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

[AGermanArtist]

Not the best STG ever made and not the worst, I just have memories playing it in the take out a few streets away from home, when I was a kid.

[D]

Also on Taito Memories on PS2 with TATE even. This is a really weird shmup. The bullets switching colors infuriates me. Not recommended. I can't see many diving into this one

[CRP]

... I just have memories playing it in the take out a few streets away from home, when I was a kid.

Same here. I also had the YESSS reaction when i saw it. But went under Tokio name here

[CRP]

..Egret Mini. Does seem likely everything from that machine will end up ported. Which is bad news for Rainbow Islands.

Im hoping Hamster will do a rerun from last year and this time release Rainbow islands for xmas-new year

[BIL]

Tokio is alright, I like it. The flashing yellow/black bullets will turn many off hard, true. I like how RayForce brings them back for its st2 boss and st7 miniboss. I guess if you're gonna have visibility issues, go 50/50 good/bad over 100% mediocre.

That aside, pretty well-behaved and formal. Has a bit of that crazy Terra Cresta HYPER OFFENSE FORMATION going on. A fondness for Xevious tanks - more orderly than Hishouzame's epochal crawling harriers, but just as cute - helps a lot! I always thought the way their anti-air missiles shift horizontally before rocketing downscreen to simulate altitude was badass. Some charmingly understated pixel art in its high-altitude city flyovers. It's an interesting setting, I'd almost wonder if SameSame's VICE IN TOKYO stage was influenced at all. The baseball stadium always makes me think of that poor Japanese dude who was a beisubooru star only to get blowed up at sea in WWII, god damn.

I honestly wonder if Master of Weapon will make it through without censor molestation. "September 11th" followed immediately by collapsing skyscrapers is a rather loaded coinkydink. OTOH, it's just in time for Usama's Big TikTok Fukkatsu, so who knows? That game's nuclear nightmare intro left a goddamn mark on me. I wonder where its "antique statue gradually blown away to reveal godawful writhing flesh within" imagery is from? It feels like a reference to something. Oh well, rad concept at any rate.

THE EARTH CRACKS, THE SEA BOILS
THE LIVING THINGS BEGIN TO CHANGE
AND MAN IS NO EXCEPTION

..Egret Mini. Does seem likely everything from that machine will end up ported. Which is bad news for Rainbow Islands.

Im hoping Hamster will do a rerun from last year and this time release Rainbow islands for xmas-new year

My thoughts exactly. If there was ever a time to break that biblical Taito blue-balling, it'd be a year after the similarly long-awaited New Zealand Story. That or Rastan. Admittedly Rastan isn't quite as violent as those two stone-cold killas.

[Skyknight]

Dino Rex, then Warp Warp, then Scramble Formation...? Taito-Namco-Taito? Definitely off the normal pattern. Not sure whether to expect Konami next week or an outside-the-trefoil game.

{sees Shaolin's Road preceded those three} Probably outside. Athena's first arcade title, Dragon Unit? (Although the st. 3 drakaina boss is like to raise eyebrows...) Although that, Strike Gunner, Daiou, and J.J. Squawkers were all they had for arcade titles, it seems. So maybe Shienryuu? Or the long-awaited Aero Fighters 1? Or Nichibutsu's Ninja Emaki or Legion?

[AGermanArtist]

Maybe 2 Konamis back to back! I've been moaning at them on their Facebook for Jackal and Iron Horse, for a year.

[BIL]

Christ, Dragon Unit is the kind of title that makes me wince in pain. Sounds like a dick joke now I think about it. Actually I shouldn't say that, I've not played the AC original nearly as much as its very tatty FC port. Which is good for rockin' title BGM, a cool map (HERETIC FOREST), and the flail weapon, which cunningly drags enemies in on rebound - slamming them square into your face! They - and you! - didn't see that comin'

But that's a heartening point, Skynight! JJ Squawkers might not be too far off.

tbh, of that lineup, it's really only FC Dragon Unit I'd put on the kusopyre. I've said it before, but I genuinely like Strike Gunner in some regards, finding it merely inoffensive otherwise. Daioh, BioMetal, and JJ Squawkers, though, rep one of the more astonishing leaps in quality I can recall. Even Sword Master, while dominated by silly Usagi no Ken antics, is a stalwart return. Now you can actually enjoy the cool BGM and stage names, including the most pathos-inspiring Videogame Zombie ever!

TRVE KVLTIC NECROMANIA

Poor fucker looks ruined. Head and upper body lolling groundward, arms askew and sickeningly palsied, feet dragging flat... I like my undead with a degree of pathos; broken, ravaged bodies impelled by ruthless force to rise and lash out. In a peppier mode, Vampire Killer zombies are also exemplary. Look at those rotten puce-toned sods flinging themselves onward in the target's general direction! That's not the gait of a healthy individual! Also, sometimes there is a pesky fly who scarpers at the first sign of trouble.

Athena, bless. Clearly a bit mad, but just as obviously quick and diligent studies. I'm so happy Daioh friendo got his Oyaji Meter.

[Udderdude]

Time for another round of "Oops, I slept on this game (for stupid reasons) and it was actually pretty good". This time it's Bakutotsu Kijuutei. The changes they made were pretty interesting. It sucks that you have to mess with the defaults in MAME to get it how it should be, but that's how it goes, I guess.

(And yes, I managed to at least defeat the giant two headed eyeball penis monster thing.)

[BIL]

RIP massive flying robo-dong, may it be reunited with its absent owner in xenovalhalla ;-;7

Crazy game, absolutely battle-furied. They really leverage the uneasy axis of manual scroll and merrily orbiting FRIENDO for max PTSD; should you have charged in, instead of hanging back as the dumbasses got picked off? Or would they have only careened straight into the enemy? Either way, Oyaji-Pakkun will be pissed!

In my official duties as acting chairman of Dick Squad, I forgot to amend last night's field report; ACA actually gives you one reserve life, not two. Which is still mean, ala Final Fight, but decidedly less so than MAME's miserly "Thanks for your 100JPY Taro-kun, now die!" default of One Life Onry.

I wonder if they were attempting to capture the thrill of gambling with your - and your Friendos' - lives? Better make the end of st1 with a hearty crew accounted for, we gotta spin that wheel boys! IIRC, the first extend is (again like Final Fight's) conspicuously nice n' low. Narrowly pardoned, MANCO, but don't push your luck you, you... coin-hungry COONTS! :O

The ultimate “screw you” to the players, however, is that not only shields have been removed, but also you start with only one life: this means that one hit and your game is over, unless you picked up the Vessel and/or scored enough points to get an extra life.

The bolded can be arranged handily! Regardless GET ON THE FUCK BIKE IMMEDIATELY FFS THIS IS WAR SONNY :O

[BurlyHeart]

Definitely recommend Task Force Harrier over Thunder Dragon, if anyone's looking to pick up a lesser-feted NMK STG. Thunder Dragon is alright, but it's comprehensively outmoded by TD2 aka Big Bang, which does everything bigger and bangier (yet concisier! with a definitive nails-hard 1ALL). Harrier's quite different from NMK's bomb-happier titles, a more conservative affair taking after Xevious and Hishouzame. It's also currently busted in MAME, always a decent USP, imo. (the ship's speed is meant to increase with CPU load, as a slowdown offset; MAME doesn't emulate this, so it's game-breakingly lightning-fast)

SOLD! have some funds left over from a PSN Gift Card so picked this one up. Someone should pay you to write the synopsis on the PSN store

[Udderdude]

In my official duties as acting chairman of Dick Squad, I forgot to amend last night's field report; ACA actually gives you one reserve life, not two. Which is still mean, ala Final Fight, but decidedly less so than MAME's miserly "Thanks for your 100JPY Taro-kun, now die!" default of One Life Onry.

I also noticed that MAME defaults to easy skill level. Indeed, bumping it up to normal immediately adds more baddies, and they also spew more shit at you. Maybe that one life default was a blessing in disguise for some.

[Marc]

Couple of questions regarding Diaoh:

What's the auto-fire in the gane settings menu for? It's says it's different from the one under button settings?

Any difference between P1/2 ships?

Cheers.

[hamfighterx]

Couple of questions regarding Diaoh:

What's the auto-fire in the gane settings menu for? It's says it's different from the one under button settings?

If you use the "Button Settings", you can set one button to use Rapid Fire (15/20/30 shots per second) and other buttons to use a different speed. This isn't possible if you use the "Game Settings" Rapid Fire setting, which will make ALL of your shots - assigned to any button - rapid fire (at what looks to be 12-15 shots per second, I'm bad at eyeballing this stuff though).

I would assume maybe the "Game Settings" version replicates an actual PCB setting, whereas Hamster's usual Button Settings include auto-fire even if it was not available in the original game release.

[Rastan78]

I would assume maybe the "Game Settings" version replicates an actual PCB setting

Yeah the Daioh PCB has an autofire on/off dip switch, which should corellate to the game settings option. I believe the default PCB setting is auto on. The button settings would be similar to adding an external autofire device.

Haven't tested this for Daioh specifically, but sometimes as is the case with Rayforce, PCB autofire and faster external auto don't play nicely together. So it might be better to turn off the PCB auto and apply the speed of your choosing if trying to up the rate.

[AGermanArtist]

Pole Position 2

https://www.famitsu.com/news/202312/06326724.html

[Sturmvogel Prime]

Looks like the game will have billboard censorship like the first game.
https://www.famitsu.com/images/000/326/ ... 342e7.html

By the way, looks like Hamster has completed the 1981-1986 lineup of Namco's titles.

[Marc]

Meh. I couldn't get the original to steer decently for shit.

[BrianC]

Meh. I couldn't get the original to steer decently for shit.

I got it working with the Switch Pro Deluxe wheel from Hori and one of the presets (the third one, though I had to change the device to wheel). The default sensitivity before switching to a different preset is too high (the one I chose lowered it to 4 and was also the only one that mapped gears switching to L and R, which is what the paddles on the wheel use).

[hamfighterx]

Yeah, Pole Position requires some tweaks to sensitivity to feel OK - the default settings are bafflingly poor. Surprising, considering Hamster usually is pretty thoughtful about that kind of stuff (I mean, this is the same company that went through the trouble of adding Switch touch screen support for Allumer's mega-obscure Magical Speed).

I went back to it a few weeks ago and spent some extra time setting things up, and was able to make it significantly more playable on controller. (also, thanks Brian, for making me want to try it with a Switch racing wheel now...)

I'm happy to see Pole Position II though, and now we can move to the Namco racer I'm really awaiting... Final Lap!

[SavagePencil]

I don’t know if the JP version was different, but in the US it felt like the sit down machine almost *required* spinning the living hell out of the wheel. IIRC, it was a free-spinning wheel. Curious how it would fare with a 180 or 270 fixed wheel!

[BrianC]

Interesting. The arcade Pole Position wheel was pretty much a large geared spinner. I wonder how it would control with something like Taito's Arkanoid spinner.

[BIL]

Oof, me backlog is massive m8. Warp Warp is very cool, as expected! I gotta say SPACE WORLD is a much easier life than MAZE WORLD, but maybe it's more the latter's lack of conventional shooting than the claustrophobic proto-Bombergrid.

Liked the optional grid assist for lining up shots n' chain-bombings. Turned it off immediately after a quick gander, but it's the thought that counts.

I wonder why those BEROBERO enemies look so familiar. I wanna say someone avved/sigged 'em here, at some point. Classic design, at any rate. Kinda varmints as cute as they are blastable. The various other dudes that come out when u CHAININ' are cute too! The manual words it like they're items to snaffle ala Pac-Man's fruit, but no that'll get you killed, Just Shoot The Bastards™

The BEROBEROs' colour-cycling complication to nailin' them CHAINZ is interesting... I wonder where the mechanic first showed up? I'm sure there's something obvious, but nothing's coming to mind offhand. Perfect minor complication to the simple pacey blasting, at any rate.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Looks like the game will have billboard censorship like the first game.
https://www.famitsu.com/images/000/326/ ... 342e7.html

The actual Atari Pole Position II upright cab sported in-game real billboard advertising various "licensed to Atari from Namco" arcade games & real American products/companies for it's grand debut back in 1983 + the cool multi-sprite explosion EFX of your F1 car if you hit a CPU race car or a billboard sign (which was quite something to behold back in those days of early 1980s arcade lore as it was cutting edge for it's time until the advent of TX-1 and Final Lap with it's 8-player linked-up racing sessions which was quite a spectacle, indeed, for the 1987-1988 timeline -- you had to make sure the arcade establishment had enough serious real estate space to host those eight linked-up cabs though). Sega's 8-player linked-up racing games of Daytona USA & Indy 500 are legendary as well.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BrianC]

I understand the billboard censorship, but it's disappointing Hamster can't provide English versions for games like Pole Position and Pole Position II that used to be everywhere in the US.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Couldn't Hamster just do proper patches for Pole Position 1 & 2 to add the "period-correct" USA billboards versions ? They'd be complete if done so. I'd have to assume that Hamster would have get proper clearance rights in regards to depicting said current American products, arcade game IPs, and companies nowadays -- a huge undertaking if attempted nowadays -- is it really worth the "extra effort" to pull this off successfully, intellectual copyrights-wise? Hmmm...

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Rastan78]

One problem there even if they could obtain all those licenses, once they eventually expire the game would need to be pulled from PSN and eshop. We see the same kind of changes in recent M2 releases also. On Switch Sega Ages Outrun has the car changed to be less similar to a Ferrari. Shinobi has Altered Beast posters subbed for Marilyn Monroe and Spider Man recolored green etc.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Hamster would have to hire and retain "on-hand", the services of a copyright lawyer to add the USA billboard ads depicted in the American arcade game versions of Pole Position 1 & 2. Not to mention a certain percentage of royalty license fees paid in advance per game d/l sold until they would eventually expire (however long that may be is anyone's guess at best). Otherwise, they could be sued big time.

Would Hamster be able to afford such multiple advertising licenses? Probably not if they wish to remain in business & still make money/have enough of a budget for their next upcoming arcade game preservation project release.

Copyright infringement is seriously no laughing matter these days, folks.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BrianC]

I'm not asking for the same billboards. I just want the text and speech in English. Seriously, Namco was able to include English versions of Pole Position and change the billboards in previous releases, but they can't release an English version with the same billboards as the JP Arcade Archives version? I think it's ridiculous that games that were a big hit in the US like Pole Position and Pole Position II are stuck with versions that have untranslated Japanese text floating about.

Edit: I think I know why Namco only included the JP version. They licensed the Fuji and Suzuka courses, which were altered for the international versions. Nope, never mind, the courses were changed for a couple ports, but the Atari and International arcade releases of Pole Position I and II still have Fuji and Suzuka. The 7800 port of II also has Fuji and Suzuka.

[drockpake]

In the case of Hamster though, I think it's safe to assume that demand will lead to supply. And they can hardly be accused of 'rights-squatting', I've no idea where some of the rights lie these days (UPL / Jaleco for starters, but I'm sure someone on here does ), but the Konami / Taito / SNK stuff still needs licencing properly surely?
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