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

[hamfighterx]

Holy cow, Silkworm is everything I wanted Tried out Heli/1P first, made it four stages in on a couple credits. Very agreeable! Emphasis on busy air/ground mixups over minimal terrain almost recalls P47 Mustang's early stages.

Last summer I got on a bit of a P-47 kick on Arcade Archives and PC Engine, and as I started learning more about it saw lots of comparisons to Silkworm (a game I have a basic awareness of, but not much experience with). Happy to see it showing up on Arcade Archives and fill that gap in my knowledge a bit more!

P-47 Aces would be cool some day too, finding an exA Arcadia with P-47 Aces Mk.II is actually what kicked off my semi-recent P-47 diversion. I bet Aces shows up at some point, given Hamster's work with other Jaleco stuff from the era (Cybattler, etc.).

[Jeneki]

unique white-colored button-topped 8-way digital joystick

Is that the same button tipped joystick that Ninja Gaiden uses? I honestly don't remember from the cab I played on.

[BIL]

P-47 Aces would be cool some day too, finding an exA Arcadia with P-47 Aces Mk.II is actually what kicked off my semi-recent P-47 diversion. I bet Aces shows up at some point, given Hamster's work with other Jaleco stuff from the era (Cybattler, etc.).

That would indeed be superb! I used to wish Aces had a Saturn port, like Game Tengoku. But the complete trilogy on one platform in reference quality would be even better. Mystic Warriors, Cosmo Gang The Puzzle, and TGM1+2 have proven Hamster can nail newer boards without missing a step, so I'm sure Mega System 32 is feasible.

Especially given Jaleco's long association with ACA (right up there with Tecmo), I could easily see it happening. Plus, Game Tengoku could finally have an accurate home release (Saturn port and its Crusin' Mix refit both nerf the PCB's notoriously fiery loop).

Maybe City Connection could even whip up a limited physical release, as a goodwill gesture after Dispatch Games' ongoing six-year scam.

unique white-colored button-topped 8-way digital joystick

Is that the same button tipped joystick that Ninja Gaiden uses? I honestly don't remember from the cab I played on.

Ohshi That would make so much sense, having a button on the stick itself, both for Ninja Gaiden's GRIP and especially Silkworm's BACKSHOT. And they're only a year apart, tops. Well-spotted! I only played NG once in the arcades, way too young to recall anything but - of course - the nightmare vision of its Continue? screen.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

unique white-colored button-topped 8-way digital joystick

Is that the same button tipped joystick that Ninja Gaiden uses? I honestly don't remember from the cab I played on.

Yep, the same type of button tipped joystick that Ninja Gaiden uses indeed. That particular button mounted on the tip of the 8-way digital joystick was necessary during heated sessions of Silkworm with it's "Backshot" functionality.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BIL]

Goddamn, Silkworm's dual Shield/Bomb POW system is even cooler than I'd thought. Last night, I'd blearily assumed the Shield was good for a couple hits, eventually timing out regardless, ala Slap Fight. But no, you're flat-out invincible during its short lifespan, right until the warning flash stops; able to ram clean through enemies and projectiles, as well as item boxes. Unsurprisingly, you can be super-aggressive with this, especially with multiple POWs onscreen for nonstop RAM N' BOMB action! Compile is the dev I always associate with burst invincibility/BODY RAM, and this most definitely evokes them. Badass.

EDIT1: Haha, wow. Grabbing a Shield while one's already active? BOMBAAA! Excellent touch. It makes surfing consecutive Shields appropriately tricky, and also facilitates bursts of total "FIRE EVERYTHING" annihilation. Running over a POW box without a Shield will kill you, just like hitting any other object. With Shield? Instant bomba

Also noticed the kill countdown at the bottom of the screen. I was really tired. This lets you know when GHOST OF HELICOPTERS is gonna spawn; erupting phoenixesque from the blackened hull of the last poor chump in line. I'm guessing they're worth a bit? Quite the incentive to tear through enemies for more spawns. Maybe it's some alien tech that relies on lots of scrap metal? Hopefully not biomass. Very Super Robot, I dig. I notice their weakpoints seem to vary from stage to stage; seems like the designers wanted the player to go for precision shots.

EDIT2: Oho, I get it now. Cockpit is the weakpoint, handily colour-coded grey. What's really interesting is, you can blast it while the midboss is assembling itself, causing it to drop powerups and score bonuses. So, yes. Speedkill the midboss and skip a dangerous battle for extra bonus points.

Porblem offiser? （＾w´ ）

Pleasantly surprised to see the aesthetic leavened by Tecmo's knowing playfulness. Starts out like the most olive-drab gunmetal STG imaginable, with austere natural landscapes to match; and I'd have been fine with that, I like those too! They're a weakness of mine, actually. (literal first thought, playing as Heli: "Whoa! It's like FC Cobra Command: Working Controls Label!") But soon enough there's Evil Mr. Helis, Giant Walker Helis, and a sight gag Heli straight out of Parodius, amongst many other odd things. Yeah I agree, Enemy Scientist Dude! Who wouldn't bolt a cannon onto a tail rotor for sha-weeet 360' blastin? Weenies, that's who!

I've always said, these were some funny dudes; simultaneously a crie di coeur at having to draw so many green helis and grey tanks, and a life-affirming lemons-into-napalm parlay. And just the innate joie de vivre of a couple dudes in a jeep blasting and ramming the balls off an unending stampede of heavy armour and fighter craft. As with Ninja Gaiden, perfectly balanced by unironically bloodening late 80s largesse; the jetfighters screaming off their carriers in the distant BG before tearing onto the playfield is particularly cool.

Conversely... totally unsurprised to find a more finessed - yet consummately arcade immediate - game than the first credit might suggest. Tecmo's arcade division clearly started as they meant to go on with the trickily involving Guzzler, whose screen sector-based scoring incidentally resembles Rainbow Islands. Star Force, Gemi Wing, Raiga, Senyjo, Ninja Gaiden, Wild Fang, Bomb Jack, Solomon's Key, and Rygar... all exude similarly fine detailing and thoughtful riffs. Even Swimmer is remarkably progressive, with its i-framed Dive button; free to use, balanced around a punishable recovery, not at all unlike the dodge rolls of fighting games and DMC et al, generations later.

If that 2023 synergy holds up, I'd love to see Final Star Force and Pleiades, with Phoenix as a cheeky Taito-sponsored third pick.

[Marc]

I played a few games of Silkworm and wrote it off as bland tbh. Read the above post this morning though, fired up for one more try and goddamn! Changes the game completely, if then becomes about bullying yourself from shield to shield with the odd well-timed smart bomb to clear as much as possible in between while speedkilling those scrawny goose choppers. Odd to see that one seemingly innocuous mechanic can completely change the way a game plays, but I've gone from meh, to fuck yes!
Made ST5 with chopper, only 4 with jeep as of yet. The mix-ups are superb, it's designed somehow so that the jeep, although trickier, doesn't have anywhere near the disadvantages you might expect. Cracking game. I'm going to fire up the Amiga conversion on the mini.later, I remember that being lauded at the time.

[AGermanArtist]

It's a little more pronounced on later levels when they appear (you don't have to shoot anything to get them) in bunches, you can chain them for some real damage.

[MJR]

I booted up Rainbow Islands on my Amiga 1200, where I got original copy of the game installed to HDD using Whdload. That version immediately returned to my muscle memory, and I was tearing through enemies like it was still 1989.. Amiga version is still AMAZINGLY close to the arcade version, only difference I noticed was that some enemies in Amiga version don't stop and turn when they detect you underneath. That, and slower framerate, and generally slower speed of the game (50hz). And no second fire button.

And this is why I suck at ACA version - my muscle memory just cant adapt to jumping with second fire button! In Amiga version, you jump by pressing joystick up, and I do LOTS of really small precision timing jumps in order to place the rainbows just above / below the enemies and then dispose them by dropping the rainbows. But in ACA version, I just keep failing miserably, constantly jumping straight into the enemies and getting myself killed. I know I would eventually get used to the 2nd fire button if I play enough, but it feels HARD. And I am using hori arcade stick on top of that!

But the diamonds seem to generate the same way in the Amiga version as in the ACA version.. oh boy. Meaning that where they land determines the color. I guess I wasn't that observant when I was 15.

[BIL]

Sounds like a great port. I always got that impression from friends with a foot in both the JP arcade and European PC worlds.

Wanna give a quick shout to Toshizo; he's been cranking out some superb ACA RI runs, in addition to being a real hardcase in general (recently put up an ImageFight Japan 2ALL).

I'd never actually heard the Darius Island's version of Cosmic Air Way before, beautiful.

[Sumez]

The Amiga port of RI was how I first played the game as a kid as well. People would take turns playing that and Toki during afterschool hours. I don't remember anyone making it further than the third island though. (and people would make it to the penultimate boss of Toki)
I haven't touched that version since then however, until a few years ago when it was running at a game convention in Sweden. This time I was able to play it with inherent knowledge of the arcade version, and I was genuinely impressed by how closely it seemed to mimick the original, even if a few things were off.
The biggest off-putting aspect however is exactly the up-to-jump controls, which makes exact control of rainbows extremely difficult to pull off. Stuff like making a rainbow platform to jump off, jumping ahead and firing a rainbow, destroying it mid-air, and then holding jump to immediately bounce off the rainbows below you, is nearly impossible on Amiga, especially when you want to control your horizontal positioning at the same time. I really want to play it some time with the "up" button remapped to a face button, which shouldn't be terribly difficult to wire up, just to be able to properly compare how it really plays with the arcade game.

It's a disappointment that the port the same company (Ocean) also made for NES is completely different. Obviously the NES would have to make some compromises, but I'd love to see a game on that platform that plays like the arcade game - I'm also not a big fan of Taito's own port for the Famicom/US NES. Software Creations at least managed to pull off a really stellar conversion of TNZS.

[AGermanArtist]

Namco's Face Off

https://www.famitsu.com/news/202402/07333779.html

[Sturmvogel Prime]

I was expecting a surprise game like Raiden II or Shienryu, but looks like Hamster had other plans.

[Skyknight]

We just had a non-trefoil last week. You remember it’s typically Namco-Konami-Taito-Outside-Repeat, yes?

[Sima Tuna]

That reminds me, Hamster-chan has been making me wait a long time for Violent Storm and Raiden II.

[dingsbums]

@MJR @Sumez
I also played Rainbow Islands at a school friends place on the Amiga 500 in 1988. The version is very good yes but nowadays the Up to Jump controls are not that good because of the reasons Sumez described. The other major thing on the Amiga version is = the 3 secret Islands are not included which means 12 Stages are not in the game. I read in an interview with the programmer that the reason for that was that the publisher Ocean pushed for a release date and the higher ups stated to the programmer that nobody will notice that the secret islands are not there.
However I was always more of a console player and once I had the PC Engine CD version of Rainbow Islands the Amiga version was done.
The Arcade Archives version could have been the ultimate version but Taito was too cheap to renew that damn license for a nearly 90 year old song - I mean how expensive could that be ?
So because of the music I still prefer the PC Engine CD and Arcade version of Rainbow Islands.
@Sumez With a Mister its pretty easy to map up to a 2nd button on the Amiga core for Rainbow Islands .
I have to ask: Can you guys collect the diamonds in order from left to right in each island ? As long as I have only one Rainbow to shoot its possible but as soon as I have the double / tripple Rainbow it becomes nearly impossible to do that for me. Because you collect everything below you with a dropped rainbow.

[dingsbums]

And yes Violent Storm, The Outfoxies and JJ Squawkers are overdue for Arcade Archives.

[hamfighterx]

We just had a non-trefoil last week. You remember it’s typically Namco-Konami-Taito-Outside-Repeat, yes?

Is it though? If you mean that specific order, I think we've only seen Namco -> Konami -> Taito -> Other one time in the past year (the past four weeks' releases, which I think is the first time we've ever seen that specific order for four consecutive AA releases).

If you mean there is a common trend of having a set of four games from those companies in any order, that certainly happens fairly regularly. But even that isn't quite consistent enough for me to view it as extremely reliable. As in, I don't think we've EVER seen that happen in three consecutive sets of 4 games.

Below is the past ~6 months. I did try to break these into 4 game chunks where N K T ? appear in any order (which does happen fairly often, but still several exceptions):

Taito - 7/27 Growl
Namco - 8/3 Baraduke II
Allumer - 8/10 Mad Shark
Konami - 8/17 Devil World
------------------------------------------------------
Namco - 8/24 Bosconian
Taito - 8/31 Cadash
Allumer - 9/7 Zing Zing Zip
Konami - 9/14 Jail Break
------------------------------------------------------

Athena/Tecmo - 9/21 Strike Gunner STG

------------------------------------------------------
Namco - 9/28 Finest Hour
Taito - 10/5 Darius II
Konami - 10/12 Guttang Gottong
Allumer - 10/19 Blandia
------------------------------------------------------
Namco - 10/26 Burning Force
Athena - 11/2 Daioh
Konami - 11/9 Shaolin's Road
Taito - 11/16 Dino Rex
------------------------------------------------------

Namco - 11/23 Warp & Warp
Taito - 11/30 Tokio/Scramble Formation

------------------------------------------------------
Namco - 12/7 Pole Position II
Video System - 12/14 Aero Fighters
Konami - 12/21 Mystic Warriors
Taito - 12/28 Solitary Fighter
------------------------------------------------------

Nichibutsu - 1/4 Mighty Guy

------------------------------------------------------
Namco - 1/11 Cosmo Gang the Puzzle
Konami - 1/18 Super Contra
Taito - 1/25 Rainbow Islands
Tecmo - 2/1 Silkworm
------------------------------------------------------

[Sumez]

The Arcade Archives version could have been the ultimate version but Taito was too cheap to renew that damn license for a nearly 90 year old song - I mean how expensive could that be ?
So because of the music I still prefer the PC Engine CD and Arcade version of Rainbow Islands.

It's not really a licensing issue (or, I guess it could actually be? I doubt they ever even considered that) - more like they took some inspiration from the track, and somewhere down the road someone decided that the similarities were too apparent for them to be able to keep the music in there. Maybe a C&D was filed, or maybe it was just some executive who didn't want to take any chances? I'm not sure if this has even been documented, but I never heard about any actual lawsuits, while I'm also 100% certain Taito never licensed Somewhere Over The Rainbow to be used in the game in the first place.
To be perfectly honest, I think the songs are way too different for it to actually be an issue. There's like half of a note progression which calls out to that song, and that's it.

I have to ask: Can you guys collect the diamonds in order from left to right in each island ? As long as I have only one Rainbow to shoot its possible but as soon as I have the double / tripple Rainbow it becomes nearly impossible to do that for me. Because you collect everything below you with a dropped rainbow.

I can do that consistently on the first three islands, no sweat, and I highly recommend anyone going for a 1CC to do that! Since losing both speed, double rainbows and fast rainbows on a death later on will put you at such a massive disadvantage that recovery becomes extremely difficult (and those three islands will give you those powerups permanently). Especially having double rainbows but *not* fast rainbows, is bound to put you in super dicey situations.

Like you said, avoiding picking up the wrong color is the biggest challenge, and like I stated in an earlier post, that is the hardest as long as you still can't pick up anything left of cyan. But once you have the first three colors (Red, Orange, Yellow), it becomes a lot easier, because picking up either of those again won't break your sequence, and green is the next one you want anyway. So as long as you don't break any rainbows to the right side of the screen center, there is no risk of screwing up.
Keep in mind, that picking up any color you already have is never a problem, the only thing that will break your sequence is skipping a color to the right of what you are currently at.

It's also not too hard to do on Island 7, and if the time limit wasn't so tight on island 5, it wouldn't be too bad on that either due to how the enemies move there. I've done it a few times on Island 4, but I find it very risky.
On Island 6 I consider it near impossible, and have massive respect for people able to pull it off consistently - but if you do get it on that, all subsequent islands will be much easier. And even with that powerup, it's still insanely difficult on Island 10.


Here's what doing the diamond order on all the islands do, btw:
Island 1: Speed shoes
Island 2: Extra rainbow potion
Island 3: Fast rainbows potion
Island 4: Wings
Island 5: Skip 1 or 2 islands
Island 6: Protection fairy(!)
Island 7: Allow continues on the last 3 islands
Island 8: All hidden point items become money bags (10,000 points)
Island 9: Shoot rainbow projectiles horizontally
Island 10: A bunch of money bags worth 100,000 each

And just to reiterate, since a lot of people seem to get that wrong. Getting the order is not required for the last three islands. You just need to get all diamonds for that, and that isn't very hard to do. On several islands it's harder to not do it.

[Jeneki]

Namco's Face Off

People sometimes ask what it would take for me to play sports games. Travolta and Cage fighting it out of on the ice would do the trick.

[AGermanArtist]

Travolta and Cage fucking.

[jehu]

Every week I check the eShop for the drop and place a mental bet on whether or not the KRA- KOW image is going to be posted.

And this week I was right: no it was not.

[BrianC]

At least it seems Hamster isn't skipping sports games. A good thing since Namco made some good ones. Not sure about this one, though.

[Jonpachi]

At least it seems Hamster isn't skipping sports games. A good thing since Namco made some good ones. Not sure about this one, though.

I agree in the name of preservation, but I do also assume this will be a very low-selling release and I hope it doesn't hurt them. They seem to survive on small margins, and too many of these could damage the whole effort.

[Sima Tuna]

Well, they know what they have to do to fix that problem.

Spoiler

Release the big names you're holding back, dammit!

[BIL]

Maybe they meant to release F/A but grabbed the wrong PCB off the rack.

Nah, I'm sure they'll be fine. ACA 10 Yard Fight, World Court, and Super Volleyball didn't torpedo ImageFight, Metal Hawk, or Sonic Wings, nor the dozens of other hardcore shooting/action titles covered in just the last couple years. They've done the odd sportsball release almost as long as ACA itself. As long, if you count wrasslin'/sumo/karate.

Just part of the long game Hamada has always emphasised. Guaranteed some Japanese guy posted his own Exploding Metal Dick JPG at all of 'em. Not a gambling man, but I expect Face Off will be a similar 2024 footnote to F/A.

Of the remaining System 1 titles, I'm most interested in Blazer. Isometric is never a safe bet, but as mentioned re: Silkworm, I'm a sucker for grass n' gunmetal. Looks neat, never even heard of. Interesting that another superunknown (at least around here), Pistol Daimyou Bouken, was so early on. Blast Off I've heard lots about, but never played - Bosconian sequel, IIRC? Always felt like it narrowly missed the PS1 Namco Museums... would love to see that one too. I'm sure Marchen Maze will be along at some point, joining Splatterhouse and Bravoman in the PCE-ported contingent.

EDIT: Now I look again, Blazer reminds me of a GBA Metal Hawk port.

[BrianC]

They did do most of the NeoGeo sports games, and a few of those are REALLY GOOOOOD titles like Baseball Stars 2 and Big Tournament Golf (aka Neo Turf Masters). Odd that a Hockey title of all things didn't appear in NA arcades. This game really is an Elephant in the room, though. I have heard mention of Namco's Tennis and Baseball games before, but I have never heard of this one, aside from a mention in a game list.

[hamfighterx]

You can't sustain mega-hype every single week, then nothing feels special. Need to have some more "average" titles too, so that the big time releases can stand out a bit! A one-off Namco hockey title can't be any more damaging than releasing Nintendo's VS. Mahjong, right?

But yeah, seems like more a matter of Hamster steadily chewing through the entire Namco catalog for the hardware they are comfortable working from. There aren't many System 1 games remaining, so this feels unsurprising to me. From a preservation standpoint, I greatly appreciate that they don't just skip the less popular games. While I wouldn't expect they'll do like, all three World Stadium baseball games from the System 1 - the occasional sports game or other obscurity doesn't hurt anything. And hey, I'm the kind of person who always has time to fire up NES Ice Hockey when I'm poking around in that catalog, arcade hockey is cool - I'll take a look at Face Off.

And while BIL called out Super Volleyball, that particular release actually took me down a rabbit hole one weekend of various arcade volleyball games, including its Neo Geo sequel (Power Spikes II, also on ACA Neo Geo!), Technos' Super Dodgeball (also on Arcade Archives), the glorious Neo Geo Super Dodgeball (not on Arcade Archives, boooo!), Sega's Beach Spikers... it was a whole thing. I'm glad to have quirky shit like this to explore.

As another example, just last month I was in Utah by some ski resorts and saw a multi-game arcade machine with a bunch of Taito titles including Alpine Ski (1981), and I kinda got hooked! Ended up playing it frequently on the Switch Arcade Archives release for the next couple weeks.

[BrianC]

I enjoyed Power Spikes quite a bit, but does Super Volleyball offer anything it doesn't have? Problem with Face Off is that it's an unknown for me and I would like to know more about it. Beach Spikers is good stuff.

edit: Interesting. I was searching videos for Face Off and found a video from Bandai Namco for a JP VC Arcade release

[Skyknight]

And in any case, Konami should be next week, with my usual suspects from them in light of Mystic Warriors being Jackal, Metamorphic Force, Violent Storm, and Monster Maulers. (How high-profile is Iron Horse, anyway?) Licensed brawlers a la X-Men and Simpsons are genuinely possible in light of Mazinger Z, although those will likely carry a double price tag; don't expect two in a row for Konami weeks, at least.

As for Raiden II, are we sure they can yet emulate it? I understand Seibu PCBs are difficult to decipher even at the best of times.

Never mind that because of Smash Bros., Outfoxies will garner plenty of attention once Hamster releases it. So who knows whether Face-Off is coolant for a high-end Konami next week or a high-end Namco next month.

[AGermanArtist]

In 1986 Iron Horse was the shit. It was the third game in the Konami boot man trilogy (Green Beret/Jail Break) and featured innovations over previous iterations of the trilogy inc crouch and banjo music. I suspect the next Konami will be the disappointing M.I.A. I've been revisiting a 1987 Konami game on Retroarch that I'd previously written off as "dogshit" - Fast Lane. I've done a 180 on that, as I have with another of their 1987 games - Typhoon, in recent months. Still unsure about Battlantis, though.
I'd really like an ACA Fast Lane.