Arcade Archives Wish List: 13 Games Hamster Needs to Rerelease

By Marc Normandin | September 30, 2024 | 12:17pm

Games Lists arcade archives

Arcade Archives Wish List: 13 Games Hamster Needs to Rerelease

There are well over 400 games available through Hamster’s Arcade Archives service, and you know what? It’s not enough. That’s not to say that Hamster hasn’t done their job filling up the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 (and 5) with loads of enjoyable, popular, famous, obscure, niche, or “what even is that?” games, because they certainly have. Across those 400-plus games are a whole lot of winners and weirdos, and there should be room in your heart for a whole lot of both of those at $8 a pop.

No, the only problem is that there are still so many arcade games out there, ones that haven’t seen a re-release through Arcade Archives, or maybe anywhere at all, since their initial launch in arcades in the ‘80s or ‘90s. So, let’s do what we always do in this situation: make a list. How about 13 arcade games that fit Arcade Archives’ usual modus operandi, i.e., their usual early ‘80s through mid ‘90s time period. And we’ll avoid games that are available in a relatively inexpensive form on modern platforms, as well, such as through Capcom Arcade Stadium.

The Outfoxies

Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
1995

The Outfoxies is maybe just out of the non-Neo Geo Arcade Archives’ purview, as it released in 1995, but it’s also something we should all be clamoring for regardless. It’s an arena fighter that predates Super Smash Bros. and Power Stone, and has probably received more attention in the years since it left arcades than when it was actually in them. That’s because it’s very likely that The Outfoxies influenced the likes of Smash Bros., given it’s 1. an arena fighter where 2. people pick up items and weapons and 3. battle in and on wild environmental locations like a cargo plane in mid-flight. While 3D fighters were becoming the thing by The Outfoxies’ release, we know better now. We don’t have to choose, as there’s room in our hearts once again for 2D fighters, especially ones as odd as this one.

Atomic Runner Chelnov

Developer: Data East
Publisher: Data East
1988

Sure, the definitive edition of Chelnov might actually be its Sega Genesis port with revamped graphics and some tweaked gameplay, but it’s not like that’s available anywhere these days, either, besides the Sega Genesis Mini 2 that you have to import from Japan. Hamster should secure the rights to a standalone arcade release to this pseudo runner-style, forced-scrolling platformer where you’re basically always moving forward, trying not to get swarmed by enemies or crushed by a wall in the process. And hey, we’re decades past its initial controversy, where Data East, for some reason, decided to try to capitalize on the name recognition of the Chernobyl incident with a parody, of sorts, where a coal miner survives the explosion of a nuclear power plant and then gains superpowers from the event.

Night Striker

Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
1989

For whatever reason, Night Striker hasn’t been released on Arcade Archives, nor has its Saturn edition received an S-Tribute re-release like a number of other arcade ports to that platform have in the present. It’s a shame, too, because Night Striker is, in short, Taito’s fantastic impression of a Sega super-scaler game, a la Space Harrier. Think pseudo 3D from the ’80s, with sprite scaling and the appearance of flying into the background to create the illusion of a 3D space. Unlike with Sega’s classic, Night Striker has branching pathways after levels in the vein of another arcade series of theirs, Darius. There are 21 stages in total, and while backgrounds are reused regularly, enemy attack patterns and waves aren’t, and the difficulty escalates in a noticeable way as you make your way through the six you’re required to play to complete a run. You could play the inferior Sega CD release on the Genesis Mini 2, sure, or buy an Egret II Mini and one of its expansion cards to get ahold of Night Striker, or we could let Taito and Hamster know they forgot a platform everyone already owns.

Raiden II

Developer: Seibu Kahaitsu
Publisher: Fabtek
1993/1994

The original Raiden is a classic, and has been available on Arcade Archives for over three years now. Its sequel is nowhere to be found, however, which would stick out anyway to anyone who knows it exists, but the whole situation is made much worse given that remasters of Raiden III and Raiden IV are both sitting there on modern platforms where Arcade Archives titles are available, as is Raiden V. Raiden II made it onto the PlayStation in 1995 as part of the compilation The Raiden Project, and in 1997 in its Raiden DX form, but it hasn’t shown up anywhere since. Even stranger because Hamster re-released Raiden DX in Japan in 2000! It was, like its predecessor, a notably popular arcade game back in its day, and yet, it’s the lone mainline Raiden that’s been left in the past.

The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy

Developer: Data East
Publisher: Data East
1990

An important thing to know about Data East is that they would make a licensed game when the opportunity presented itself, like it did with their series of Robocop titles, but sometimes they’d also just go the “similar to but legally distinct from” route. For instance, Edward Randy definitely isn’t Indiana Jones. Just because he fights soldiers who are a lot like Nazis, and does so in the 1930s, and wears a brown leather jacket while wielding a whip as a weapon, doesn’t mean he’s Indy. Edward Randy doesn’t even have a hat on! Checkmate, lawyers. The game does wear its influences on its sleeve—we see you, too, Lupin— but it all adds up to a fun arcade action game where you can even play co-op. Since Edward Randy wasn’t part of the Johnny Turbo slate of Data East arcade re-releases, we’ll just have to hope this is one of their titles that makes its way to Arcade Archives, like a few others from their library have already.

Rally Bike

Developer: Toaplan
Publisher: Taito
1988

We’ll eventually see Rally Bike receive a re-release as downloadable content for one of M2’s Toaplan Arcade Garage compilations—the main games are always shoot ‘em ups, but other Toaplan titles end up packaged alongside those for a fun bonus. It should get a standalone release as well, though, with online leaderboards, and Arcade Archives could make that happen. This is a top down bike racing game that actually plays similarly, design-wise, to Toaplan’s shooters. In the sense that it’s very much a memorizer, anyway: you need to remember where the obstacles are, where the power-ups and shortcuts and hidden paths and opposing bikes are, and you need to do something positive with all of that information you’ve stored up in your head to finish with the best time you can and continue to advance. This game gets tough, but it’s worth the effort, especially in its arcade form.

Klax

Developer: Atari Games
Publisher: Atari Games
1990

It might not be the ’90s anymore, but there’s still time for Klax. This falling block puzzle game was ported to basically every platform out there in its day—no, really, it landed in arcades and then ended up on another 25 platforms in the next decade or so—but has had very little in the way of re-releases since. The last places it’s shown up since are Midway Arcade Treasures, which came out during the PlayStation 2 era, and as one of the arcade cabinets inside of Lego Dimensions. Even that was nine years ago now.

Klax requires much different skills than a Tetris or Puyo Puyo or Columns, as the playing area is intentionally very small, and difficult decisions must be made not just inside that area, but also in terms of which pieces you want to be landing first—there’s a high level of piece manipulation here, and of building out significant combos in different directions, in order to score maximum points. It’s a classic, and deserves another standalone release.

Parodius Da, Gokujou Parodius, Sexy Parodius

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
1990, 1994, 1997

Asking for a 1997 release is definitely pushing beyond what Arcade Archives does, but Parodius Da and Gokujou Parodius both fall within the parameters, so why not shoot for all three? The Parodius games are Konami’s parodies of their own Gradius series, only completely off the wall and featuring lots of penguins and flying pigs and lots and lots of arrangements of classical music made to fit hectic horizontal shoot ‘em up gameplay. They’re bright, colorful, a true spectacle to behold, and, oh yeah, lots of fun. While the original game was released for the MSX, most of its sequels landed in arcades first, and were ported to home consoles later. These three titles are the arcade ones, and each is worth spending $8, if given the opportunity. Konami isn’t great about re-releases sometimes, but they’ve got quite the collection going on Arcade Archives, so maybe this is the one route we’ve got in North America to get our hands on this trio.

Pu-Li-Ru-La

Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
1991

Pu-Li-Ru-La is known—well, among those who know it outside of Japan—for its tremendous visuals. It’s a beat ‘em up, but it doesn’t look like any other beat ‘em up you’ve ever played. While it is available in some forms if you know where to look—the Egret II Mini once again comes up—there hasn’t been an English-language release since its original arcade one, which is a problem since a significant part of the joy of playing Pu-Li-Ru-La comes not just from how it looks, but how generally goofy and weird it is. The gameplay itself is just alright, but in conjunction with its obvious personality, well, there are far less interesting games available on Arcade Archives right now, that’s for sure.

RoadBlasters

Developer: Atari Games
Publisher: Atari Games
1987

RoadBlasters is another title from Atari Games that showed up everywhere for a few years, and then mostly vanished outside of Midway Arcade Treasures and Lego Dimensions. If Warner Bros. Games wants to license this and other games out to Hamster for Arcade Archive re-releases, well, we’d all be better off for that. It’s either that or they pretty much rot with a publisher who isn’t doing anything with them besides allowing them to be bonus titles in a game from 2015.

RoadBlasters plays simple, but it’s a good time. You try not to crash, you try to shoot literally everything in your path, and you try not to run out of gas before reaching the finish line. Avoid mines, avoid crashing, avoid anything that feels like it’d be a good idea to avoid, and make your way through 50 stages of vehicular chaos. Simple, yes, but it’s got that arcade feedback loop that keeps you wanting to toss quarters in. And if it were available on Arcade Archives, you wouldn’t even have to do that much to keep playing.

Boogie Wings

Developer: Data East
Publisher: Data East
1992

Boogie Wings is absolutely ridiculous. It’s an STG where you fly a biplane armed with a grappling hook that can be used like a wrecking ball, or carry a mine around to blow enemies up with it, or pick up, well, anything that’s not nailed down with it. Until your biplane gets shot down, anyway, in which case Boogie Wings turns into a run-and-gun, with your pilot running and shooting on the ground until he can get himself into a vehicle, any vehicle, or sometimes even a pogo stick if that’s all that’s available, to keep the fight going. It is absolutely bananas even for a Data East game, which is saying something if you’re familiar with their catalog at all. Sometimes, the endless array of stuff they threw at the wall didn’t all form together into something brilliant, but with Boogie Wings, brilliance is basically all that you get.

It’s never received a home release to any platform, or as part of any collection—not Data East Arcade Classics on Wii, not as part of Johnny Turbo’s series of re-releases, nothing. Hamster, you could change that. You could give the people Boogie Wings—they don’t know they want it yet, but give them a trailer and some word-of-mouth for an Arcade Archives release, and that’ll do the trick.

Marc Normandin covers retro videogames at Retro XP, which you can read for free but support through his Patreon, and can be found on Twitter at @Marc_Normandin.