Bump ‘n Jump this week!
Only ever played an unnamed clone of this before.
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I’ve only played the NES version - I still have it complete in box. I may check this one out.
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It’s maddeningly addictive, spent a good couple of hours trying to get a decent score on Caravan Mode last night, this game is such a great fit for that since you’re unlikely to survive more than five minutes anyway!
…or at least I still can’t.
I spent a few hours last week aiming for a good score in caravan mode and the best I could get - ramming as many cars as possible and clearing three courses in the five minutes - was below 50,000 points, nowhere near the other hgh scores!
So I had to do some reading about the game, and what I did discover changes the entire game - you get 50k points per stage just for clearing a level without destroying any other vehicles.
Gave this new approach a go, and immediately tripled my high score, now I’m ranked in the top five worldwide. Crazy!
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Zero Team released today. It’s a particularly notable release because while the export releases (which have worse audio and messed-up stage order) are emulated, MAME has yet to manage to crack the protection of the ‘‘main version’’.
Having never played it before, I’m surprised by how incredibly good game it is. creative and slick boss battles and some of the best stage/weapons interactivity in the genre.
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Yeah, this was on my radar. If I wasn’t buried in PS5 at the moment, I’d snag that right now. I haven’t had the Switch out much lately. I need to rectify that.
Didn’t realise Hamster was releasing this! As with @DaveLong I’m buried in new games (no new console alas!) at the moment, so I’ve stuck it on the eShop wishlist, thanks for the heads-up!
As we all know by now, Gradius III came out in the past week to celebrate 200 releases.
And it’s a good one, perhaps the best scanlines I’ve seen out of Arcade Archives including the games where they’ve changed to using the Vulkan graphics API, really good (I have it set to B3 or B4). And the extra options and settings are really appreciated with a game like this where being able to practice quickly is key.
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I think there was even a controller accessory for the Famicom Port, it holds the player 1 and player 2 controllers together and you use both D-pads.
Thanks for the heads-up, this makes me want to get a Famicom even more now!
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Quarth and Hayley’s Comet are two recent releases. I’m absolutely rubbish at Quarth, even after an hour’s practice it feels like I never really improved. Is Heyley’s Comet worth checking out?
In other AA happenings, I hadn’t realised Irem’s Ninja Spirit saw a release in 2019, grabbed that immediately. Only got to stage 3 so far before switching to the PC Engine release, which is astonishingly faithful. I thought the PC Engine difficulty would be a cop-out but it’s very well balanced, with more threatening enemies still knocking you out in one hit.
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Out this week is THE ASTYANAX from Jaleco, directed by Tokuhiro Takemori who was game designer on The Legendary Axe for TG16/PC Engine, aka Ankoku Densetsu in Japan.
I’m tempted because I love Ankoku Densetsu.
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I didn’t realise we had an ACA thread…
Well, it seems the run has finally ended on Switch and PS4, with the exception of the odd 2D title. It’s difficult to see what Hamster could still port, but Taito F3 is the only board that would make me look twice at this stage.
It’s interesting that Hamster launched ACA2 Neo Geo and Console Archives exclusively on newer hardware but maintained all other releases on Switch/PS4 for over a year. I’m grateful for this, because it means Ridge Racer and Rave Racer made it to the older hardware. I noticed the latter doesn’t have a scanline option on Switch (and probably PS4 too). Still, it plays well.
I actually picked up a Switch Lite purely for ACA, other arcade ports, and a few more games that play better with a d-pad. I have sixty games on there, and they fit comfortably on the 32 GB system memory!
My ACA recommendations are:
- Bubble Bobble
- Donkey Kong
- Xexex
- Macross II
- Tetris TGM2
- Ridge Racer
Anyway, I would like to thank Hamster for porting in excess of five hundred games to a high standard – absolute legends.
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I do not recommend Rod-Land. At least on Switch 2 there’s a ton of slowdown and many missing sfx.