Topic: The Switch Arcade Community Thread

@Lroy Yup! Nano Assault 3DS and Nano Assault Neo on Wii U. Both are fantastic twin-stick shooters. I played both of those so much. I loved doing top score runs on each game and made it within the top 10 on both platforms. In fact, I'm pretty sure I made top 3 and even took first place on a few stages. But yeah, Nanostray 1 and 2 were created by the same developer, Shin'en, who also makes FAST Racing - FAST RMX on Switch.

They really need to remake Nanostray for Switch. That would be so awesome. love

@meppi64 I totally understand as I grew up reading Nintendo Power, the Official Dreamcast Magazine, and the Official Xbox Magazine. I actually still have an unopened edition of one of the last Dreamcast magazines and kept all my demo discs from years worth of Xbox magazines. I don't have anything remaining from my Nintendo Power days, although I think I have a VHS or two around from when they sent advertisements that way. Man, those were the days! lol.

Ha! Awesome! I'm glad I could return the favor by making you interested in purchasing a game.
I actually haven't played the original Sega Rally. I've enjoyed the others though on Dreamcast, PSP, and XBLA. I know I'm going to own a Saturn again some day soon here...lol. But yeah, everything Mizoguchi has done is absolutely stellar. I need to meet him one of these days and have him sign a copy of Rez.

WaveRave 64 and Cruis'n USA kept me busy for a long time on the Nintendo 64. Such good times with both of those games. I've played some of the Wipeout series and enjoy it, but I never got totally sucked into it. I actually just mentioned it above, but I really love the FAST series on Wii, Wii U, and Switch. I also recently got addicted to Redout and can't wait for it to release on Switch as well.

Anyway, yes, I agree. I look forward to relaxing again with Lumines on the Switch. heart

@Lroy Bad Dudes, 3rd time lucky surely. I'd have to laugh if it got removed again though.

@OorWullie Clearly, it's the curse of Karnov! 😉

Anyone here in the know in regards finding arcade locations out in the wild?

Going on a family break to Devon this summer and was hoping to track down a place with arcade games. Not those bloody gambling machines or modern ticket machines. Actual arcade cabinets.

I've heard there are still places throughout the country in which you can ignite the nostalgia and play like it's the late 80s and early 90s again ☺️

@CaffeinatedGamer Oh you really need to play Sega Rally!
Sure, these days it looks a little dated compared to things like Forza Horizon and Driveclub, but it has a certain purity to it that I never came across quite like it in all the years since.
It will take quite a bit of time and effort to get the hang of.
Well, if you're anything like me that is.
I've told this a couple of times now, but the day I came home with my Saturn and Sega Rally, I just couldn't figure out how to actually drive in this game.
It looked more like a pinball game than a racing game the way I was bouncing from one side to the track to the next and bad again.
Coupled with the other game I got, Fighters Megamix, which was my first Virtua Fighter game, I thought I had made a huge mistake buying the system as these games just didn't play right at all!
But that turned out to be just me. Perhaps I must have gotten used to the instant gratification in games such as Ridge Racer and Tekken which were certainly a lot easier to get into.

But once Sega Rally finally started to click, it was heavenly.
One of the few games I always play with the behind the car view for some reason. and I always pick the Toyota Celica. Done so for 20 years now.
Even though it has digital controls, it somehow feels a lot more like a racing game than many others out there.
I don't know how to explain it really. Even though there's no rumble or anything, you can basically feel what kind of underground you're racing one and if you're understeering or oversteering. Very weird, but it works absolutely perfect.
One of the most rewarding things is pulling a perfect hairpin turn. Just letting go of the gas, not even tapping the brake, even though you can do that as well, and just bank your car into the turn, floor the gas and sry and control it perfectly around the bend.

I bought every single Sega Rally game they put out after that, and not a single one of them has come anywhere near close for me. Which is kinda depressing to be honest.

@meppi64 And my watch list continues to grow...haha. I also asked a friend about his Saturn because I know he doesn't play it anymore. Hoping he just sells it to me and then I can pick up a few games off eBay. Also, I'm not so worried about the dated visuals. While yes, Forza and DriveClub look absolutely stunning, I'm able to look past that and enjoy great gameplay.
Actually, I was just recently spending a lot of time playing MSR on the Dreamcast. I've been encouraging an old colleague of mine to compete in lap times. I absolutely love that game. It's so solid, even though on a few occasions I found myself turning far too early and into the railing because I couldn't quite make out the corner. That's the only problem with the visuals back then lol.

But yeah, your experience with Sega Rally on the Saturn sounds like my recent experience with Sega Rally 2. But I'll definitely make sure to give it the required time to get a handle on the gameplay. That sounds absolutely perfect though. I love hearing stories like that for racing games and how rewarding they really can be once you get the handling down perfectly.

I'm anxious to play it now, because like I said I loved the PSP and XBLA versions. I struggled with the Dreamcast one though.

Punch Out is good fun. Picked it up when I saw it in eshop Friday morning. I will always remember getting annoyed by Bald Bull in the arcade! Waiting for Dragon's Blaze and Ninja Kid this week!

Oh Sega rally Revo was really fun.
I played a ton of Sega Rally 2 when the Dreamcast launched and it's a fine racing game, but yet it's nowhere near my top 10 racing games. A real shame.

A Sega Saturn is always worth picking up for someone who loves arcade style games.
So many classics on the system and very easy to play import games as well. Just grab an Action Replay 4-in-1 type card and you're ready to go.
Just be sure that if you ever pick up Soukyugurentai from Japan that you go for the SetaKore rerelease. The one with the white border around the artwork. Because for some reason the original release has some graphical glitches when not played on a Japanese Saturn. It's more or less just the text that flashes on the screen before boss battles and such, but still.
The re-release plays perfectly fine with an action replay or similar card.

Sadly, like pretty much any retro system, certain releases have gone way up in price.
But there is quite a collection of very cheap to very reasonably priced games that are must haves.
And since a lot of the games are arcade style games, it's easy to pick up the Japanese releases which are even cheaper most of the time.

I'm lucky in the way that I can still fire up a Saturn or PSone and be impressed of what some developers were able to do with the machine. It's all about looking at the games and systems in context of the era, which many can't seem to do these days.
Heck, NES games still impress me from time to time.

I loved Metropolis Street Racer. Played it months on end. I just loved cruising around on the Japanese night courses listening to that soundtrack. Still have the MSR soundtrack on my iPod and mac actually.

And since you reminded me of Bizarre Creations, I thought about how I never picked up Forza Horizon 2 for the 360.
I don't have an Xbox One and don't plan on getting one any time soon to be honest. So I just ordered a mint copy locally for 14€. Seems like it didn't get a big print run on 360 looking at the average second hand prices. Got it really cheap.
My favourite racing games on 360 were without a doubt PGR3 and 4. Those were simply perfect.
I'm still angry about what happened to Bizarre.

Speaking of great racing games. One that never seems to get any recognition at all, but is in fact one of the most fun arcade style racers on the PS2 is Shox.
It's basically what Sega Rally would be if you went over the top and threw away any ideas of realism and just went crazy. A bit like how SSX compares to Steep Slope Sliders, although SSS isn't exactly a realistic snowboard game to begin with. lol Great Saturn game. hint, hint.

Does anyone fancy peering into their crystal ball and telling me whether they think PAC-MAN CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION 2 PLUS for Switch will get a sale price any time in the next 6 months or so? I quite fancy picking it up but feel it is a little too pricey currently at £17. If it came with the original PAC-MAN CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION or DX or whatever that one was called. I think I would have bought it already. I'm just a little unsure as I've heard this one plays quite differently?

I know patience paid off handsomely for me with NAMCO MUSEUM as I managed to get that for half-price in a sale.

I cracked and opened my wallet again. Bought the recent releases of SENGOKU 3, PUNCH-OUT! And TENGAI aka SENGOKU BLADE. Really impressed with all of them, especially the latter. Switch Arcade library just keeps getting better and better. Can't wait for Thursday and yet more arcade arrivals.

DRAGON BLAZE promises to be a pretty notable release next week. Much loved by our knowledgable resident @Meppi64

Here's a measured but still positive review to wet the appetite: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/dragon-blaze/

@Lroy Nice one, knew you couldn't resist them for too long.

Yep, Tengai is a really impressive shoot-em-up . I didn't really know anything about it until recently and I only watched about a minute or so of gameplay before buying it. I expected it to be good and knew that I'd like but I was pleasantly surprised to see just how good it is.. As soon as the opening level and music started I knew I was playing something special.

Sengoku 3 I wasn't too impressed with after my first shot. It looks and sounds great, but I knew that already. It's the lack of variety in enemies that left a bad initial impression. Gameplay wise it just felt similar to lots of other beat-em-ups out there, since I stupidly didn't read the manual before playing I was left wondering why it is so highly regarded. Then I did read the manual and checked some more info on it online and realised I was playing it very wrong. Now that I know what I'm doing, how to string combos together and rack up the points, I absolutely love it .with the large selection of moves and how they're executed, it kind of plays like a 1v1 fighter. I'm not sure I've ever played a beat-em-up with that kind of depth and control . It's a real top drawer beat-em-up and certainly one of the Neo Geo greats.

@meppi64 I actually had a Saturn for a brief period of time but forgot what I did with it....that's bad lol. Unfortunately, I had the need to trade stuff in to get new games. So that's probably what happened.

Thankfully I grew out of that but not before losing a lot of my collection. But yeah, a friend said he's going to sell me his Saturn and then I'll start grabbing games off of eBay. Bring on the arcade greatness! Also, I remember someone mentioning to me that I should get Soukyugurentai, so I'll definitely look into that one more as well.

Honestly, I had my moments when I became a bit of a graphics guy and couldn't appreciate some of the older games. However, I am able to look beyond that again and appreciate what they did and how they play more than anything. That's what's important. Anyway, I can't wait to start building a Saturn collection.

Yay! Glad to hear you're such a big fan of MSR as well. Everything about it was absolutely perfect. And again, it still holds up so well today in terms of gameplay. I love it so much. Also, if you're interested in doing some lap times, let me know! Also, the Project Gotham series continued its greatness on Xbox, as I had so many awesome experiences with that series, especially online with friends.

Do you have a capable PC for gaming? I would suggest grabbing Forza Horizon 3 and the Hot Wheels DLC at some point. It's soo good! Even the Blizzard Mountain DLC is a lot of fun. For me, FH2 was missing a little something, not that it wasn't a great game, it just wasn't the same as the original. But then FH3 returned to form and probably became one of the best racing games ever, especially with the quality DLC packs.

I never heard of Shox, but I never really got into PlayStation consoles until the PS3, and even then I never really cared much for it. Even the PS4 I don't really like all that much, but I did get my first Platinum ever by completing DriveClub.

I'm actually a far bigger fan of the PSP and Vita than any of the consoles.

I set up my 360 and Wii U tonight which unfortunately both recently got brushed aside. I think I'll have some XBLA fun this week and return to PGR 3 since you brought it up. Haha. It's so easy to get me to play anything, especially older games that I've had fun with in the past. As for the Wii U, I want to actually grab a couple games on the virtual console. F-Zero 64 and the F-Zero games on the GBA. But then I also saw Ghost Blade HD released on it as well? Did you enjoy this one?

Anyway, I should stop typing now...

Is it just me or are the Japanese versions of the Arcade Archive versions of the games slightly more difficult than the European ones?

Take Magical Drop 3 for example, on the European language version I can consistently get to Black Pierrot on one credit. On the Japanese version, which is the original version of MG3 (the European one has some features removed), I usually get beat by Father Strength.

@CaffeinatedGamer Looking forward to seeing your impressions as you discover some of the treasures released on the system.

I'd say, have a look at the Saturn review section of my site, as well as the features section as there are several Japan only games there that never got a review.
But the best you could do is download a bunch of OSSM, CVG and MAXIMUM issues.
If I'm not mistaken the download limit on file factory resets at the start of each month.
I get 1TB of data of super fast downloads without any throttling, so when I found out, I immediately activated that so that people are able to grab magazines easier.
After that 1TB is used up, it reverts back to their normal system where they limit your downloads and try to sell you a premium membership, but I wouldn't do that if I were you. It's not worth it really, unless you're really impatient.
But in that case it's probably better to wait till the beginning of the month and then download a ton of issues one after the other.

One thing that disappointed me about MSR is how it never got a Japanese release for some reason.
Due to the Dreamcast being one of the last systems that had to deal with 50Hz over here (thankfully quite a bit of games supported 60Hz as well), I got a Japanese Dreamcast as well later on and started buying most of my games again in their Japanese form.
Really would have loved a Japanese MSR, although the game was perfectly optimised for PAL regions.

Sadly, I don't have a PC at all. Never been a PC gamer, besides spending about 6 years playing Half-Life 1 deathmatch from when it came out. That's the only PC game I ever really played so much.
I have a first gen retina MacBook pro from 2012, so I doubt it can run anything these days.
FH3 is one of the few games that makes me wish I did have an XBone, but then again after what MS did at the beginning of the generation and how they ended the last one with so little support, I kinda don't want to buy their stuff anymore.
I'll never say never though, as in the end, the games always win out.
It's just that for me at this point, on that side of the fence, there's very little to even tempt me and when it comes to Nintendo, I can't even keep up with everything that's already out, not to speak about the upcoming months. lol

I got the physical version of Ghost Blade on PS4 and downloaded the Wii U version as well, but haven't got around to playing it yet. I've got a massive backlog, which is growing by the week it feels like.

I personally go back and forth on Playstation systems.
Loved my PSone at first, then all it seemed to get were those "brown-poly" games. So I got a Saturn with their blue skies games and tons and tons of colour. Felt like the games were actually games again.
Held of on the PS2 since I had way too much to play on DC and caved one Sega put VF4 on there.
Bought a Japanese PSP soon after launch since we didn't get a launch date for quite a while.
Absolutely loved Lumines and Ridge Racer, then WipEout Pure. After that I got a Japanese DS at launch and nearly forgot the PSP even existed as the flood of games on the DS overwhelmed me.
Waited a long time to get a PS3 till I couldn't keep saying no to WipEout HD and Lumines anymore.
Really loved the system till I got my 360, purely for Japanese Cave shoot em ups.
It never even crossed my mind that I might end up loving the 360 much much more than my PS3, yet it somehow happened. XBLA was brilliant and the system had so many fun exclusives at that time.

I was ready to be on board with the XBone on day one even though support for the 360 was flaky at best the last year or 2, but then "that" E3 happened.
MS lost me right then and there with what they were planning and I was ready to go Nintendo/retro only if Sony followed the same path.
They didn't, so I jumped into their open arms. The first year was really weak. The second was a bit better and finally by the third year they started getting the kind of games I normally buy systems for.
Got a Vita basically for WipEout on the cheap since they couldn't sell it to anyone over here.
Such a let down, 30fps with tons of drops, way too much chaos so much so that you couldn't see what was going on a lot of the time. Luckily I got Killzone with it along with a couple of other games. Loved Tearaway and Gravity Rush for example. I'm still buying games for my Vita.
This year alone my physical pickups are these: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
Steamworld Dig
Steamworld Heist
The Count Lucanor
Axiom Verge: Multiverse Edtion
Windjammers
The Bit.Trip
One More Dungeon Limited Edition
Volume
SkullGirls 2nd Encore
And I got Super Robot Taisen X (English version) preordered at play-asia and Sky Force Anniversary and Croixleur Sigma on the way from Limited Run Games.

Actually after getting so much into the Vita, I went back to my PSP and started buying a ton of games for it that I had missed earlier on. I can't believe it ended up with such a great catalogue of games.

But Sony always seems to go through fazes where they put on their best face, promise the world and for a while actually seem to deliver. Then they get popular and start resting on their laurels and making stupid and even malicious decisions.
Closing down Psygnosis, Evolution and Studio Cambridge for example. Not to mention dropping the Vita like they did.
If Nintendo can support the flop that was Wii U till the very last day with top content, Sony should be able to do so. But they just don't care. Everything is just PR speak and if it happens to bury a competitor in the process, so much the better. I wouldn't be surprised if they messed up the PS5 in a big way since they seem to think nothing can touch them again. :-/
Oh well. I should be accustomed to that song and dance after 23 years.

I really like FAST and have bought every version on Wii, Wii U and Switch now, but someone the one thing that puts me off a bit are the controls. And that might just be me trying to play it in the same way as F-Zero or WipEout, I just don't know.
I find them really strange and not that responsive for some reason, although different ships tend to alleviate this a little.
Love F-Zero though. Especially the original and X. GX was terrific as well, but it wasn't the OMG, best racer ever! for me like a lot of people tend to mention. Which is so weird as I'm a huge Sega fan.
the GBA games are tons of fun as well. They play a bit different from the SNES one, but still retain much of what made that one great. Really miss the series.

And yeah, I'm getting the itch to fire up PGR3 or 4 now as well....haha

@wasilewski
I really don't know. Although there are changes between Japanese and western versions when it comes to story and certain scenes being cut and such, so it wouldn't surprise me if they adjusted other things as well.
I always tend to play the Japanese versions since I try to play the games in their original form as much as possible. Might have to check that out.
All I know is that Japanese Joy Joy Kid/Puzzled is damn hard.

@meppi64 definitely check it out with any ACA game and let me know what you think. It could be psychological - I'm imagining the Japanese version is harder and therefore not playing as well.

@monkeyspasm Only just gotten around to watching that 2nd video of your games room. That vertical TV set-up looks the nuts! Man, I'd love to spend a good few hours playing on those cabinets and the pinball.

Would love to hear more about how you got started and put all these pieces together. My dream would be to just have a MAME cabinet set-up let alone all the stuff you've got 👍

@Lroy That's very kind of you, cheers!

There isn't much to tell, in truth. I'm very lazy and just bought the MAME cab and pinball, although I've added new sticks, buttons and lexan overlay to the arcade cab, and upgraded the graphics card in the pinball cab. I've spent endless hours tinkering with both to optimise them in terms of performance. The MAME cab only runs MAME .104 or something like that (before they changed the sound engine from samples, which increased PC spec requirements) - so it's a really old PC inside. But I love it, it works perfectly. The pincab is only an i3, and GTX 670, which is minimal for the latest pinball software. But I have got superb performance out of it after many hours of tinkering - that's half the fun

I know people with 100s of real cabs, so my setup is very modest! I'm lucky enough to live 5 minutes from Arcade Club in Bury, which is just amazing. 2 floors (soon to be 3) with over 300 cabs. It's incredible and I highly recommend a visit to anyone even remotely interested in gaming. The owner Andy is a lovely fella too.

One of the reasons I love this forum already is that there are forums around where people would scoff at my setup - for them it's real machine or nothing. You wouldn't believe some of the comments I've seen. But for me, I just care about the games - if it plays well, it's perfect as far as I'm concerned. I had an original Phoenix cocktail cab (I love that game!), and I spent more time trying to fix it than playing on it, so I sold it. With emulation, I can fix a PC. It's just getting someone else to do the hard work in the first place as I suck at woodwork!

I started in about 2004 by buying a NARC cab that had been converted to MAME on eBay. When I moved in with my wife, it was huge so left it with my housemate, who still has it. But I had the bug and we got a slimmer cab that has an LCD rather than a CRT - again, sacrilege to purists, but I don't care. We've had many hours of fun with it, I have scanlines etc setup and it looks great to my eyes.

I love the pinball cab. Visual Pinball X is amazing now. When I got the cab is was VP9, version 10 has added much more realistic physics and lighting, and a proper 3d engine, but needs more grunt. The games feel real now. It's fiddly to set up but the work the VP creators and table authors do is amazing. Having said that, I still love Pinball Arcade. The physics aren't as realistic but it's really fun. Again, most VP fans won't touch Pinball Arcade. I just love games.

I also have a touchscreen jukebox / quiz machine that is again all emulation - it runs on Windows XP!

I'd be happy playing MAME on a tiny laptop if that's all I had. The Switch is my favourite system. I spent all afternoon yesterday playing Moon Patrol to get on the hiscore table - who thought we'd all be doing that in 2018?! Brilliant stuff.

Another example of my laziness - when I bought the pinball cab, you had to add code to each table's Visual Basic script to get the LEDs around the screen to flash at certain points. That quickly became tiresome as tables get updated regularly (there is a way around it, but I won't bore you with it). So now, I use cheap sound-activated LEDs, which I added under the cab, alongside a sound-activated Pac Man ghost that a friend gave me for Christmas. Pretty much the same experience with no effort at all! Others use all kinds of wizardry - exciters and car amplifiers under the playfield, for surround sound feedback so that you can 'feel' the ball and exactly where it hits on the table - I don't have that, but it's inexpensive so I may implement it. It's crazy how far virtual pinball has progressed in the last 2 years alone.

As I say, I have taken many shortcuts, there are wires that aren't hidden everywhere, it's haphazard in places but I love it, I think it adds to the 'old arcade' feel Thank you for taking an interest.

Also, hopefully we can get Cave shooters like Dodonpachi, that would be awesome!

But the arcade shooter I REALLY want to see on Switch is Cyvern, I have no idea what happened to Kaneko:

@monkeyspasm Thanks for such a candid response and I will definitely make plans to visit Arcade Club. I'm more than a few hrs drive away so might even do an overnight stay, Switch and arcade high-score challenges were made for such forays enroute 👍

Love the look of that dragon shooter you linked to. Will have to see if my RetroPie set-up has that one. So much on there I forgot what is installed, lol!