I must confess I was immediately confused when I first saw the Namko Museum Archive, Volume 1 , coming to Nintendo headquarters. Didn’t I take another look at this game a few years ago? Doesn’t seem real. This game was simply called Namco Museum and contained a collection of classic arcade games. This version is a collection of ten classic NES games, most of which originally appeared in the Arcade. So there is some consistency in the games, but I’d say it’s a much better collection because there are some mandatory games and because these console games are better suited to a board game than the Caucasian quarter version with a hard mechanism.
As always in these kinds of collections, it’s a question of whether or not you’re interested in the games they contain. If you are a child of the 80’s or if you like classic arcade games, the Namko Museum Archive, part 1, is probably worth buying. This allows you to choose from eleven games, and the price is only $ 19.99, or less than $ 2 per game (a deviation from the old virtual console price standard of $ 5 for each version of the NES). It’s even better if you think you have two really great games that you probably can’t get anywhere else: Notepad: Wanpaku Graffiti and 8-bit demo version Pac-Man Championship Edition. I bet this collection is just for these two games, the rest is just gravy.
So let’s start with my favorite game in the collection: Pac-Man Championship Edition. You may have lost it with the Xbox 360 Arcade in all its neon glory. The developers have redesigned this experience as an 8-bit NES game, and it works surprisingly well. The game is played just like a normal Pac-Man game, except that madness is set to 11. You walk through a maze as usual and eat pellets, trying to avoid the ghosts while taking care of the corners. When you have eaten enough points, fruits appear, and when you devour them, other points and, more importantly, power balls appear, which you can throw at the spirits you have observed. This game is all about points and attack time. So you want to use your time to run and eat, just what it takes to eat the four ghosts and score those precious points.
If you continue to eat whatever you notice, the game starts to get bigger. Before you know it, you are dragged into a good life and make immediate decisions to prevent death. The screen is always filled with the exciting walls of a maze, and every time you inhale a piece of fruit, the screen lights up as more dots appear around you and you can eat a buffet of delicious pixels. The more fruit you eat, the more points you get for each point you eat, and you can chain the energy grains together to make the blue ghosts run around the screen, so you can get the scoreboard up like never before. All this is accompanied by an energetic soundtrack, which becomes even more energetic when the five-minute timer counts down the time. When the clock stops for about a minute, everything goes so fast that it’s better not to blink, otherwise the game may be over. The adrenaline rush you get in this game is like one of the last in Tetris 99. If your heart rate hasn’t risen and you’re not sweating, you might be a good candidate for a very stressful job! Seriously, it’s an exceptional piece of software in this collection and I always come back to it. Maybe the only drawback is that there are no online leaders to challenge your friends.
Another unique name in this package is Splatterhouse:. Wanpaku-Graffiti, a game that has never been released before in the United States. Originally a Famicom game in Japan, this is a more child-friendly version of the Arcade and TurboGrafx-16 Splatterhouse game. They’re playing like Jason again, with a hockey mask and an axe. In this side-scrolling action game you have to jump over dangers, burst and make your way through all kinds of monsters, including severed arms and zombies. The very first encounter with the boss – a vampire who comes out of the coffin and plays the game, which seems to be almost a few bars away from the Michael Jackson thriller as Fight and his zombies dance on screen. Ironically, most of the bosses I’ve met don’t allow direct damage, but you have to survive through the waves of the enemy. There are exceptions, such as the obsessed daughter of the Exorcist, where the head turns and then flies after you. A few blows to the head should help.
Although this game with its big elves, etc. is much more fun, it is not really a game for children. The complexity is about the same as the other series and at some levels more attention is paid to the platform. The graphics are quite impressive in some parts of the game, with some rolls of parallax and larger characters. An interesting game mechanic is that you start with four hit point bars and the screen has a counter that shows how many enemies you have won. When it reaches the required number (10 on the first level), you get another piece of health. So to maximize your chances of being the boss, you’ll want to kill as many bad guys as possible. You’ll also have to defend yourself against paranormal enemies, including crosses on tombstones that come alive and try to wake you up, and books that fly off the shelves and try to make you read. It’s not necessarily the best game I’ve ever played on the NES, but it’s fantastic that we’re finally seeing it on our shores and it’s worth spending time on it.
Another game that caught my attention is the Dragon Buster, another Famicom version that didn’t reach these shores. To be honest, it’s not that great, but for some reason I put a lot of time into it. Interestingly, it reminds me of something that might be a prototype of Zelda II: The adventure of communication. You have this rudimentary outside world where you can move your character to different destinations. Then the game moves on to 2D jump’n’run action, where you attack the monsters with your sword. There are several boss chambers that launch special secondary weapons for limited use that can be used against harder opponents. These little mazes have several corridors, so there’s research to be done. The main drawbacks of this game are the repetition of enemies and bosses and a small attack area, which means that you almost have to hit the enemies to get the shot. It could be something very special, but in the end it’s not sophisticated enough to be a certified success. But there’s something here that’s taken me longer than I should have, so take a look.
The rest of the collection consists mainly of standard Namco museum material, although it should be noted that most of this material is actually new to western NES owners. This is due to the fact that Namco did not publish its games on the NES in the United States until the 1990s and reserved the right to publish them to various third parties (like Taxan and Tengen). As a result, the games you’ve been waiting for before the NES didn’t come out. You will find the classic versions of the NES Galaxian (new), Pac-Man, Xevious, Dig Dug (new), The Tower of Druaga (new), Sky Kidand Dragon Spirit :. New legend. Your mileage on these games may vary depending on your homesickness. It’s remarkable that Ms. Pac-Man’s missing again. Hey, Bandai Namko, when are you gonna give her some love?
The emulation of these games was done by master developers on M2. They have a fantastic mastery of their craft and these games are exceptionally good. In the past they’ve given us really spectacular Sega-Ages gates, usually with a ton of options and improvements. Unfortunately, we have only received a small number of additions to this collection. Of course, you can save the game at any time using the memory states, and you can also go back a few seconds if you make a mistake. I have three problems with the collection, which, once solved, will bring it even closer to a must.
The first problem is the lack of adaptable controls. B and A will be the same as in the NES, and you can’t change that, which is very bad because the buttons are on the switch (the same as in the Super NES), where it is much easier to play with Y as in B and B as in A. Fact is that today and in this day and age there is no reason not to change the button.
The second problem is that there is a note at the bottom left of the screen that never disappears and displays the ZL system menu and the L rewind function. This is annoying and can cause the TV to burn out when playing for a long time. (UPDATE: Flipping through Volume 2, I discovered there’s a way to turn it off! To do this, press ZL, then go to Settings, select Background Settings, then press X (or the top action button if you are playing with a Joy-Con) and it will go on and off in the information window. Ugh, they could have made it more hidden 😉
Thirdly, I would like to see some historical content in these games. Both SNK and Konami have worked hard to add art concepts, designing documents, printing advertising, etc. to their collections and it would be great to see so much love being given here.
Despite these problems, I had a great time with Namko Museum Archive Part 1. Since there is no real virtual console service on the switch, this is the best way to get familiar with some classic NES games, and it is even better if we play games that have never been used before in this country. The bonus of recording Pac-Man Championship Edition as an 8-bit demo makes this collection a great pickup for any fan of classic 80’s arcade action.
The Namko Museum Archives Part 1 Discussion
- Graphs – 7/10
- The tone is 8/10.
- The course of the game – 8.5/10
- Late appeal – 7,5/10
8/10
Final remarks : GROSS
The Namko Museum Archive, part 1, is the best collection of the company’s switches to date. With 10 classic NES games (most of which have never been released in this country before) and a Pac-Man Championship Edition demo, there’s plenty to love!
Craig has been working in the video game industry since 1995. His works have been published on various media sites. He is currently editor-in-chief and contributes to the Games Age.
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