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

[Lemnear]

The status of the rights to Kaneko's games is unknown from what I remember. Believe me, I'd insta-buy Bakuretsu Breaker if they put that shit up on ACA.

I don't know what happens when a developer closes down and no one owns the rights on their titles...
However, thanks to the shMeme topic, i discovered some really obscure developers totally forgotten...i feel like an archeologist!
But some developers named in a meme, are nowhere to be found!

Generally nothing happens. Literally nothing. No more rereleases, physical copies stop being made (and then those existing copies start to increase in value on the used game market), etc..

And who has these rights? Since the Hamster's Arcade Archives are a kind of "preservation", is it possible for them to aquire Kaneko? as they had already done with other defunct developers.

[BIL]

The “masterpiece” text is just standard boilerplate, Hamster is taking archival-regardless-of-critical-reception seriously

And GOOD, I'm very glad they are focused on doing archival quality releases regardless of critical acclaim. I'm often more interested in checking out a kusoge car crash like Dino Rex than a lot of options, and I appreciate that it's here to experience it and put it in historical context (THIS is the game that the Gun Frontier and Metal Black team did as a follow up to those revered names? Wild.)

Yeah, a reasoned neutrality is what I go with. Recent ACA release Dark Adventure is legit unplayable garbage, imo. I don't think you can survive more than a minute or so before cranking in another coin. Without the bundled Majuu Oukoku and Devil World - profoundly better revs - I'd be forced to delete it. Cheap and space-inconsequential but having bad games around irks me.

But whatever games you treasure, there's some goober out there - possibly a popular one with many incurious followers - who'd call porting it to modern consoles a waste of time and money. Probably a dozen more who'd blindly accept SNK40th-tier mediocrity with busted-out controls (teh SCANS THO :O), then call you an Elitist Prick™ for objecting.

Not meaning to bat for Dino Beatdown Crisis here, I don't really care about it any more than I do CHAMPION WRASSLER from a while back - beyond it being PROJECT GUN FRONTIER GAIDEN, ofc I hope they gave poor Senba-san the luxury of air conditioning for this one! Then again, maybe being forced to code in his drawers in sweltering summer heat was why the first two games are so good?

There's quite a few games on ACA I'd punt out of the lineup in a heartbeat. Get that godawful Ikari III outta my face, swap in the sublimely good Search And Rescue (a WHOLE YEAR waiting for the real Ikari III, Guevara). Wonder Momo? PFFF, more like Wonder Hell No, give that spot to Final Lap. Haunted Castle? More like Haunted EAT MY ASSHOLE Jackal pls. Blandia, more like - no, that's actually a really apt title, it's bland AF lmao! War of Aero pls. Datsugoku more like DatsuBLOWKU wait that's another SNK pick. Only one I bothered with is HC, again only because of the bundled JP rev, and even that is weak (though of undeniable historical import to any committed Dracula fan).

That's inevitable with such a large-scale project though. Maybe Shin Q. Pubric got his very first boner @ Wonder Momo's knockdown upskirt, let the man have his youthful reverie. 3; Better not let Chris Hansen hear about it though!

You know, Tecmo's lineup really is balls-out superb. I can't think of anything to punt. Dying for ACA Silkworm but everything preceding has ranged from good/great/essential. Amazing catalogue! I don't even particularly like their contemporary consumer output, outside of their classic Dracula-inspired action/platformer trilogy! No Ninja Gaiden favouritism here.

[Steven]

I don't know what happens when a developer closes down and no one owns the rights on their titles...
However, thanks to the shMeme topic, i discovered some really obscure developers totally forgotten...i feel like an archeologist!
But some developers named in a meme, are nowhere to be found!

Generally nothing happens. Literally nothing. No more rereleases, physical copies stop being made (and then those existing copies start to increase in value on the used game market), etc..

And who has these rights? Since the Hamster's Arcade Archives are a kind of "preservation", is it possible for them to aquire Kaneko? as they had already done with other defunct developers.

Nobody knows. The CEO was arrested for fraud in 2017 (maybe he's chilling in prison with the Milestone dude lol) and the fate of the company and its IPs is still unknown.

[Udderdude]

Pretend it's public domain already. Like it should be. >_>

[Lemnear]

Generally nothing happens. Literally nothing. No more rereleases, physical copies stop being made (and then those existing copies start to increase in value on the used game market), etc..

And who has these rights? Since the Hamster's Arcade Archives are a kind of "preservation", is it possible for them to aquire Kaneko? as they had already done with other defunct developers.

Nobody knows. The CEO was arrested for fraud in 2017 (maybe he's chilling in prison with the Milestone dude lol) and the fate of the company and its IPs is still unknown.

WHAT??? I thought Milestone's story was just a meme

Pretend it's public domain already. Like it should be. >_>

https://gamehistory.org/87percent/
I'm glad with what Hamster is trying to do, at least on the Arcade side, with M2 and few others...but a lot of stuff are on the verge of oblivion...

[Ms. Tea]

Jail Break is available in Canada on PSN, but still not Switch AFAIK. Is it still unavailable in AU? My guess for this and Finest Hour is that Hamster messed up submitting a release and didn't bother to fix it. Only reason I can think of for Star Force STILL not being available on US PSN, despite being on Switch.

The Switch versions are both out in Canada too. Definitely a weird situation.

[Udderdude]

I'd like to see some of Universal's games on AA some day. Might never happen, but I can hope, lol.

[hamfighterx]

But whatever games you treasure, there's some goober out there - possibly a popular one with many incurious followers - who'd call porting it to modern consoles a waste of time and money.

That, yep. I know some unenlightened fools might debate why anyone would spend $7.99 on my beloved Kangaroo. So no matter the game, I assume it might be someone else's Kangaroo and I'm always pleased to see anything get the Hamster treatment. Especially more obscure stuff that has never seen an official console release.

I even appreciate having Haunted Castle, awful as it is. Even if only for the historical relevance of "THIS trash is part of the illustrious Castlevania series?" (said by people who forget there are lots of awful Castlevania things out there, but I digress...). I think it's nice to have easily accessible for the morbidly curious.

If we're talking bad Namco games, I'd toss Bravoman before even looking in the direction of Wonder Momo. But still, it warms my heart to see both of them just out here being terrible for all to see, and I'm glad we have both. I suppose if I had to look at what I'd get rid of first if I had to pick some, I could do without some of the bad Nintendo VS. games: Mahjong, Baseball, Golf, Tennis.

[BIL]

But whatever games you treasure, there's some goober out there - possibly a popular one with many incurious followers - who'd call porting it to modern consoles a waste of time and money.

That, yep. I know some unenlightened fools might debate why anyone would spend $7.99 on my beloved Kangaroo. So no matter the game, I assume it might be someone else's Kangaroo and I'm always pleased to see anything get the Hamster treatment. Especially more obscure stuff that has never seen an official console release.

Kangaroo is good peeps. Perfect early 80s antidote to ostensibly hi-tech yet fundamentally muddled Haunted Castle, et al. (good job there's VS Castlevania to redeem the Draculas' AC standing )

I was lukewarm on it for quite a while, being only casually into single-screeners (while I love Taito's, I couldn't pretend to understand any... outside of the crossover masterpiece Rainbow Islands, a pyrotechnics masterclass which isn't a really single-screener at all). So I was happy with close contemporary Arabian for a bit (another uncharacteristically violence-driven affair, not unlike RI and Kangaroo itself; brother man will give those birds a taste of his shoe!). I went to revisit after being reminded of Markham and Pettan Pyuu's respective excellence. What an odd thing it's been as a Famicom enthusiast, discovering Sunsoft had killer early 80s AC chops. Their output on that machine seemed to go from "eh" to "GodJebus" around MetaFight. All of the aforementioned are super solid no-nonsense works.

Apparently, it's never been quite right in MAME; Gorilla trouble, from what I gather. Unlike Contra - a truly odd case of an iconic powerhouse going decades without accurate emulation, pre-ACA (even M2 making a rare fumble) - I could totally get Kangaroo having issues. It feels legitimately antique, as late 70s through early 80s boards often do; the way the monkeys "flipbook" between animation frames, especially. Albeit as a total layman, I'd assume it was particularly foibled work.

Reminds me of personal favourite Task Force Harrier, which as trap noted has a downright baroque solution to slowdown. Basically, your moderately-quick ship gains speed as the world around it slows down. afaik, MAME doesn't presently emulate this, making the ship lightning-fast; like the quickest I've seen in any Toaplanesque. I think it's faster than Tatsujin's max speed. I'm quite fond of the effect - paired with the hyperinvincible Options, you can really macroteabag it up - though I prefer the more subtly progressive original.

Xevious! Hishouzame! SHINOBI ROTOR BRADES

I'll often pick up these examples; games I'm kinda/sorta into, that turn out to lack accurate home release. There's just an innate satisfaction in reference-standard work; I consider Hamster and M2 this niche's Criterion. Even disasters like Dark Adventure kinda have their place, from pure archaeological perspective - "Holy shit, they thought they could get away with this?!" - albeit I'd punt DA onto train tracks in a heartbeat without its bundled JP rev. (I suspect Hamster are all too aware, with their flawless record of pairing those Konami USA infamies with their unmolested - or in Dark Adventure's case, rehabilitated - JP revs)

[Steven]

https://gamehistory.org/87percent/
I'm glad with what Hamster is trying to do, at least on the Arcade side, with M2 and few others...but a lot of stuff are on the verge of oblivion...

It's basically clickbait. There is an Archive somewhere on the Internet that's far more effective at preserving game history than that shady Video Game History Foundation thing has or ever will do, which, from what I remember, is absolutely nothing as of right now.

[velo]

That, yep. I know some unenlightened fools might debate why anyone would spend $7.99 on my beloved Kangaroo. So no matter the game, I assume it might be someone else's Kangaroo and I'm always pleased to see anything get the Hamster treatment.

I'll admit to sincerely enjoying Dino Rex. I've credit-fed it more than once. There was a huge wave of cartoon dinosaur/caveman games in the 90s, but there haven't been so many pulpy, quasi-realistic ones, even to the present. We probably won't see stop motion Primal Rage graphics ever again.

[Lemnear]

https://gamehistory.org/87percent/
I'm glad with what Hamster is trying to do, at least on the Arcade side, with M2 and few others...but a lot of stuff are on the verge of oblivion...

It's basically clickbait. There is an Archive somewhere on the Internet that's far more effective at preserving game history than that shady Video Game History Foundation thing has or ever will do, which, from what I remember, is absolutely nothing as of right now.

Hamster is probably better too, but this site has been mentioned in many articles about this issue.

[CRP]

OYAJI SYSTEM: Daioh's rank system explained
https://cohost.org/gosokkyu/post/339406 ... stem-daioh

heads up: at the request of the original programmer, Hamster patched Arcade Archives Daioh with an optional display for the rank value, like so

https://twitter.com/gosokkyu/status/1725700939393409485

[BIL]

Man, hearing the OG staff requested it, and Hamster responded, makes it even better. We live in a curious golden age.

[Steven]

Got a patch for Darius II a few hours ago. Not sure what it does and the patch notes don't say anything useful, but the game is better in some way now.

[Udderdude]

Got a patch for Darius II a few hours ago. Not sure what it does and the patch notes don't say anything useful, but the game is better in some way now.

https://twitter.com/ohfivepro/status/17 ... 6890634407 Looks pretty minor.

[BEAMLORD]

Recent Arcade Archives dabblings, old and new:

Picked up Burning Force and Assault a few weeks ago. Haven't even looked at Burning Force yet because I fired up Assault and have barely been able to put it down Game's amazing. Bless Hamster for the Type B controls, though. Had a stab at the Type A scheme, and I really didn't know my ass from my elbow. Made it as far as stage 7 or 8 so far on a credit, where the difficulty gets really pernicious. Think I remember seeing a stage select option somewhere in the settings? Gonna have to take another look at that and get the lay of the land for that latter half.

Decided to take a punt on Dark Adventure/Majuu No Oukoku this weekend, and nabbed a few nice and breezy 1CCs, JP version. Fun game, sweet little run time, a little janky here and there, but doesn't mar the experience. Hit detection is a bit unwieldy, most notably for me on the volcano stage, where chunks of molten rock can rain down and seemingly take you out with no obvious visual connection apparent on-screen. Geological blast impact, perhaps. Happily, the volcano seems to be proximity-activated, so with some lucky key spawning can be circumnavigated entirely. Not a huge fan of the platform-jumping sections, never felt entirely comfortable with that in a top-down setting, but it's just two short stages, and entirely adaptable. Got some satisfying firepower. Bazooka x Grenade combo allows for some awesome AOE vaporisation action.

[BIL]

Hit detection is a bit unwieldy, most notably for me on the volcano stage, where chunks of molten rock can rain down and seemingly take you out with no obvious visual connection apparent on-screen. Geological blast impact, perhaps. Happily, the volcano seems to be proximity-activated, so with some lucky key spawning can be circumnavigated entirely.

My jaw dropped when this first happened to me, a real *record scratch* moment. I am very pleased to say, I think I figured it out!

I've seen Japanese players mention it happening in arcades, so I'm 99% on it being a PCB-authentic bug. Or a trap? TNT blowing up in your hand due to volcanic heat is kinda \m/etal. (posts found while searching for hints on key/food RNG; never saw anything conclusive, there).

Got some satisfying firepower. Bazooka x Grenade combo allows for some awesome AOE vaporisation action.

I was seriously impressed at the destructive force; I'd so love to have seen a conventional run/gun with these weapons! It plays much better than Super Contra's topdown stages, imo. While the enemies are little weak by conventional run/gun standards - provided you don't let them bust out those galaxy-sized projectile hitboxes - since you're constantly caning it against the clock, it's marvelously satisfying just blasting them skyward in massive beefy heaps.

Assault gets so tough - always totally doable, just expertly tight-run. Superb game, as it its spiritual sibling, Metal Hawk. MH is the more affable, with its generous firepower and naturally uncomplicated movement (heli vs tank innit ), in addition to being one helluva nonlinear time attack STG; but Assault's got the survivalist technical intensity. I like to think they're the respective air and ground campaigns of the same war.

[BEAMLORD]

My jaw dropped when this first happened to me, a real *record scratch* moment. I am very pleased to say, I think I figured it out!

I've seen Japanese players mention it happening in arcades, so I'm 99% on it being a PCB-authentic bug. Or a trap? TNT blowing up in your hand due to volcanic heat is kinda \m/etal. (posts found while searching for hints on key/food RNG; never saw anything conclusive, there)

Great intel, BIL. Should have went back and re-read your post over in the R2R thread. Glitch or not, definitely makes some real-world sense. Darwinism in effect. I'll give it a go myself.

[Marc]

Namco's Warp Warp this week.
Never heard of it.

[Udderdude]

It's a fun game. There's a nice sequel on the Famicom, too.

[Despatche]

Warp Warp is a strange little game that is commonly believed to be a predecessor to Bomberman. At the same time, it's still a shmup, because the game is actually a Sheriff-like shmup and a Bomberman predecessor stapled together, and you warp between the two games. The NES game Warpman is some kind of remake, for anyone curious about that.

[BIL]

Oh wow Indeed, Thought I was looking at some kinda proto-Bomberman for a sec. Sounds like a good time.

US flyer is amazing SPACE WORLD v MAZE WORLD w/feets

[Despatche]

Something kinda neat about this game is that, to my knowledge, you can always play in either mode and almost never have to enter the other for any reason. The only exception I can think of is that you always start a credit in Space World, the shmup mode, but you can go to Maze World, the Bomberman mode, almost immediately. I don't think even dying kicks you back to Space World or anything. It really is just two separate games stapled together. I think Warpman is the same way, but I haven't played either in a while. This seems like a good excuse to revisit both games.

[evil_ash_xero]

Did they take Xexex off of the US PSN? I was downloading games I owned onto another console, and I had to get it on the JPN PSN under the name of "Orbius".
Couldn't find it on the US PSN... I found it online, and it said "Not available for purchase". What's the deal?

Also, why the hell is it called Orbius? I've never heard it named that.

[Despatche]

For some reason, Xexex was indeed released in the US as Orius. Only the US release was called that, far as anyone's found. I am to understand that this release is very rare and it took some time for MAMEdev to get their hands on it. In any event, I guess Konami told Hamster to use that name, though I'm sure Hamster's release also has the actual US version of the game anyway. Here's the US PSN page I can access, at least.

[Sumez]

Warp Warp no doubt inspired Bomberman, predating the original PC-88/MSX game by a couple of years, and probably feels closer to the later Bomberman games than that game did.
It has different modes that you switch between though, only one of them being the "bomberman mode". There's a Famicom version of sorts as well, called Warpman.

[velo]

I noticed that for Orius/Xexex, there are actually two high score modes, one for the JP version and one for the EU version. Does any other AA game work like that?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I believe the Daioh AA release works the same way. It makes sense they'd make two high score boards if there's significant scoring or gameplay differences between each regional release.

[Despatche]

Yeah, the western versions of Xexex are wwwwwack, like with a lot of Konami games. And then Daioh has the 6-button US version.