Hamster's Arcade Archives series has given us many coin-op classics to enjoy on Switch, and the Japanese company has just revealed that two more are heading to Nintendo's machine soon.
First up is Jaleco's 1988 action platformer Legend of Makai (Makai Densetsu in Japan), which was never ported to home systems back in the day. Players control a warrior who must rescue a princess from an evil wizard. Weapons can be purchased as you progress, and the levels are non-linear, which gives the game an RPG-like feel. You need to find keys to open certain doors, and the level must be finished within the time limit.
Next up is Konami's 1989 belt-scroller Crime Fighters, which places you in the shoes of undercover cops who are out to rescue a bevy of kidnapped women from a crime boss. The first level music is off the hook, and the ending sequence is the stuff of legend. Crime Fighters was followed by an even more impressive sequel, Vendetta / Crime Fighters 2, a few years later – hopefully we'll get that in the fullness of time, too.
[source gonintendo.com]
Comments 51
I never understood the save the DID trope. Like what is its draw? Surely it is more appealing to save the world? Why is the bad guy so obsessed with kidnapping women?
@Ryu_Niiyama because maybe women are so important for the balance of this world and in the 80s the world needed less saving
One step closer to Violent Storm!
Could they please make Nintendo's Ice Hockey or Blades of Glory? That would be great.
@Ryu_Niiyama to annoy you specifically.
@DenimDemon That still doesn’t make any sense. Why is kidnapping women a plot point? Let alone one that is such a male power fantasy? Aside from trafficking which most games won’t address.
I also hope we get Crime Fighters 2. Loved those 2 back in the day. Legends of Makai looks awesome! Never have heard of that one.
@Charco lol good to know. Still not a real answer though. But nice snark!
Also asking a question doesn’t mean one is annoyed...merely asking a question. It’s a request for insight and information.
Best get that before it's taken down!
@Ryu_Niiyama
Saving the world is too abstract. (How do you go about saving a whole world, anyway?) Saving the "woman you love" is more immediate and visceral. The power fantasy involves fulfilling male imperatives, like being protective and strong, and having women "need" you.
That's the appeal and rationale. It's a transparently problematic trope, of course.
Wow, this a a great double announcement! I had never heard of the first game until I read this article, but it looks good from that video. I know Crime Fighters very well, as I played the arcade game a lot when I was a kid and I have it on my NES Classic Edition now. I'll be adding both of these games to my Switch very soon. Hamster has done well with this one-two punch!
Crime Fighters! I vaguely remember that attract mode and fighting through the subway train car, and losing too many quarters from my allowance money to that machine at the local bowling alley. It wasn't a fair fight in the least.
I will buy this on Switch and avenge my teenage self!!!
The game is so dated now it's laughable, but that's part of the archive's appeal.
Crime Fighters is different from the dozens of run-of-the-mill beat-'em-ups. Its combat has a very different feel to it, and its weird sense of humor makes it one of a kind. This is one of the best Konami arcade games, and it's better than the Simpsons arcade game. Trust me on this one - Crime Fighters is one of the essential games in its genre!
There's something to be said for the 80s' arcade legacy landing on consoles after failing to do so back in the days when arcade ports were THE port source. Even though those machines can be emulated now, I'd much rather have them on Switch. Heck, my first Switch game was an ACA title.
@Beaucine romantic relationships aren't even a must - it's just generally easier to readily empathize with one fellow human than with an often abstract "end of the world as we know it, including the lands yet unheard of. The latter tends to release the gravity's hold on the protagonist's posterior once something like "hometown in distress" factors in - or testdrives enough of the local world-ending methods to spark some revenge.
Great. News! Crime Fighters predates GTA 3’s kicking your opponents on the ground by over a decade. Always felt grittier and more fluid than Double Dragon.
@Beaucine Thank you. Although I’d argue that rpg parties have been saving the world for decades so that doesn’t seem to be to abstract for a game plot.
@Ryu_Niiyama
Sure, but we're discussing the specific appeal of the damsel-in-distress trope, so my take hinged on that.
Obviously, "saving the world" is still a thing in fiction. But as @nhSnork suggested, even in those cases, there's often something personal that makes the drama more immediate and tangible for the protagonist (and for readers, viewers, and players). Think of Tidus's dad in FFX, Luke's Tatooine family in Star Wars, the fate of the Shire in Lord of the Rings, the initial demon attack on the village in Princess Mononoke, etc.
Nice pair of additions! I wish Hamster would clarify what the deal is with Raiden! One of my faves! Played the hell out of it on my Genesis!!
Also i Would love to see Crime City hit from Taito!!
And we’re still waiting on Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands!! 2 definitive classics for sure!!
@Ryu_Niiyama
"Save the girl" is easier to introduce in a 10-20 second cutscene and it's a believable thing for a street gang to commit (compared trying to conquer the world).
I’ll buy it! Keep feeding me arcade games!!
@Beaucine Its not THAT problematic. Probably overused... but a woman needing her life saved doesn’t mean she’s weak.
Meh, I don’t care. I just miss the days when women weren’t all battle hardened Kung Fu masters...
(It’s all where you look for your entertainment I suppose.)
@Ryu_Niiyama because he likes to torture and murder them, why else?
Yeah, why would you help a woman in the 202X's?
They can save themselves right?
Both pretty terrible as is usually the case with these choices.
@BlubberWhale
It's the overuse across centuries and different media that makes it problematic. In isolation, "saving the girl" is not a problematic motivation. It even sounds reasonable. But when it turns up over and over again in books, videogames, and movies, you start thinking it's not a coincidence.
@joey302 I think they are saving Raiden for their 150th release on Switch (currently they are on 137). Remember how they held back Sunset Riders for their 100th release?
As sick as I am of the "damsel in distress" angle, I know that these are old games and that changing them wouldn't help. I don't think I'll buy either of these games though, and I hope HAMSTER ports Violent Storm (even though it has that same damn trope), Metamorphic Force, and Mystic Warriors before they stop working with Konami. Of course I also want The Simpsons, X-Men, and the two TMNT games, although I know I know it's strictly taboo... Er, I mean that's not likely happen because of licensing issues. Then again, Ubisoft did partner with Konami to port TMNT to Xbox 360, so who knows?
I think partly why I'm excited for Crime Fighters is because it's a Konami arcade multiplayer - they were quarter destroyers but usually excellent fun to play.
X-men, TMNT, TMNT2, and Simpsons may be too much to hope for, but how about Dark Adventure? It was a top-down 3-player game I remember, similar to Gauntlet where an Indiana Jones guy with a whip, a lady with a sword, and a gent with a feathered spear ran around lava fields and took out hordes of minotaurs and other monsters.
How I would love to revisit that game!
@Ryu_Niiyama I guess it was the classic "find your life partner" thing going on back in the 80's and if someone takes away your gurl you GO MAD BRO!
@DrDaisy To be honest in that era (and sometimes even today) you just need a cheap way to get the anyways lackluster story going. You don't play these games for the story anyways, you play them to smash in some faces and back in the arcades a long winding story that (by todays standards) would engange most people without upsetting anyone (lol) wouldn't have been so popular.
Who was the demographic back then in the arcades mostly? Teenage and early 20's boys and guys. Most of them dreaming of girlfriends. It was relatable that if someone took your girl once you finally had one, you'd go nuclear.
Today we are overthinking and overrating tropes of the past. So what. People (not meaning you personally) obsess over the changing and rating the past, let's better focus on the present.
@Ryu_Niiyama Saving or protecting a woman is what a "real man" does. Who saves the world? Plucky kids and / or faceless spaceships. Either trope can inspire a game, but only one of them makes a young player feel more manly.
@N64-ROX Doesn't have to be a woman, you can also be saving President Ronnie. Are you a bad enough dude to save President Ronnie?
@Beaucine I get what you’re saying, but I still think it’s a natural, and simple tendency. It’s what people want to imagine. Same way there are tropes not exactly comfortable for men in fiction produced by (and for) women.
Power Fantasy is the name of my new band. And. I didn’t know they gave Sledgehammer his own video game. I’m totally buying it. (Sledgehammer is an 80’s cop show that satires 80’s cop shows...)
@Scollurio Constantly saving helpless women had it's place back in the old days, I guess, so I'm not really harping on those older games. I do find it annoying that Peach still needs to be rescued in almost every main Mario game though. I guess Super Princess Peach didn't sell well enough.
Speaking of old beat-em-ups where you have to rescue some girl, what's that one where she turns out to be the villain and you have to fight her on a rooftop?
Your damsel in distress is in another castle.
@Ryu_Niiyama Most games like this were emulating Mario Bros, as it was the most popular thing at the time.
Where is it's draw? I'm not gonna try to speak for others, I have no idea. I will say that most video games are developed with some kind of "conflict followed by resolve," model. So, whatever loosely fits into that model will work. Now, the QUALITY of said conflict to resolve is another topic. This game just has some loose script to barely hold a story together. I don't think people play this game to save the girl.
I mean, I don't get to the end of Mario 3 and go man, I saved the girl! Feels more like a pointless antiquity, at this point!
NINJA APPROVED
@DrDaisy Hmmm I don't know what game that was, but sounds intrigueing. I guess the "DID"-meme (and yeah I think it's a meme at this point) probably has a lot to do with japanese culture and how different it all is.
All that "yay girlpower" is a western "invention" after all. Don't get me wrong, personally I think men or women, we all have our talents, advantages and disadvantages and compliment each other really well. In most parts of the world women enjoy their feminine side and males try to be masculine (which locally isn't seen as "toxic"), as it is in japan. Just listen to the voices of females VS males in animes for example. Yes, they have a colorful culture and there's a place for all kinds of sexuality and "colorful creatures" and everything inbetween. Thats fine!
But overall it appears to me that the japanese culture is very much more traditional oriented than what we have in the west.
Not rating here. Everything has it's place in mindful measures I think. But at the end of the day, I dislike the old clichéd DID theme just as much as the hypermodern identity politics infused games.
Just make good games.
@Ryu_Niiyama
It plays into the power fantasy. On top of all of the other things the player gets to pretend they can do; they also get to pretend that they’ve actually had sex in their lifetime. 🥳
Craziest thing, I was scrolling through Hamster’s 2020 releases and I can’t find Raiden 1 or 2 anywhere. Can someone point out to me where I can find it on the eshop? Thanks.
@JayJ
By the time I finally proved that I was a bad enough dude, it was on the NES and the prez asked me to read his lips.
If you were saving the world instead of saving a DID, wouldn’t you be saving millions of DIDs rather than just one?
I enjoyed Taito's Cadash (save a hapless princess from a bad dude), would love to see Hamster tackle it
Vendetta was absolutely amazing....Will pick up crime fighters in the hope that they subsequently give us vendetta.
Definitely getting a Wizards and Warriors vibe from that Legend of Makai game. I'll have to keep my eye on that one
Crime Fighter story the woman where being trafficked by crime boss I wonder how censored Hamster release will be. The arcade version had guys dressed like Village People who would try to preform a sexual act on you and female mid bosses in leather dominatrix gear she would stub her leather boots on your head
After rescuing the women you had to fight every boss at the same time, still to this day doubt this
I could get to level 4 on 1 credit the gun made level 2 incredibly easy(it had infinite bullets). Level 4 boss guy in a Hockey Mask serial killer with a chainsaw could only hit him with the invincibility frames when you lost a life
Legend of Makai was reviewed in Computer & Video Games Magazine and Claire Edgley the lady who reviewed the arcade games thought the character you played as was Female.
@DrDaisy that’s Sega’s Tough Turf last Boss is female gang leader and you fight her on the Rooftop. I’m sure you throw her off the roof in the ending.
One of only 4 belt scrollers with a female last boss/Gang Leader the others being
Guardians of the Hood
Double Dragon 3 had 2 female final bosses the old Woman he was supposed to be helping you then Cleopatra/Marian on the Nes
Combatribes Martha Splatterhead
@Ryu_Niiyama yeah! Let’s have more games about people trafficking.....that’s just what everyone wants. Jesus Christ, this comments section!
@Shadow_Dancer Tough Turf was the one. Thanks. I just watched a video on YouTube. You don't throw her off the roof, just knock her out or beat her to death (the ending doesn't clarify which). In the arcade version of Double Dragon 3, you fight Hiroko, but in the NES version, she just dies after entering entering the princess' tomb.
@Ryu_Niiyama Saving the woman is like the oldest storytelling troupe there is, long since the days before people were dependent on electricity for their entertainment.
(which obviously predates pretty much all forms of social equality we speak of these days )
@KingMike that actually doesn’t answer my question. I’m not asking about the age of the trope. I’m asking why it is popular/pervasive/male fantasy. Some of the other users provided answers such as it being a male power fantasy as it makes males feel needed. A weird perspective to me, but that was why I asked.
”Tradition” isn’t more meritorious because it’s old as there are systems that hold many traditions in place (history rewritten by the victor, war, slavery, rape, lack of education, religious indoctrination, governmen, etc). So my question is about the reasoning and appeal behind it.
Nonetheless I don’t think my answer will be found on a game forum.
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