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

[BIL]

In practice, this means Sonic Wings will arrive on ACA at some point before the heat death of the universe, possibly. :3

Well, it's finally happening! I thought of you immediately when I read the news of pending Sonic Wings ACA release lol. I hope this doesn't mean we're also soon to experience the heat death of the universe.

I dig the symmetry, a year with TURBOFAWRCE and Strike Gunner also featuring Sonic Wings and Daioh. (rowing through treacle to post this )

[hamfighterx]

Huh, it seems the Data East games released as part of the Johnny Turbo's Arcade line were pulled from the Switch eShop last month. Still able to be re-downloaded for those who bought them while they were available. Seems to be an obvious license expiration matter.

That's particularly interesting in connection with Arcade Archives, because it would be great if Hamster got the rights to release these games under AA. Would be a significant improvement over the fairly shoddy job that was done on the JT Arcade releases with mandatory blurry filters, laggy feeling controls, no regional options, etc. I just played through Night Slashers recently for Halloween, and lamented the mediocre quality of the release.

Hamster seems to have a relationship with the current rights holders, as they have released other DECO games on AA relatively recently: BurgerTime (2020), Burnin' Rubber (2020), Darwin 4078 (2021), and Trio the Punch (2022). Also several for ACA Neo Geo back in 2017-2018: Magical Drop 2 and 3, Spinmaster, Street Hoop, Fighter's History Dynamite (i.e., all of the Neo Geo Data East games except Windjammers, which got its own enhanced release by DotEmu).

List of the Johnny Turbo's DECO arcade games:
Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja
Break Thru
Express Raider
Fighter's History
Gate of Doom
Heavy Barrel
Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninjas
Joe & Mac Returns
Night Slashers
Nitro Ball
ShootOut
Sly Spy
SRD: Super Real Darwin
Super BurgerTime
Two Crude
Wizard Fire

[Lemnear]

I know MS2 apologists can get really violent, so if any are gonna jump in and duel me for Fio-chan's honour, keep in mind I did try. ;3

How do you know? my ex-best pal was one of them, totally ghosted me...Metal Slug was one of the few games that i played for its entirety in a real Arcade (1,2,3,X). The 4th is HORRIBLE, the 5 and 7 looks like spin-off, maybe the 6 is ok.

now i have paranoia since i've mentioned the existence of this person, and since is also a Mr.Robot-like type + the slow-down of the site, then BIL's prophecy about the release of Aero Fighters comes true...i'm trantiveness.

[Sima Tuna]

Johnny Turbo's Arcade are absolutely horrible. I hope this does mean we'll get ACA Super Burger Time and ACA Night Slashers. Those releases deserve proper attention. ACA Joe and Mac Returns wouldn't be bad either.

There are so many problems with the Johnny Turbo stuff... Just to list a few:

-The ports feel laggy as fuck
-No practice options
-Shitty, smudgy, obnoxious filters
-no controller remapping (HUGE problem for me, as the defaults are awful!)

[BIL]

More DECO would be nicey nicey indeedy I'm tentatively hopeful. As hamfighter says, G-Mode has worked with Hamster before (my favourite so far being Trio The Punch, yet another I forgot... seriously, it's actually a really solid sidescrolling action game, in addition to being infamously batshit).

And M2 Prez is known to maintain beast wood for Ed Randy and Great Ragtime, plus they mentioned a DECO project some years back. Toaplan Arcade Garage seemed similarly distant and ended up thriving, so who knows.

So between this hobby's two champions of decency, I hope something might show up down the line. At this point, if it's not by Hamster or M2, I'm wan at best.

[Steven]

I almost bought a Sonic Wings PCB on three separate occasions this year. Glad I didn't because this saves a lot of money.

[Skyknight]

I presume Konami's next. If they want a release of full splendor for the last pre-Christmas 2023 Thursday, I'm going to suspect any one of Mystic Warriors, Violent Storm, Monster Maulers, or Metamorphic Force.

[hamfighterx]

And M2 Prez is known to maintain beast wood for Ed Randy and Great Ragtime, plus they mentioned a DECO project some years back. Toaplan Arcade Garage seemed similarly distant and ended up thriving, so who knows.

Edward Randy is a real holy grail of currently port-less arcade action games, indeed. But if Cannon Dancer (the other one my mind always went to) finally got a port just this year, I have hope!

I presume Konami's next. If they want a release of full splendor for the last pre-Christmas 2023 Thursday, I'm going to suspect any one of Mystic Warriors, Violent Storm, Monster Maulers, or Metamorphic Force.

My Konami senses are tingling too, and every single one of those would be amazing. And since they're all on the same hardware... if we get one, it stands to reason that we'll get them all in relatively short order (along with Gaiapolis and Martial Champion).

I'm ready - always enjoy my Hamster Claus holiday cheer. Well, maybe not so much in 2019, but usually! To recap the list since they've been doing weekly releases:

2017: VS. Super Mario Bros. (12/22/2017), and Pulstar on ACA Neo Geo (12/21/2017)
2018: Donkey Kong Jr. (12/21/2018), and Puzzle Bobble on ACA Neo Geo (12/20/2018, extra significant as the first Taito game Hamster released on ACA)
2019: Mat Mania: Exciting Hour (12/19/2019). Uh... OK, maybe we were naughty in 2019 and got some coal in our stockings?
2020: Gradius III (12/24/2020)
2021: Xexex, aka Orius (12/23/2021)
2022: Metal Hawk (12/22/2022), and the following week's Bubble Bobble (12/29/2022) was a pretty heavy hitter
2023: ???

[AGermanArtist]

I love Exciting Hour. My money's on Iron Horse, Jackal, M.I.A or Trick Trap. Or possibly Finalizer.

[OldSkoolShmuper]

The ones I really want bad:

Jackal (1986, Konami) - Twin Eagle (1988, Seta) - Caliber 50 (1989, Seta) - Thunder Fox (1990, Taito)


And if Data East games start happening, Heavy Barrel - Midnight Resistance - Vapor Trail

[hamfighterx]

I love Exciting Hour. My money's on Iron Horse, Jackal, M.I.A or Trick Trap. Or possibly Finalizer.

I mean, Exciting Hour is not a bad game. But in comparison to the usual Hamster pattern of putting our a somewhat more "special" pre-Christmas release, it's clearly the one of those things that is not like the others.

Another one on my list for when Hamster wants to break out a more notable never-before-ported shooter... Namco's F/A (Fighter & Attacker). Solid enough STG, but probably most notable for Shinji Hosoe's (pre-Ridge Racer) techno soundtrack, one of the first examples of a shooter going all in on that dance music inspired OST that would open the floodgates for stuff like Battle Garegga or a lot of Cave's OSTs.

[Bassa-Bassa]

For a huge one, it's Parodius Da's turn, in my opinion. If it doesn't happen, definitely Konami must have plans for the series.

[MJR]

For a huge one, it's Parodius Da's turn, in my opinion. If it doesn't happen, definitely Konami must have plans for the series.

Our mental networks must be connected on some higher dimension, I just started to replay Parodius Da! again on my PSX Parodius deluxe pack - after more then 15 years of break or so! And I was thinking how long it has been since it has been available commercially anywhere, and how nice it would be to have this on the Switch.

I love Parodius Da! as much as ever, but the difficulty scaling gets truly obnoxious, good examples being the Buffer fish boss (Pooyan) starting to fill the screen with projectiles if you are fully equipped, or those penguins starting to tail you between the legs of the dancer (Chichibinta Rika).

I still can't 1cc it, best result so far being completion on one continue. There is an old score of 1,3 million on my memory card, and I can't for the love of god remember when I was able to rack up such score. It's hard to remember scores that were obtained in the mid-nineties..

[Bassa-Bassa]

There's a safe spot for the dancer subboss which saves you from having to navigate between the legs the second time and makes dealing with the penguins easy peasy. I want to think that's still valid for the home versions. At least, I don't remember having problems there on the Saturn.

If it ever ends up in Arcade Archives, prepare yourself for an even nastier experience, since there's no port which kept the arcade original difficulty (except for the X68000 version? Not sure there.) The truth is, there's been no perfect port of a seminal game like Da!. But mine was not wishful thinking, I was looking at it from a chronological and technical standpoint. Many later titles the people are asking for, like Mystic Warriors, aren't apparently easy to emulate properly, as Konami hardware got a bit too complex and unique as they were anticipating the 32bit GX board.

But neither was Xexex and there it is, so yeah, who knows.

[Lemnear]

Curiosity, they own NMK games, but most of them are published under Jaleco (which is owned by City Connection), BUT, on the Hamster's site games like P47/Saint Dragon are "branded" under Jaleco.
So, who owns the game in this case?.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Jaleco is no more, some ex Jaleco staffers work now for City Connection and they own most IPs. NMK never had any rights over P-47 - they just were hired to develop it.

[Lemnear]

Jaleco is no more, some ex Jaleco staffers work now for City Connection and they own most IPs. NMK never had any rights over P-47 - they just were hired to develop it.

Thank you, this explain why the name NMK appears only on wiki and not in any Jaleco games they've worked on.
Oh so the "evil" City Connection is in part the original Jaleco ? lol

[MJR]

There's a safe spot for the dancer subboss which saves you from having to navigate between the legs the second time and makes dealing with the penguins easy peasy. I want to think that's still valid for the home versions. At least, I don't remember having problems there on the Saturn.

If it ever ends up in Arcade Archives, prepare yourself for an even nastier experience, since there's no port which kept the arcade original difficulty (except for the X68000 version? Not sure there.) The truth is, there's been no perfect port of a seminal game like Da!. But mine was not wishful thinking, I was looking at it from a chronological and technical standpoint. Many later titles the people are asking for, like Mystic Warriors, aren't apparently easy to emulate properly, as Konami hardware got a bit too complex and unique as they were anticipating the 32bit GX board.

But neither was Xexex and there it is, so yeah, who knows.

Thanks, I may have to fire it up on Mame just to see how much pain it will give me. BTW, only TODAY I learned that PS1 version has a hidden train stage?!? How it is possible that I play a game for 30 years and only hear about it now. Color me shocked. Shocked!

[OldSkoolShmuper]

Electronic Gaming Monthly June 1992 - Sonic Wings and Ninja Commando:

https://i.imgur.com/cyu2Sk4.jpg

[Lemnear]

Electronic Gaming Monthly June 1992 - Sonic Wings and Ninja Commando:

https://i.imgur.com/cyu2Sk4.jpg

I like that arcade games used to have reviews.

[Ice Beam]

Electronic Gaming Monthly June 1992 - Sonic Wings and Ninja Commando:

https://i.imgur.com/cyu2Sk4.jpg

I miss when shmups were called shooters.

[hamfighterx]

I miss when shmups were called shooters.

Be the change.

I also prefer shooters and hate saying shmup. Sometimes I like to use STG to distinguish from modern first or third person shooters though.

[AGermanArtist]

OMG Konami's Mystic Warriors!

https://www.famitsu.com/news/202312/20328597.html

skyknight

[BIL]

[BEAMLORD]

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!

Been looking forward to this one.

[Skyknight]

Heh. Now we wait to see, given what was said about the common hardware, how quickly the others I mentioned get published.

[Bloodreign]

I know MAME runs Mystic Warriors in slow motion if 4 players are playing at the same time, hope to see someone play this AA game, with 4 players, and see if it truly does run slower with 4 players at one time, or that MAME just can't run it properly with everyone onscreen, with enemies around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdEG0cq_qU4 4 players from a PCB, yikes, it does slow down.

[OldSkoolShmuper]

Wow that's 2 big games this month.

With Mystic Warriors on the way, I'm now confident we will see the Konami beat 'em up trilogy (Crime Fighters) completed this coming year with Violent Storm at some point.

[BIL]

I know MAME runs Mystic Warriors in slow motion if 4 players are playing at the same time, hope to see someone play this AA game, with 4 players, and see if it truly does run slower with 4 players at one time, or that MAME just can't run it properly with everyone onscreen, with enemies around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdEG0cq_qU4 4 players from a PCB, yikes, it does slow down.

There's this

[BulletMagnet]

With Mystic Warriors on the way, I'm now confident we will see the Konami beat 'em up trilogy (Crime Fighters) completed this coming year with Violent Storm at some point.

Hamster will get it eventually,
Everybody wanna knock Geldo down.