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

[velo]

30% off some Taito games at the moment.

[bbbhltz]

Rastan for under €5? Pretty good deal just to hear Agressive World.

[Gojiguy]

Dang! I was hoping for Gun Frontier PS4 to be on sale... Still Rastan, Cadash and Halley's Comet are good deals.

[OldSkoolShmuper]

What are we gonna get this week?

Please be Rave Racer.

Yes, the visual upgrade & gameplay/game mechanics of Rave Racer compared to Ridge Racer are quite something to behold. It's just a matter of time when Hamster releases Rave Racer as it's never gotten a proper home game console port to this very day.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Absolutely, the first significant advance over Ridge Racer since Ridge Racer 2 was more of a QOL update. Rave Racer was awesome and as you said it never got a proper console port to this very day. PC version was shown in 1996, but got cancelled. The two PSP Ridge Racer released had the tracks from Rave Racer, but not the game play. There was the recent Arcade 1Up Ridge Racer mini cabinet which had it, but that's not a console.

Sorry, no Rave Racer this time as Hamster reveals this week and sadly it's Konami crap: Video Hustler.
https://www.famitsu.com/article/202509/51999

Makes me wish we had a Namco game instead (or Raiden II), but looks like Hamster plays blind eyes and deaf ears on fan demands.

Sigh. Oh well, another week to wait for the next release.

[Jucksalbe]

30% off some Taito games at the moment.

I think it's finally time to get the ACA version of Bubble Bobble. Even at the risk of getting that song stuck in my head for all eternity.

[Jonpachi]

30% off some Taito games at the moment.

I think it's finally time to get the ACA version of Bubble Bobble. Even at the risk of getting that song stuck in my head for all eternity.

Even just reading this got it stuck in my head.

[velo]

Doesn't seem like they're quite there for every game yet, but yeah seems like it's becoming a trend.

So far, since the Switch 2 launch they've done AA2 releases for all four Namco games (Ridge Racer, Air Combat 22, Aqua Jet, Mach Breakers), and then Scrambled Egg was the first non-Namco game. But the other 9 AA releases since the start of June have only been available as AA1. King of Fighters ‘98 is also available since February as the first and currently only ACA NeoGeo 2 release, but only on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X for now.

Little tip: if you ever want to buy an Arcade Archives 2 game on Switch 2, and you have any desire whatsoever to play on Switch 1... buy the S1 version first, then you can purchase the "upgrade" to the S2 version (separate game launcher) for only the difference in price between the AA1 and AA2 versions. Discount is already applied in the Nintendo eShop if you have the AA1 game on your account. Then you get both games for the price of just the Arcade Archives 2 version. If you do it in the other order and buy the Arcade Archives 2 version first, you do NOT get access to the AA1 version and won't be able to play it on a Switch 1 unless you re-buy the full-priced AA1 version. Learned that when I immediately bought AA2 Ridge Racer on Switch 2 on launch day, oops!

And again we have AA2 Video Hustler. Also kind of interesting they went back to 2D Namco last week. I thought they might be done with that for a while.

[hamfighterx]

I am always especially interested to try to the real oddball or under the radar Arcade Archives entries, and many times I see one that looks uninteresting at first glance but ends up surprising me big time. A couple of my favorite AA releases from this year fall into that category, Super Basketball (another older Konami title) and Tecmo's Pinball Action (love this one).

Grabbed Video Hustler in the hopes that the modest presentation might conceal a fun little puzzle-ish billiards take. But unfortunately, this one disappoints me.

There's a lot of potential here:
- The idea of making it more of a scoring game with 6 balls to sink and each pocket having a different points multiplier is promising.
- Multiple different patterns of the six balls could have be a really fun way to make it more of a puzzle challenge if they gave you different ball layouts, but unfortunately the "patterns" are limited to changing up the score multipliers on the six pockets each new round/"pattern" - the six balls are always in the same pyramid layout for a standard break shot. Could have been something more there.
- I'm strangely on board with the aiming system, where you get a dot on the edge of the pool table that you can move to any point around the table to aim your cue ball straight at the dot, plus a constantly cycling 3-speed shot strength meter to time your shot (and shot strength also impacts your scoring).

But the game commits a cardinal sin for a billiards game, in that it really doesn't nail the ball physics. Kind of vital! It just doesn't feel especially fun to play, and very unintuitive to predict where your shots will end up. To me, can't overcome that so this is pretty forgettable.

[Skyknight]

So chances are high that next week is Taito. Anyone else hoping for Night Striker? I don’t consider the Operation Night Strikers price tag to be worthwhile when just the one game in there appeals to me.