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

[hamfighterx]

GSK says:

this game was intended as one of the initial Bubble System releases in '84 but was shelved and eventually dredged up in '87 as a conversion kit... it's a shame, as it was showing its age even back then

Interesting! Count me among those who knew nothing about this one until today.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

GSK says:

this game was intended as one of the initial Bubble System releases in '84 but was shelved and eventually dredged up in '87 as a conversion kit... it's a shame, as it was showing its age even back then

Interesting! Count me among those who knew nothing about this one until today.

The older name title of "Attack Rush" was the original name that was supposed to be released on Konami's Bubble system setup back in 1984 before Konami resurrected it again in 1987 under the new namesake game title of "Hyper Crash."

Here's proof of the older "Attack Rush" arcade game flyer: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games ... yper-crash Did you notice that the CPU enemy cars look quite different in the earlier "Attack Rush" game build as shown in the arcade flyer? Konami went back and created all new CPU enemy cars just for the newer 1987 release of "Hyper Crash" indeed.

Fascinating arcade trivia/history to learn about nowadays in 2026 in regards to Konami's Attack Rush/Hyper Crash arcade games.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BIL]

GSK says:

this game was intended as one of the initial Bubble System releases in '84 but was shelved and eventually dredged up in '87 as a conversion kit... it's a shame, as it was showing its age even back then

Interesting! Count me among those who knew nothing about this one until today.

GSK invaluable as always! So that's 1984 for that rad explosion sound, damn. (uh, unless said boom was added in later on!)

Now I look at it, that explosive-triggered barrel roll into frog splash is some seriously crazy shit. And I thought City Bomber's "jumping car with buzzsaws takes out attack helis" was wild.

Buzzsaws: not just for trees, or cars!

I wonder if they were inspired by something from manga/anime/etc? The way enemy cars casually bust it out on you, too, really sublimates the effect. Now that's applied physics!

[Jeneki]

Amazing, I didn't know Konami was doing realistic simulations of US freeway driving back in the 80s.

[BIL]

Amazing, I didn't know Konami was doing realistic simulations of US freeway driving back in the 80s.

[Atariboy]

Looks like the Chase H.Q. trademark is expired. Nobody has claimed it, but I suspect it doesn't bode well for an Arcade Archives release. Hopefully I'm way off base and it pops up in the weeks or months ahead.

Nice to see Hyper Crash. I briefly tried it on Game Room years ago but didn't buy it. I kind of regretted that in later years when Game Room was shuttered since I've grown to get into a lot of less than amazing 1980's era racing games (and they were only $3 a pop on Game Room, iirc), but never got around to trying it on MAME in the years since to see if my opinion had changed. It doesn't make a great first impression as I recall, but it just might grow on me if I give it a fair chance.

[BIL]

The older name title of "Attack Rush" was the original name that was supposed to be released on Konami's Bubble system setup back in 1984 before Konami resurrected it again in 1987 under the new namesake game title of "Hyper Crash."

Great finds PCEFX, those flyers are stone cold. Twinbee never sounded so Darius-esque, this some existential warfare

Spoiler

BARREL-ROLLING CAR CRUSH will GIVE YOU A GLIMPSE OF ARMAGEDDON (｀w´メ) (■｀w´■)

I gotta say, besides having a much radder name - perhaps the raddest I've heard in recent memory - ATTACK RUSH looks cooler, too. Machines have more of a Road Warrior thing going on. I thought Hyper Crash looked kinda generic at a glance, until the player car did a sweet flip and put its tyres square through three different rivals' skulls. Now that's a cure for restless spirits!

[Sima Tuna]

Is there any cure for men's restless, fighting spirit? If you experience a restless, fighting spirit lasting longer than 8 hours, please contact your doctor.

[SavagePencil]

I'm not sure it's worth the dip, but this game looks AWESOME in motion. Seems like it would have been a perfect fit for the Atari Lynx, which I would have played to death.

[Sturmvogel Prime]

Taito's Syvalion is this week's release, you can ditch the X68000 and SNES port right now.
https://www.famitsu.com/article/202607/81445

[BIL]

Hell yeah, been looking forward to this ever since getting reacquainted with MTJ-sama's Volfied a couple years back. <3

[utsunderthesky]

This game is gonna be weird without the roller.

At least add mouse controls.

[hamfighterx]

And this wraps up the games that appeared on the physical Taito Milestones 4 collection. All 10 now available in ACA download form as well.

[utsunderthesky]

And this wraps up the games that appeared on the physical Taito Milestones 4 collection. All 10 now available in ACA download form as well.

So when TM4 came out, the games that werent on ACA had no leaderboards, yet had the red ACA2 background.

Are they updating these games to have leaderboards, or are they forever gimped?

[hamfighterx]

This game is gonna be weird without the roller.

At least add mouse controls.

They did add mouse controls. Both the Switch 2 AA2 and Switch 1 AA releases support USB mice (or trackballs), for player 1 only. Arcade Archives 2 on Switch 2 also supports the Joycon mouse mode for two players - honestly, pretty convenient. The mouse movement is a solid substitute for the original arcade trackball controls, and I've put in some time recently on the Egret II Mini with trackball controller so feel like I have a pretty good frame of reference.

I assume the other platforms (PS4/PS5/Xbox) also support USB mice, since it would be pretty strange not to!

Are they updating these games to have leaderboards, or are they forever gimped?

What happened on previous Taito Milestones volumes that had games show up there before they hit ACA? Did those get leaderboards added after the fact or not? Guessing the same thing happens for volume 4, but I have never played any of the physical cart compilations myself.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

You can use a real arcade USB-based trackball controller on the Switch 1 sold through Amazon to play the Hamster ACA1 port of Syvalion indeed: https://www.amazon.com/tsticks-GRS-Trac ... hdGY&psc=1

So there's no need to resort to using a paltry USB-based mouse controller setup with the Switch LCD/OLED variant consoles to play Syvalion.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[EmperorIng]

I see that Syvalion's text might be translated (even if roughly) as well, which makes this a worthy purchase imo! How can I deal with the football field-sized hitbox and tight corridors if I am not motivated by Taito's schizoid storytelling!? I always enjoyed the game despite it being rough around the edges.

I picked up Cameltry the other night and was really shocked by the new UI of Arcade Archives. It's so much more organized and professional... It makes it even more annoying that they refuse to backport any of these QOL upgrades to earlier releases. Cheap pricks

[hamfighterx]

It makes it even more annoying that they refuse to backport any of these QOL upgrades to earlier releases. Cheap pricks

Hey they went back to give us one bonus AA2 update with Tatakae! Big Fighter. At this rate, only a couple more centuries and they'll get to all of the 400+ ACA games!

[SavagePencil]

This game is gonna be weird without the roller.

At least add mouse controls.

They did add mouse controls. Both the Switch 2 AA2 and Switch 1 AA releases support USB mice (or trackballs), for player 1 only. Arcade Archives 2 on Switch 2 also supports the Joycon mouse mode for two players - honestly, pretty convenient. The mouse movement is a solid substitute for the original arcade trackball controls, and I've put in some time recently on the Egret II Mini with trackball controller so feel like I have a pretty good frame of reference.

I assume the other platforms (PS4/PS5/Xbox) also support USB mice, since it would be pretty strange not to!

Are they updating these games to have leaderboards, or are they forever gimped?

What happened on previous Taito Milestones volumes that had games show up there before they hit ACA? Did those get leaderboards added after the fact or not? Guessing the same thing happens for volume 4, but I have never played any of the physical cart compilations myself.

How’s the trakball play on this release? On the Egret II mini, I couldn’t find a sensitivity that felt good for this game.

[EmperorIng]

I am told the mouse controls kinda suck for Syvalion, but I don't have a Switch 2 to test myself.

I did play a lot last night (way too long, I was obsessed) and snagged the top leaderboard spot -for now!- with nearly 10 million.
Just gotta be lucky.

The game can be super frustrating because of the HUUUUGE hitbox and random enemy and hazard placement. Especially since "scoring" revolves around beating a stage without getting hit. A 2 million point bonus, easily worth more than anything else in the game!

You can chain two no-misses if you're lucky - the first stage you just go slow, and then sometimes you get invincibility for the second stage so you rush as fast as you can to get the boss, pray you get one of the ones that doesn't spaz all over the screen, and voile, you get an easy 4 million points! After that, pray you get one of the random MTJ balls which give you invincibility, full health + blade saws attacking in every which way. It is very silly to hinge scoring around this in a game where your hitbox is like the size of two buses linked together.

If you do get hit, as long as you get back to full health and end the stage that way, you get a consolation prize bonus of 200,000.

The game is fully-translated (and I do not know if this was the case back in the day). Reading all of the absolutely bonkers story scenes is well worth the $8.00USD asking price imo. Before this the only way you could learn the epic saga of Syvalion, the pilot, his dead(?) sister, androids, flesh-eating amoebae, captive women, MR. MOLT, ojisan scientist, PROCO and TIAT, and that pesky, poorly-placed Self-Destruct button... was the old Taito Legends 2 on PS2. This is a welcome upgrade from that.

---

Also, I played more of Cameltry. The Hi Score mode lets you select your ball!? From a bunch of taito characters and other variations (including the head of the dude from Operation Wolf)?! I never knew this! I spent at least 40 minutes last night laughing as these little dudes helplessly and painfully ricocheted off the walls like rag dolls. It is so funny. Surely this was part of the original release?

[brock2097]

If you hold start at the stage select menu (i think R on switch and R1 on ps4/5) you get the ball select menu.

[BIL]

Also, I played more of Cameltry. The Hi Score mode lets you select your ball!? From a bunch of taito characters and other variations (including the head of the dude from Operation Wolf)?!

Ah, so that's what that screen was! I thought it was some kinda password entry, when it popped up on twitter around the ACA release.

I think that's the Front Line 2 guy, Sgt. Shaved Balls, hobnobbing with other such legendary Taito faces as WOMPER - the Pop n' Bounce dog! Name sources = I made em the fuck up, the fuck you think this is And Kurenboh from Jigoku Meguri! A most ZEITGEISTFUL snapshot of Cameltry's contemporary stable!

Front Line 2, by the by, has some very silly scoring ideas of its own! Can u CRACK - or rather, input - TEH CODE for mad points between each round? Harder than it sounds - the command interpreter is stricter than a motherfucker! No diagonals, y'hear?! BUT, it is a pretty good rootin' tootin' topdown shootin' time in Caravan mode! Witness the global rivarly! BBH-sama imma take u down one of these days!

Also, the hit ratio system is legit cool. In fact, a minor bit of genius appears! You can rescue a lost 100%, or indeed, pre-emptively insure the 100%, by drilling consecutive motherfuckers with Piercing Shot! Men, vehicles, BUILDINGS left in ruins by each judicious shell, pushing the Hit Ratio... OVER FUCKIN MAXIMUM! DESTROYED AT A TIME, even! You can even build up a nice buffer early in the stage, PWNing these rude cunts at relative leisure, then spray n' pray a bit when shit hits teh fan at bosses! On this, and many other such finer points, Ham-Chan Manual will sort you out! What nice chaps

But FUCK! >w< It has a touch of that happenin' 80s aim lag delay. Just enough to annoy, with the ass-ramming pace, albeit tolerable. Must be just a frame or so's delay between your sprite pivoting and the aim catching up. Looking back at that caravan replay, I was doin' some pretty snappy turns n' burns. Easy enough to muscle-memorise around, unlike in MOST A KONAMI AND NICHIBUTSU'S SHIT >w<

Worth a shout imo, superunknown sequel to an undersung innovator. SNK and DECO ate those motherfuckers lunch (speaking of!) Doesn't help it has a million different weird names, only the JP one invoking Front Line. Cool game!

EDIT: I could be dead fuckin wrong about it being Sgt. Shaved Balls in Cameltry >w>

[BrianC]

I knew there was a ball selection in the SNES On the Ball version but had no idea that it was also in the original arcade game.

[BIL]

Imma just say it, I'm callin down the NAMCO BIRB Apologies sturmvogel-kun. Why? Well u see, I just remembered I ain't seen BLASTER yet and ho ho hooooly fuck that looks rad. A conspicuous absentee, with all the balls-hardcore and little/never-ported Namco heavy metallers that've landed in the last few years. Finest Hour, Metal Hawk, Tank Force, Tokyo Wars, both Assaults, c'mon mayne.

Namco tanking gets me off ok Vogel-kun, I ain't choose it

NAMCO BIRB DO YOUR THING

NANTE POWWA DESU (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥｀)

However, if this week is Search N Rescue or GENSHITOU 1930s that'd be cool too! Coincidentally, when it was STREET SMART's turn on the SNK40th refugee raft, I peeped the Famitsu article in the toilet at work, and this was the result

RACIAL

Why in God's name you gotta edge me like this Hamada-kun, a lesser man woulda called it quits by now >w>

Another man woulda been out the door and halfway down the block, dick in one hand cash in the other VwV

Not me though! I'll be here standin until the bitter end ;w;7 (JUST LIKE WITH ACA GUEVARA YOU FUCKIN LOUSY PRICKS )

ICHIBAN TOPDOWN ROTARY ARMY SHOOTING GAME DESU (｀w´メ)

[AGermanArtist]

I was tested and it's a yes. See you at Pride 2027. What shall I wear?

[BIL]

Just in time for ACA SAR co-op!

What shall I wear?

Something Giger-themed, think black leather n' spandex, I'll be ur camo trousers space marine BFF

[AGermanArtist]

Had a quick wardrobe check and couldn't find that. What about this?