regular and Metal Black-style burst-fire on the main shot, interesting... sort of thing I'd expect via ship select / powerup. I wonder which is the standard. The Preference Setting includes a Voice Volume slider, makes me think of Gunnail... it's at 7 by default, I almost get the feeling it's meant to be cranked up a bit (has a note warning that maxing it can cause artifacts).

The bomb fragment system, and the cluster bomb attack, give me surprise Battle Garegga via Gun Frontier feels - but then Rabio predates GF by years too! I do wonder. The superjump mechanic is interesting, too... the classic [crouch then UP] input, well-known from SNK and Capcom, but also seen earlier in GAU's Ex-Ranza (MD). This is the eldest example I've seen of it.



TBH with the bent tone and all the cheesecake, it feels more like Nakamura and co influenced Konami than anything.



Neat to see the little "I <3 Kyoto" in the intro photo. Recalls "SUPER HOTEL KYOTO" from Sonic Wings 2. I guess VS were hometown boys?

[Bassa-Bassa]

Yeah, VS were based in Kyoto, much like Visco, the company they came from.

[jehu]

I'd forgotten how quick of a romp Rabio Lepus is.

You kill the mechanical bull, you blink, you're punching a cheeky ghost in the face, you blink, you're pounding the old decaying man out of the wall before he dry-ages into Castlevanian wall meat. A good time all around.

Not sure I'm good for the clear, but I'll enjoy booting this one up from time to time. Hoping to get Turbo Force out here eventually.

Edit: **SPECIAL** for all you Video System fans, here's the next candidate up to be nominated for the 'STG Review Hall of Fame':

Spoiler

[BIL]

I mean I'm an STG freak, and I fire up Sonic Wings games specifically when I want something no-nonsense yet user-friendly, neither batshit early 00s nor balls-hard early 90s. A palate cleanser of sorts. So I get why their avowedly middle-of-the-road act would do little for passionless hacks desperate for only the biggest, shiniest bunches of keys to jangle in their blank faces. (These days, I'd be surprised at someone extolling Nights' time attack racer and Zwei's rail shooter while slagging off trad STGs in the same breath; all classic arcade fare, surely. It'd be like someone hyping STGs and FTGs while shitting on Puyo Puyo. Back at the time, when polys were the shock of the new, though? Not at all)

I'd forgotten how quick of a romp Rabio Lepus is.

You kill the mechanical bull, you blink, you're punching a cheeky ghost in the face, you blink, you're pounding the old decaying man out of the wall before he dry-ages into Castlevanian wall meat. A good time all around.

I love how dearly Nakamura & co hewed to this philosophy throughout their careers, from the relatively simple early days right up until their most technically demanding latter-day Gunbird 2s and Dragon Blazes. The STG pacing of a well-honed punk record, where nothing goes over 3minutes, there's barely a holler of "One-two-three-FOUR!" between songs, and most just flat-out explode to life un-announced. There's a time and place for more operatic game direction, of course, the Taito and Treasure greats, but sometimes you just wanna RAWK!

[SeeNoWeevil]

I'm so UN glad Hamster's Arcade Archives are not a thing on Steam.

If anyone has 30 seconds free and is also positively not glad, please ping a message here;

http://www.hamster.co.jp/american_hamster/contact/

[Rastan78]

It'd be like someone hyping STGs and FTGs while shitting on Puyo Puyo. Back at the time, when polys were the shock of the new, though? Not at all)

This makes perfect sense to me, yet I find myself guilty of having rock hard STG and FTG arcade adjacent blind spots.

I've played third strike forever, but somebody breaks out Smash bros. and I'm like oh wait. I just remembered I have to go home and wash my nonexistant hair.

Likewise with rythm games whether Beatmania, Rock Star or DDR. I just cannot do it. And I'm sure there are many l337 Japanese shmup WR record holders that have gone all in on the arcade rhythm games. You could even make an argument the two genres overlap quite a bit (maybe while high). Rythm games are shmups. Shmups are rythm games, bro. Don't you get it, man?

Nevertheless if I walked in on a bunch of dudes playing a rythm game, I would walk back out as fast as if I walked in on an eyes wide shut style orgy at an old folks home. Don't ask me why.

[Ice Beam]

I'm so UN glad Hamster's Arcade Archives are not a thing on Steam.

If anyone has 30 seconds free and is also positively not glad, please ping a message here;

http://www.hamster.co.jp/american_hamster/contact/

I can already see the Steam game forums full of people complaining, "why are they charging so much for old games? Why don't they ever go on sale?".

[BareKnuckleRoo]

You could even make an argument the two genres overlap quite a bit (maybe while high). Rythm games are shmups. Shmups are rythm games, bro. Don't you get it, man?

They literally overlap at the local meets round these parts. A lot of people into both shmups and rhythm games round here, maybe because both are high speed, games with a focus on reflexes, and a healthy mix of memorization and reaction?

[SeeNoWeevil]

I'm so UN glad Hamster's Arcade Archives are not a thing on Steam.

If anyone has 30 seconds free and is also positively not glad, please ping a message here;

http://www.hamster.co.jp/american_hamster/contact/

I can already see the Steam game forums full of people complaining, "why are they charging so much for old games? Why don't they ever go on sale?".

You're not wrong there.

[Jeneki]

The DotEmu NeoGeo releases on steam are the same price as Arcade Archives, and I don't see a bunch of price complaints in their community boards. And those are lower quality releases.

[Sima Tuna]

I'm pretty sure the shock troopers release on steam got a ton of hate.

[Yoshi]

I'm so UN glad Hamster's Arcade Archives are not a thing on Steam.

If anyone has 30 seconds free and is also positively not glad, please ping a message here;

http://www.hamster.co.jp/american_hamster/contact/

Done. Can't hurt.

[Lord British]

Does anyone know the differences between the three versions of Rolling Thunder?

[BIL]

TCRF has the most detailed description I've seen, though it only mentions two versions (there's three in MAME, and three in the ACA release). I guess it'd be fairly easy to determine whether they're referring to Rev1 vs Rev2, or Rev1 vs Rev3, etc...

Just had a look at the ACA manual, but it only mentions the time limit and enemy arrangements varying across Revs, noting the third (ACA goes "Early/Later/Final") is used for scoring competitions.

[copy-paster]

I'm so UN glad Hamster's Arcade Archives are not a thing on Steam.

If anyone has 30 seconds free and is also positively not glad, please ping a message here;

http://www.hamster.co.jp/american_hamster/contact/

Didn't the Konami Arcade collection ones on Steam are re-release of ACA

[Sima Tuna]

I thought most of the konami arcade porting stuff was handled by M2. Maybe I'm confused. Some of those collections are definitely M2.

[SeeNoWeevil]

I vaguely remember some other collection being handled by Hamster, it had identical menus but wasn't branded Hamster in any way.

[pcb_revival]

But everything about the SuperGrafx feels like some manager/executive at NEC lost a (potentially nasty) internecine power battle. There's no sane reason it should have been thrown out onto the market in the form it was, and with zero library, given the fundamental challenges it was facing.

According to the internet of unknown things - truth - lies - myth - The power battle was NEC two timing Hudson as they were working with Namco to produce a System 1 based console.

Who knows whats-what it will probably will be left untranslated and lost to time and 1337 geekery.

[OldSkoolShmuper]

Speaking of the SuperGrafx, I managed to find some Famitsu coverage of its introduction and reviews of 4 out of its 5 exclusive games.

https://i.imgur.com/kptYwhf.jpg https://i.imgur.com/sWCLuci.jpg https://i.imgur.com/2WVKDFL.jpg

Battle Ace - Granzort - Ghouls 'N Ghosts - 1941 Counter Attack.


I looked to see if I could find Aldynes in Famitsu.

However.... Sendai Publications in the U.S. (EGM people) reviewed Aldynes in their spin-off magazine 'Super Gaming' which only spanned 4 issues.

[Jonpachi]

LOL at "The SuperGrafx isn't dead yet" in the second EGM review there.

[Gamer707b]

Never read this one, but I was an avid reader of EGM. Looked for to reading it every month. I remember Ed Semrad, Martin Alessi, Sushi-X, then came Shane Battenhausen and all those guys. Wow! This brought back memeories.

[ch2]

The DotEmu NeoGeo releases on steam are the same price as Arcade Archives, and I don't see a bunch of price complaints in their community boards. And those are lower quality releases.

Can't talk for the rest of the games, but in the Metal Slug community the DotEmu ports are considered pretty lousy.

I think right now the tier list is like Code Mystics/Hamster>Digital Eclipse>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>DotEmu

Tho Metal Slug has so much casual appeal carried over from the PS2 days that most people don't care all that much about the port quality as long as they can shoot at stuff. So there are a lot of reviews about the games legend status instead of the actual version.

I can already see the Steam game forums full of people complaining, "why are they charging so much for old games? Why don't they ever go on sale?".

The worst part would be the thing a lot of people do of buying the game and then refunding it just to leave a negative review at 0.2h played.

[Jeneki]

The "Raisin Bar" pun gets me every time.

[OldSkoolShmuper]

If anyone's curious, those reviews are in this and only this issue, not in main EGM.

[Sima Tuna]

HOT 16 BIT ACTION!
CLICK HERE FOR 32 BITS OF PURE PLEASURE!
IS YOUR HEALTH BAR COMING UP SHORT? MAX OUT YOUR GAME WITH X-TENDZ!
DON'T DISAPPOINT PLAYER 2! ONE SIMPLE TREATMENT TO BOOST YOUR 1CC!
GAME DEVELOPERS HATE HIM! LEARN HIS SECRETS IN SECONDS AND LEAVE YOUR CO-OP PARTNER GASPING!

[copy-paster]

Gun Frontier scheduled at August 12th release, also first Taito F2 debut in ACA.

[BIL]

Beautiful. Now there is a game sorely in need of a proper home release - all respect to Fujino's Saturn effort, but he never had a chance with such lousy support from Taito.

Good time to repost blackoak's translated Gun Frontier retrospectives from director Takatsuna Senba. You'll never look at that stage 2 waterfall the same again.

I think Mizubaku Daibouken/Liquid Kids is an F2 System game, too - regardless, it's great to see more of the platform. Here's hoping they'll do a big motherlode like with Konami's TMNT hardware! Runark/Growl and MegaBlast would be most welcome.

NGL though, the far-off dream of ACA F3 emulation aside, it's F1 I really want to see; lots of goodies. Perennial orphan curio Dead Connection, Thunder Fox (seriously killer Rolling Thunder x Ninja Warriors hybrid - the MD port can't begin to compare to its fury), Metal Black (especially having recently been alerted by Prickly Angler of certain differences in VING's generally sound Saturn version), Cameltry, Don Doko Don (the SFC and PCE ports are great, especially the former's hugely expanded original content, but nothing complements good home conversions like a reference-standard AC emulation) and PuLiRuLa, another of those Saturn not-quites from X-ing.

Still haven't booted up ACA Chack'n, lots of goodies lately with Dragon Blaze and Strikers 1999 turning out surprisingly well on PS4, and getting back up to speed with ACA Dragon Saber. Seems we've got good ol' Dig Dug next week, which, y'know, it's Dig Dug. One of them thar corned beef sammich games, never really sought yet seldom turned down. Glad I can delete that overinflated 1GB Arcade Game series version at least.

[Jeneki]

Hamster is doing god's work getting Gun Frontier out, before it descends to the purgatory of S-Tribute.

[BIL]

Hadn't even thought of that Maybe that's the S-Tribute's karmic role in all this, to give M2 and Hamster a pre-made marketplace.

[trap15]

NGL though, the far-off dream of ACA F3 emulation aside, it's F1 I really want to see

Lucky for you, F1 and F2 are the same board, just F2 is a two-board stack and F1 is an all-in-one board