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

[Steven]

It's a pretty fucking awesome game. I'd buy the shit out of it on Saturn if it wasn't like 30000 yen or whatever it is now. For cartridge games or PCBs I'd do it, but not for a nearly 30-year-old CD.

I'd love nothing more than to buy the F3 cart and get an F3, but then I'd have to flip the monitor in the Astro and I really don't want to do that, especially because I'd have to flip it again to play anything else since I only have vertical games right now!

Maybe I'll get City Connection's thing on Steam. I can't believe I just said that, but apparently it's not completely fucked like Cotton and Guardian Force, so maybe I'll take the risk. People on the Steam forum are saying it has like 7 or 8 frames of lag or something like that, but that it goes down to like 3 or 4 when you disable vsync... I don't know, but I trust everyone here way more than I do randos on Steam.

EDIT: nope, they were actually talking about Cotton/Guardian Force. Not sure how Elevator Action Returns is on PC at this point, so maybe I'll go for it.

[Jeneki]

Don Doko Don has some pretty crazy secrets in it. For example in the first stage you can access a secret room, which contains another secret room, which contains a password system. Stuff like this would melt my brain if I saw someone do it in an arcade back then.

[BIL]

Given I never know WTF I'm supposed to be doing in these games, I was surprised and amazed to find the first secret door on my own, after noticing odd hitsparks in thin air (thought at first it was a charge attack/mash attack kicking in). I'd absolutely no idea about the secret-in-secret or password, though! Back to Taito single-screener business as usual.

I guess these games were built on the Druaga model of communal reconnaissance (and guidebook sales ). Some of the stuff that goes on in them is so wonderfully esoteric. It's one thing for an easier-going console/PC game to have its secrets, but to see them in a coin-op, with their immediacy and do/die intensity, is something else.

Also, that warp sequence is fuckin trippin balls Reminds me of the mad shit UPL love doing that makes people ask if their Ark Area PCB is on the fritz, heh.

Love how your dudes are just like "Bring that shit on muhfuckas (｀w´メ) " as they rocket down the spacetime-rending void at a leisurely 9000mph. I still suspect these guys escaped from a DECO game. Couple of hard-ass old dudes knocking motherfuckers out with hammers then slamming them face-first into walls is just too near their MO.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Grobda seems so brutal. Been a while since a game waxed me on my first credit like that. Can't fall asleep at the wheel with this game.

Nice to have quality PS4 ports of most of my favorites from the Taito PS2 collections.

Bought Galaga for the heck of it. Already picked up the Arcade Game Series version on sale before and the Arcade Archives version is so much better.

Wonder why the Seibu selection is so light? Would be nice to have Viper Phase 1, Raiden DX, Fighters series, etc.

[BIL]

Grappling through Grobda five Battlings at a time (moving on once I can reliably nomiss), at first, I almost wished they'd given the player just a bit of emergency escape power. Maybe a single-use homing attack, or a simple area bomb. I'm not surprised it's common to enable Every Extend in JP arcades - the game really could use them. Likewise, I totally get why JP master players learned on Easy first BITD, according to REI-san. It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock n roll!

But as a deliberately austere, uncompromising work, I'm absolutely in love with it. It really gives you quite a bit to work with, between the terrain, the enemies' foibles, and your tank's considerable offensive+defensive capabilities. The trick is putting it all together on the fly... map memorisation and set routines definitely do help, for the nastier Battlings, but none of them can be approached carelessly.

Besides REI's guidance, HIRO's play demo is another invaluable resource. At least I think so. Only reason I can't vouch 100% is that I've not watched it beyond a couple stages. I'm enjoying this unfolding enigma of golden age JP arcade design way too much! Outside may be TEH SUCK, but in this house it's 1984 baybee.

Speaking of routine, one very powerful bit of info: you're at your strongest in the first ten seconds of a match. You'll notice the stationary shield only starts depleting meter after that. It's possible to assassinate priority targets and make a clean getaway, or even go all-in and demolish the entire field, with an audacity difficult otherwise. Though, with the chainsplosion mechanic, sometimes it's best to draw 'em in close, before letting rip... there's quite the scope for tactical variety, it seems.

Another time factor: enemy tanks (zako and Hypers alike) Rank up at 30secs, gaining a very obvious -and deadly - speed and shot rate boost. Time is of the essence! Note that even a Ranked-up Hyper Tank's turret is just as slow to turn, however.

Forossas, the hovercraft enemies, react strongly to your fire. However, they're very vulnerable to a contact shot; get in close, parrying away their homing bolts, and whack 'em nose to nose. Take particular care with boomeranging shots to your six, they're fiendishly good at those. Never spray n' pray 'em, at least not when low on shield / away from cover! They can pull off some truly astonishing escapes. They're also totally unaffected by wrecks, being hovercraft, so don't count on those slowing them down.

Fortunately, they don't seem to Rank up, a characteristic bit of good balancing sense from Endo and co. While EX Hyper Tanks (yellow) gain tougher armour, EX Forossas (brown) instead gain truly blistering evasive speed - they're every bit as vulnerable to a deft contact shot, though.

Speaking of parrying... meter management is critical, as in Psyvariar-critical. A tap is fine, when blocking individual shots. Moving at top speed, shielding, and firing all at once is only really viable in those opening ten seconds; it'll leave you stranded quickly otherwise. The turret has a lot to offer, too, if you can master angling shots from behind cover.

My favourite little thing I noticed from my week with the game, post-release: while explosions will pierce your shield, from yellow down... unlike blocked enemy shots, they don't actively deplete it. This is a superb bit of detailing, in a game where absolutely every advantage must be secured. While you need to actively evade explosions at yellow or lower, you can stay put at green or higher.

From my current best single-credit run, topping out at just under a third complete, oof. Demonstrates a lot of the above. It's a grueling tough game for sure, but they totally knew what they were doing. Also that's just the perfect tanker aesthetic imo. I hear the game's concept is really something of a self-parody... Masanobu Endo thought giving Xevious's most harmless zako unparalleled firepower was hilarious, I gotta agree. Alternate title "Goomba," you could say. The offical, badass tagline is "Grobda's Combat Instinct Has Awakened"

I gotta shout out Yuriko Keino's sound design. The jingles are more than agreeable, but her SFX genuinely shine. The *KTHOOOM* explosions are punishingly good, instantly recalling the Eugene Jarvis classics that inspired Endo here. And your tank's RPMs that constitute the in-game soundtrack are both endearing, the engine revving indomitably as the drill treads bite, and legitimately useful, keeping you abreast of your traction during fast takeoffs and aggressive turns. The shield hosts its own little ecosystem of audio drama; the reassuring *woop woop* of a healthy aura, the death-dicing *ping* of a deft parry, and the piercing alarm, heralding dire straits and dashes for cover. Topping it all off is that ice-cool, letter-perfectly terse Get Ready, well worth the DAC. It was really cool to see her appear in-person on Hamster's stream!

[CRP]

The update patch for PS4/Nintendo Switch "Arcade Archive tetris The Grandmaster" will be distributed tomorrow at 11:00 on March 1st. We will fix some bugs and change to a new ranking board. We apologize for the inconvenience.

https://twitter.com/HAMSTER_Corp/status ... 7297864704

[BIL]

Hamsters working as intended! I wonder if that fixed the limited number of RNG seeds in Hi Score mode. I never did encounter any graphical or freeze bugs on PS4, nor did I hear of others doing so... but regardless, it's good seeing them keep standards up, especially with ZN2 being the newest platform they've emulated.

Sky Kid DX - this is the first arcade game I've encountered where the buttons do something while the machine's waiting for credits. [shoot] gets a "tink," [roll/bomb] gets a "bong." Weird! Love the HS table stressing that the public will be MIRIN your score "until the switch is turned off," haha. Don't think I've seen that either, just variants of "Today's Best." I wonder if anyone will think they mean the Switch console.

Actually, I do remember NBA Jam having a secret tank minigame that you could play without paying. That's a whole other kettle of fish though!

EDIT: yep, muh brainmeats is strong:

Spoiler

"But as it turned out, the code wasn’t the only way to access the Tank Game. DiVita was in Turmell’s office fiddling around on a Jam cabinet when he pulled off the code in the game’s attract mode. Turmell noticed what happened and was startled. “Did you coin in?” he asked. DiVita hadn’t, and Turmell freaked out. This had the makings of a disaster. Players could potentially hog NBA Jam to play the Tank Game without spending a cent. Due to a programming oversight, it turned out that the Tank Game was indeed always accessible in the attract mode. Getting flashbacks of arcade owners upset over the Pleasure Domes in Smash T.V., Midway frantically burned and shipped out new glitch-free boards, and asked video game magazines to avoid spreading the secret in their pages."

[Martinov]

I'm pondering buying a version of Metal Slug 3 for the PS4 so I can practice for the 1CC via save states. Does the Code Mystics port (which is on sale at the moment) support save states? Or should I just buy the Hamster port?

[BIL]

Haven't tried the Code Mystics one, but I'll vouch for the ACA version. A handy tip if you want multiple savestates - create a couple of dummy accounts (eg "Save01" "Save02") - each will keep its own save data. If you already have multiple accounts for different store regions (eg US/EU/JP), even better. Also, since ACA MS3 includes both JP and World revs, which are identical besides language, you can keep saves in each, then play HS mode for authenticated runs.

All sounds very gaffer-taped, but I swear it works a charm - and that's way more savestates than the cart has.

The only current-gen MS3 port I can say to hard avoid is DotEmu's, which is god-awful - but I don't think it's on anything but Steam. Same goes for their Shock Troopers.

[Steven]

If there is something that's on ACA, ACA is pretty much always the best way to get that game as far as I know aside from buying the PCB. Only having one savestate and no real scaling options does suck, though. That's the only thing I don't like about ACA, but at least you can sort of get around only having one savestate per account.

[BIL]

Incidentally, after getting back up to speed with Kyuukyoku Tiger via ShotTriggers yesterday, I wanted to play a few more late-80s STGs... KT's genre-leading excellence always makes revisiting its contemporaries illuminating. Ended up playing NMK's ruggedly gunpod-driven Toaplan x Xevious, Task Force Harrier, and was reminded of trap's posts on its odd coding. IIRC, according to trap, whenever the game slows down, it'll actually raise your ship's speed proportionately.

Creates an interesting "bullet time" effect, where your ship, despite not visibly speeding up, is actually moving a lot faster than the slowed-down world around it. Great for macro-dodging and pointblanking both.

ACA - and judging by videos, PCB - Harrier's ship speed is very much Kyuukyoku/Raiden mid-range; while in MAME, as of the latest version, it's lightning-fast; able to cross the screen in a fraction of the time. I'm guessing that's due to it not scaling with the processor load as intended.

I was kinda sad upon realising this, back at the ACA release, as while MAME ship speed does trivialise a lot of the game, it's undeniably fun, and genuinely unusual-feeling for this stoical type of STG. Also gives it the classic late-80s "airforce pornography" aesthetic, the Harrier shredding all in its VTOL-ready path. Still, when forced to choose, I'll go with arcade accuracy every time.

One of those cases where Hamster properly emulated something that'd have been overlooked, and frankly, not cared about by less conscientious outfits - see also Contra's 3D stages, which no emulation official or otherwise got right until Gotch's ACA one, and Omega Fighter's zako, which had nerfed shot rates in MAME until shortly after the ACA release, in 2018. "The world's first accurate home release of Task Force Harrier" isn't going to make the headlines, but it'll keep the likes of us around.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Thought it was interesting that Don Doko Don has a green caterpillar enemy with a red tongue that behaves a lot like Yoshi. Pretty sure this game was released first too. The swallowing animation is a little more graphic for sure.

[Jeneki]

Heck yeah! The caterpillar was my favorite enemy in Fairyland Story as well, mostly for the eating animation.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Incidentally, after getting back up to speed with Kyuukyoku Tiger via ShotTriggers yesterday, I wanted to play a few more late-80s STGs... KT's genre-leading excellence always makes revisiting its contemporaries illuminating. Ended up playing NMK's ruggedly gunpod-driven Toaplan x Xevious, Task Force Harrier, and was reminded of trap's posts on its odd coding. IIRC, according to trap, whenever the game slows down, it'll actually raise your ship's speed proportionately.

Creates an interesting "bullet time" effect, where your ship, despite not visibly speeding up, is actually moving a lot faster than the slowed-down world around it. Great for macro-dodging and pointblanking both.

ACA - and judging by videos, PCB - Harrier's ship speed is very much Kyuukyoku/Raiden mid-range; while in MAME, as of the latest version, it's lightning-fast; able to cross the screen in a fraction of the time.

That's interesting. I wonder if there're other NMK games with similar deficiencies in Mame - they basically used the same hardware for almost everything they released in the 90s. Though I recall trap saying he was satisfied with slowdowns on Hachamecha last time he touched Mame's code.

Which video did you use to compare them?

[BIL]

Which video did you use to compare them?

Live capture from a JP arcade

I notice the game's inbuilt autofire is similarly well-machined; there seems little need for external auto. The urban stage that ends with a monster tank, flanked by two APCs that disgorge dual streams of Tiny Bazooka Dudes™ (NMK sure loved their tiny details), can be speedkilled before you ever see the full setpiece... I'd wondered if I was cheesing it too hard via ACA's 20hz, but it turns out you can do the same just fine without it, provided you're at max shot power with the right bomb type. One of those STGs I'll be happy taking on sans autofire.

EDIT: Ho ho hoooly shit! How'd I go the entire first loop without noticing your drones not only block enemy bullets, but deal damage to enemies on contact?

These ain't your grandpa's Little Helis! Rotors go through fuselage like BRADE OF NINJA

Spoiler

One of my favourite Option mechanics. tbh, the first loop is mild enough that you could miss it. At the second's fiercer attack rate, it's much more readily apparent. Should've guessed something was up, Harrier being close kin of Gunnail and its similarly integral gunpods.

The second loop also clears up my only real complaint, an overly-sleepy opening couple stages. Or rather, couple half-stages; the ground attack phases are superbly entertaining, exuding a scenery-demolishing, steamrolling might that only gains further in. Their air phases are a bit of a trudge, though. Much tighter in the loop, which prompts another easily-overlooked mechanic: the sealing of ground enemies' fire until they're below the upper quarter of the screen, an excellent speedkiller incentive.

Really cool game, with HIDE-KAZ's trademark bass-driven, sullenly fiery post-punk finding especially good complement in the austere, gunmetal n' permafrost Eurasian setting. Ironically, while NMK STGs tend to suffer bouts of poor bullet visibility, Harrier is mostly well-behaved, with its easily-spotted purple and yellow bullets (the former even dodging the genre's historically troubled desert stage). However, enemies themselves can be a bit elusive, particularly over the early going's icy forests. Not too bad a ding, at least halfway into the loop, with the gunpods keeping would-be kamikazes at arm's length.

Love the bad ending's sign-off, should you fail to demolish the final mission's DESTRUCTION TARGET, the preposterously/evocatively-codenamed nuclear bomber FLYING MURDER - with an accompanying cutscene affirming NMK's love of pixel micro-theatre. ("Flying Murder" makes me think of Garegga's Black Heart and its flock; they're stealth bombers, too!)

____NEVER REPEAT___
THE TRAGEDY LIKE THIS

---

Namco's Thunder Ceptor II confirmed for this month - I'm quite fond of the original, a kind of proto-Hyperzone (SFC), so I'll happily jump in here. With Taito's Jigoku Meguri also inbound, I'm guessing next week will be a dark horse pick; Allumer, maybe? Hoping for either Mad Shark or War of Aero, if so. Zing Zing Zip would be neat too, because it's Zing Zing Zip.

OH YEAAAA / CMOW JERREHBAYNE / YAHOOOOOOOOO

[Sumez]

One of my favourite Option mechanics.

Murderous Options and consistent dick stock, I have a feeling you're pretty hot on the R-Type series.

[MJR]

Murderous Options and consistent dick stock

Are these copyrighted or can I rip these phrases off for our C64 game project?

[BIL]

One of my favourite Option mechanics.

Murderous Options and consistent dick stock, I have a feeling you're pretty hot on the R-Type series.

Yes indeedy! Two good nuts and a big shiny dome, that's the loadout sorted

You better borrow Gradius II's force field unless you wanna run afoul of the deadliest Bydo weapon babynames.com, though!



^^^ Dick is not drawn to scale (screenshot from R-Type Libra: Operation HALLWAY-TRAVERSING WIENER)

[MJR]

One of my favourite Option mechanics.

Murderous Options and consistent dick stock, I have a feeling you're pretty hot on the R-Type series.

Yes indeedy! Two good nuts and a big shiny dome, that's the loadout sorted

You better borrow Gradius II's force field unless you wanna run afoul of the deadliest Bydo weapon babynames.com, though!

That is clearly me in the right corner, before my morning coffee.

[BIL]

God, it's satisfying how utterly indestructible+unstoppable Harrier's Options are. Especially after lots of Tiger Heli and 1941! Ranked-up Loop 2 boss unleashes a solid unbroken line of vulcan fire *bzzzrrr* Options eat it all up while the boss eats shit. Beefy loop midboss tries to muscle in, gets flanked n' shanked! *boof* It's excellently balanced, mind! Finesse and creativity needed to get your blades of steel roiiight dahn they fackin mahf, like.

A Birb Crossing The Desert SUPER ARRANGE VER (｀w´メ)

Spoiler

Loop feels pretty nice - this is definitely the easiest NMK STG I've played, but it's not displeasingly so, just comfily brisk. Lots of good fundamentals in demand, particularly with the cool swing vulcan pods. Could use the break tbh. You wanna get your ass-cheeks blasted to opposite ends of the equator, just fire up Hachamecha. ;3

All this excitement and I never noticed the game shares Daisenpu's bomber raid aesthetic - the ground phases are populated exclusively by tanks and other land weapons, with all aircraft parked and begging for obliteration. The attendant switch from unlimited range, gunpod-augmented blasting to a more harshly tactical Xeviousesque is nicely-done, the deliberately monstrous bombs keeping things breezy. Currently favouring II's powerfully equalising reach, with occasional tank-crushing speedkills via I's extreme DPS. III is visually spectacular, but seems the odd one out; has a massive immediate radius, but lacks I's raw power, and will leave you exposed to upscreen snipers, unlike II.

Still, early days; I could see it being useful during zako swarms, and it might help you carry the powerful but overly-linear Rocket gunpods through those, instead of switching to Swing/Homing. The aerial combat gunpods seem well-balanced, though rather like the subsequent year's Raiden, the moderate ship speed makes Homing especially tempting.

Speaking of teh aesfetix, holy fuck at the gore on poor lil bazooka dudes' death animations - every bit as explodey as tanks and other heavy metal. RIP. This game is superbly detailed in general; brings to mind Same3, and its visible dust trails on enemy tanks. I love that whole fin de siecle among late 80s arcade 2D, when they were shooting for a quasi-photographic level of detailing... see also Super Contra, where alien parasites visibly explode from slain zombies, and heavy machines are extravagantly destructible down to their hammering engines.

NAWWW! NOT MUH FRIEND, Pvt. HARBL McDAVID (upper-left ;-;7)



LOOK HOW THEY GONE DONE MUH FREN HARBL (;｀w´;)

Spoiler

Turned my lil homie into chicken & macroni, he needed them i-frame flips 2 survive on this hellish battlefield

That boss setpiece with the dual APCs (which is a lot like Thunder Dragon 2's st3 dual jeep convoys, now I think about it) gets a bit more time to shine in the loop, holy fuck those little dudes got it rough. 3; Like Saving Private Ryan's opening x1,000, with an unending stream of dudes getting pulverised the instant they set foot out of the APC.

Good thing they're COMMIE SCUM mirite! Devil-worshipping commies at that, apparently, with the BAPHOMETY inverted pentagrams all over their shit! UPL presents NATO Daisakusen The Shooting

While the inimitably jazzy Sizzla Okamura sat out the BGM this time around, I gotta mention his item pickup SFX, perilously near Battle Garegga's similarly irreplaceable Coin In sound.

[Sumez]

Murderous Options and consistent dick stock

Are these copyrighted or can I rip these phrases off for our C64 game project?

I demand that you do!

[BrianC]

Namco's 3D Thunder Ceptor II confirmed for this month

Fixed. I hope it will have 3D support, if possible.

[BIL]

I see a lot of JP players asking about VR support, which sounds fairly mind-blowing. That and a flightstick, zomg! I hope Hamster consider it, given it's in the title and all.

[Steven]

Kyuukyoku Tiger

BTW how is that going?

[BIL]

Pretty good! Got the first five stages back in memory Thursday evening, then parked a savestate for this weekend. At that point I got distracted by Harrier, which did its characteristically NMK thing of hinting at a definitive 2ALL (good end: "gratz! but the enemies remain!"), then unceremoniously dumping me straight into Loop 3.

Ah man. Only thing better than a 2ALL is a single balls-hard 1ALL, which is why Thunder Dragon 2 is my personal lord and kamige. ^w^

I always liked how aesthetically, KT's first loop feels like a 2ALL unto itself; that understated sense of crossing over into a crueler, darker echo of the first's settings and bosses. Gives a particularly climactic sense as the end nears.

Gotta say, I'm so happy with M2 and Hamster's collective output, this era. Having so many foundational and cult STGs all on one platform, all to the same reference-standard accuracy, and being able to pair sessions of Hishouzame and Fighting Hawk, or Gun Frontier and Garegga, or Kyuukyoku Tiger and Raiden; between ShotTriggers and ACA, it's become such a well-rounded library.

I was totally prepared to ditch consoles, post-PS3/360, but the combined quality and quantity is way too good to pass up. Other than their ongoing STG works, all I really want at this point is for M2 Prez to start those dream DECO projects, to complete ACA's SNK rotary run/guns similarly.

[Steven]

I always liked how the second half of the game is like a distorted version of the first half that builds on the concepts of those first 5 stages in different and interesting ways, like the game has its own arrange mode or something. The Otakebi are strangely less dangerous in the second half for some reason, and it's even more strange that stage 10 is somehow one of the easiest stages in the game, but the second half is when the game gets really interesting.

It's really long, though, and maybe too long, but it doesn't really feel like a long game until you look at the timer and it tells you that it took you almost an hour to finish the first loop.

At this point it's pretty clear that the PS4 is the best console for shooting games ever, surpassing the Saturn. I want to find some way to get my PS4 to do JAMMA so I can put it in my cabinet and never have to buy another PCB ever again at this rate.

[Sturmvogel Prime]

I knew they will be releasing it sooner or later!
Turbo Force is this week's entry on the Arcade Archives! Now we only need Aero Fighters to complete the Video System collection.
https://www.famitsu.com/news/202303/08295252.html

[BIL]

Ha, nice. T-T-T-TURBO FAWRCE

I wonder if we might see SPINAL BREAKERS (feat. CAPTAIN WAFFLE of Sonic Wings 3 ) at some point. It's in my dark horse WTB file along with Nichibutsu's Ninja Emaki.

Seems 3D Thunder Ceptor II has confirmed PSVR support! This is really exciting... opens up the possibility of an ACA StarBlade and other 3D titles supporting it. ACA Rave Racer, one can dream~

[Jonpachi]

I had a little psychic moment then last week, as I was trying to remember, "What was that one shmup where you play as a car from M.A.S.K.?" I almost posted it in the random questions thread.

[BIL]

Aww yeah, MASK is exactly what I always thought of too - good times.

Should be up on JPSN in ten minutes or so, gonna enjoy a few credits. Rad having this and Rabio Lepus in the lineup, although they really gotta sort out Sonic Wings! Hamster love to pricktease.