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

[Sima Tuna]

It looks like Itazura Tenshi has been pushed back about a week. I saw it on the "coming soon" portion of the eshop yesterday.

[BrianC]

And I know you all are sleeping on Time Tunnel!

Time Tunnel is pure greatness!

I’m surprised there aren’t more train video games.

There are a few more. Been playing Super Locomotive, a port of an older Sega arcade game, on the Genesis Mini 2 lately. Not to mention Konami's Locomotion/Guttang Gottong, Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks, and Densha de Go.

[Atariboy]

Train dispatcher games were a regular sight in the DOS era and since Microsoft Train Simulator hit back in the early 2000's, simulators have been making regular appearances on PC's (And in recent years, consoles as well). The A-Train and Railroad Tycoon franchises are also notable railroad themed strategy/building games.

Sticking with early 80's arcade style gaming more in line with the topic of the thread, the Intellivision got a great Loco-Motion clone from Activision called Happy Trails (programmed by Carol Shaw of River Raid fame). And trains are front and center for obvious reasons on Express Raider from Data East (A game that hopefully is on Hamster's radar along with Lock 'n' Chase and quite a few other Data East classics).

[BrianC]

Happy Trails loses the train, though. Definitely a nice clone, despite that. The port of Locomotion on the system is good too, though Happy Trials 1ups it in technical aspects. There are also a few other Locomotion clones out there, even from Konami themselves (the Ebismaru Goemon spinoff game on SNES is a Locomotion clone).

[Atariboy]

I need to fire up Happy Trails again soon, since it's been way too long if I've managed to forget that it doesn't still feature a train like Loco-Motion did.

Thanks for catching my mistake.

[Sturmvogel Prime]

With Namco's Baraduke a few minutes from being released, Taito announced the next game will be Elevator Action.
https://twitter.com/HAMSTER_Corp/status ... vm7JIsAAAA

[Steven]

In that case I hope they can somehow rescue Elevator Action Returns from Shitty Connection.

[Jeneki]

Perhaps there's something that needs translating in that tweet. Elevator Action released a bunch of years ago, I put a lot of time into it.

[Steven]

Oh, that's why; today is Elevator Day in Japan, apparently. First I've heard of Elevator Day, but okay.

[Jeneki]

The wiki page for Baraduke has some fascinating stuff:

Although the game's primary protagonist, Toby "Kissy" Masuyo, is a woman, the player is led to believe she is a man until her face is revealed in the ending. This predated by one year Samus Aran from Metroid as a human female playable character.

In the Mr. Driller series of games, Kissy Masuyo is a supporting character under the name Toby Masuyo (they refer to "Kissy" as being her nickname). She has married and divorced Taizo Hori (better known as Dig Dug, the protagonist of the 1982 arcade game of the same name) and they have three children, Susumu Hori (who is the main character of Mr. Driller), Ataru Hori, and Taiyo Toby. Kissy is also a playable character in the Japan-only tactical role-playing video game Namco x Capcom, where she is teamed up with Hiromi Tengenji from Burning Force. Because of her divorce, she seems to have a grudge against Taizo Hori, who too appears in this game (a reference to the Mr. Driller series). Tron Bonne, from Capcom's Mega Man Legends game, mistakes her for a boy.

I guess this explains why you can date the Galaga ship in Namco High, but not Dig Dug.

[Udderdude]

Deepest lore.

[NuclearPotato]

Yeah, the next game is not, in fact, the already released Elevator Action, but it is a Taito game.

It's Metal Black. Dropping on Switch and PS4 on the 17th. Namco's Galaxian is also on the way.

[Samildanach]

Metal Black!!! Fantastic news.

I had planned to give that game a proper go, but my current only option is the Taito Anthology (or whatever it was called) Vol 2. on PS2. The visuals via that system on a modern day screen look like they are smeared with grease and plays as badly too, so an Arcade Archives release is awesome. Gun Frontier was a revelation on PS4 after being almost unplayable in comparison on the PS2 version (PAL region too ugh!)

[Samildanach]

That only leaves Grid Seeker, Gekirindan and Insector X to make the transition to PS4 from that particular PS2 Collection (of scrolling shmups anyway). I think if the first two get ported then I can finally ditch my aging PS2 console as there is nothing left on it I would play now that isn't available better elsewhere.

(Yeah, yeah Gradius V I know, but I find Treasure's shmups too much of a technical pain in the arse to do well in despite their clear quality).

[EmperorIng]

lol at throwing Shitty Connection under the bus, again. Taito must have felt good scamming them with the license fees.

[Sima Tuna]

Elevator Action Returns is the big one I'm still waiting for. But hopefully Metal Black is another sign that ACA are committed to bringing over the majority of games previously issued under Taito Legends.

[Jonpachi]

That only leaves Grid Seeker, Gekirindan and Insector X to make the transition to PS4 from that particular PS2 Collection (of scrolling shmups anyway). I think if the first two get ported then I can finally ditch my aging PS2 console as there is nothing left on it I would play now that isn't available better elsewhere.

(Yeah, yeah Gradius V I know, but I find Treasure's shmups too much of a technical pain in the arse to do well in despite their clear quality).

I wouldn't give up on the old girl yet! DDPDOJ, Espgaluda, and yeah, Gradius V... Just too many classics to ignore. You might try an HDMI converter if you haven't already. It's not going to change the fact that a lot of these games didn't support progressive scan, but it's still a nice way to bring the console into the modern era (if only just a bit).

[Samildanach]

That only leaves Grid Seeker, Gekirindan and Insector X to make the transition to PS4 from that particular PS2 Collection (of scrolling shmups anyway). I think if the first two get ported then I can finally ditch my aging PS2 console as there is nothing left on it I would play now that isn't available better elsewhere.

(Yeah, yeah Gradius V I know, but I find Treasure's shmups too much of a technical pain in the arse to do well in despite their clear quality).

I wouldn't give up on the old girl yet! DDPDOJ, Espgaluda, and yeah, Gradius V... Just too many classics to ignore. You might try an HDMI converter if you haven't already. It's not going to change the fact that a lot of these games didn't support progressive scan, but it's still a nice way to bring the console into the modern era (if only just a bit).

Hang on, DDPDOJ & Espgaluda won't work on my crappy PAL PS2 right?! If they do, then I have been missing out big time! (Apologies for mild thread derailment)

Edit. Nope, after looking into it, unless I mod of course. Never mind...back to Hamster appreciation.

[parodius]

I have both a PS4 (slim) and Switch (which I play exclusively docked), and I have bought a couple titles on the PS4 already, but is there a consensus on which platform Arcade Archives is best experienced?

[hamfighterx]

I have both a PS4 (slim) and Switch (which I play exclusively docked), and I have bought a couple titles on the PS4 already, but is there a consensus on which platform Arcade Archives is best experienced?

As a practical matter, performance is the same. There may be very minor differences in lag (i.e, Switch introducing an additional frame or so), but it's so similar that it's likely imperceptible to the vast majority of players. I'm not aware of any cases where one system's AA release is noticeably worse.

With that being the case, I prefer Switch due to (a) the option to play portable, and (b) for vertically oriented games, the ease of playing in handheld TATE mode (either holding the system with a flip grip, or placing on a stand and playing with a controller). If you won't ever play undocked, I guess it's just a toss-up for you.

The wiki page for Baraduke has some fascinating stuff:

The Dig Dug/Mr. Driller-verse lore is just wild, I love it.

As for Baraduke, I've been very into it this week. One of the more entertaining AA releases in recent memory for me, and now I kinda hope we'll see the 1988 sequel (Bakutotsu Kijutei) some time in the next year.

[Sima Tuna]

All my ACA titles are on Switch and I've never noticed any issues. There may be a half-frame or whatever of additional lag, I dunno. But that's the worst possible case scenario. ACA games are pretty much always arcade-accurate. My ACA games tend to feel snappier than when I play through CAS, and they're much less laggy than ports like the Sega Classics Collection. Features are identical between ACA releases on Switch vs PS4 AFAIK.

Hamster actually give a shit about the quality of the product they put out, unlike so many companies. There's no reason these old games should perform poorly on Switch, and so they don't.

[parodius]

Thanks guys.
Actually even though I don't play on Switch in handheld mode, I do use 2 docks in my house, so having the games on Switch is indeed a plus.

How about downscaling any of those to 15kHz through a RetroTink 5X to use on a CRT, do those releases scale well in general, and do they scale the same on both consoles?
For instance Blazing Chrome on Switch does not scale down properly, while the PS4 version does.

[StrzxgvNuvWvfld]

Hang on, DDPDOJ & Espgaluda won't work on my crappy PAL PS2 right?! If they do, then I have been missing out big time! (Apologies for mild thread derailment)

Edit. Nope, after looking into it, unless I mod of course. Never mind...back to Hamster appreciation.

If you don't playing them via a few dark alleys, you could just get hold of FreeMcBoot. There are various ways to achieve it once you have that. OPL for example which will let you boot ISOs from a variety of sources. They don't have much loading, you could probably run them both off a USB stick.

All my ACA titles are on Switch and I've never noticed any issues. There may be a half-frame or whatever of additional lag, I dunno. But that's the worst possible case scenario.

That's a bit of an exageration, they aren't PCB accurate or anything, you're looking at a few frames, but I agree it's low enough that it doesn't interfere with gameplay, at least for me.

[BrianC]

Time Crisis 2 and 3 and Vampire Night are good reasons to keep a PS2, CRTs, and Guncon 2s around. Hard to get the same experience elsewhere.

[Sima Tuna]

All my ACA titles are on Switch and I've never noticed any issues. There may be a half-frame or whatever of additional lag, I dunno. But that's the worst possible case scenario.

That's a bit of an exageration, they aren't PCB accurate or anything, you're looking at a few frames, but I agree it's low enough that it doesn't interfere with gameplay, at least for me.

Aren't they, though? A few means 3, right? If an arcade game has 3 frames of input delay native, then you think the ACA port has 6 frames? I don't think it does. I tried to find some data to prove one way or another and couldn't. There just aren't enough people lag testing these games and posting up hard numbers. I think I've seen exactly one ACA title lag tested by Mark MSX and it was 5 frames (Blazing Star.) But I have no idea what the native Neo-Geo arcade (or home version) input delay was. IF the input delay on Blazing Star PCB is 2 frames then 2 to 5 would be a three-frame jump, but that's only one example. We can't use one game to represent the hundreds Hamster release.

viewtopic.php?t=26394

Blazing Star is listed here on Mame as running at 3 frames. 3 frames to 5 frames is a 2-frame difference. Factor out the one frame of Switch input delay which damn near no porting team can eliminate (except Live Wire, and then only sometimes) and you're left with... 1 additional frame on ACA.

[BIL]

Yeah, the next game is not, in fact, the already released Elevator Action, but it is a Taito game.

It's Metal Black. Dropping on Switch and PS4 on the 17th. Namco's Galaxian is also on the way.

Christ on balls, my fuckin dick!



Just got back online after a fortnight of no screens due to eye surgery, and fuckin ACA MB.

...the last time this happened, I came back to ACA Zero Team. Every cloud etc etc.

Good to see Galaxian in the pipeline, too. Already gots my rovely ACA Baraduke, here's hoping Bosconian and Pole Position show up too, and that's about all my oldschool PS1 museum wants covered.

Going a page or so back, I miss the variety of Konami/SNK/Tecmo/IREM too, but I get why they're pushing Namco hard - ACA's been going for almost a decade now, and for such a massive name to appear so late, it makes sense they want to make up for lost time. I think the next year will be very interesting for ACA Namco and other publishers alike, now they've largely covered the former's really iconic stuff (and a fair bit of obscure gems, too).

Most ridiculous pie/sky fantasy? ACA Starblade, Air Combat, Ridge Racer, Rave Racer, Cyber Sled etc... I'd bet on Taito F3 showing up before anything like that, though.

[Atariboy]

They've never done a racing game with a steering wheel. If we do get games like Pole Position, I hope they don't neglect proper wheel/pedal support.

[BIL]

In Pole Position's case, I'd be happy enough with a repeat of Thunder Ceptor's analogue setup (steering on left stick, throttle on right) - but yeah, full wheel/pedal support would be ideal. I don't think I've ever played Museum's Pole Position with anything but the ol' neGcon, which is wonderful but not getting any younger.

A minor but fondly-kept dream would be Hori releasing that LS-30 mockup they teased a while back, with the ACA titles (TANK, Ikari, Dogosoken and Guevara... and I guess Ikari III, even though I dislike its criminally un-Ikari ass >_> ) getting support patched in.

[Udderdude]

We need more Namco games with ridiculous names that will piss people off or make them laugh. Give me Tinkle Pit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUD5jyM_Mac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP4h2fXtZ_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAX2y-yAong

[BIL]

I know I've heard that name somewhere before, but the game's totally new to me... offhand, I wonder if the Rompers guys were involved? Same "80s maze chaser but now you can fuck up the chasers, it's tha 90s BAYBEE" look. Interesting attack method, kinda Qix-ish at a glance.