Jaleco Action Game 'Pop Flamer' Joins Hamster's Arcade Archives Collection

Alright, I’ll just say it. I find the game’s title to be hilariously unfortunate. I can only hope I’m not alone…

Don't care what Jeremy Parish had to say about this game recently, there just is something ALWAYS A FUN about the cheesy quality of Jaleco games.

Man Jaleco sure made some WEIRD titles, didn't they. Was Mappy also theirs? I remember that one fondly, on my illegal 31 in 1 cartridge from Singapore.

@Daniel36 Mappy was from Namco! It's found on multiple Namco Museum titles

Jaleco is pretty memorable for putting out games that were just ok. But in the pile of mediocrity, they had a couple diamonds in the rough. This looks like one.

@KingMike I wasn't aware Parish had spoken about this game. I just took a look at it on YouTube and it looks like a fun time. There are a lot of other games Hamster ported that are easy to write off, but very fun (just maybe not at 8 dollars) like Swimmer and Frisky Tom.

Honestly a weekly Arcade Archives write-up is the kind of content I like to see here. I like to hear when these drop on the eshop, and I knew jack about this game before reading this.

Jaleco…good, but never great

I'm grabbing this one for sure.

I'll grab it eventually, but I've just realised I never picked up Tehkan's 'Guzzler', and if it's an unknown Tehkan game vs an unknown Jaleco game....

@NinChocolate I almost agree.... except Rodland and Cybattler were both genuinely brilliant.

Every week I hope for Rainbow Islands or Midnight Resistance on Arcade Archives but they never come. ☹️

I didn't know about this one either, nor it was previously announced. Looks like fun.

@Clyde_Radcliffe

Liquid Kids is due at some point, so I would hope we'll get both New Zealand Story and Rainbow Islands. Maybe after they've sold their stock of the mini Egret next year?

@ItsJustAnotherGamer The only thing that comes to my mind (other than the arcades from the 21st century) are Sheriff, Arm Wrestling and some of the Vs. Arcades, like that Duck Hunt one where you can actually shoot the dog.

@ItsJustAnotherGamer @HammerGalladeBro
Somehow I missed that Vs. Balloon Fight released. I will probably pick that one up because it is supposed to play quite differently than the NES version.

Edit: LOL. I did buy it and forgot that it had released!

Jaleco's games can be really hit or miss but I can't deny there's some unique games from them even if they're not always great. I think The Ignition Factor is probably my favorite from them because there aren't many decent games about being a firefighter

EDIT: Just want to add I'm still surprised a few of the Arcade Archives games that came out on PS4 before the Switch released like the original Bubble Bobble haven't found their way to Switch yet

@SpringDivorce i can support an exception for rod land because I love the under-appreciated kill-em-up genre

@GoAwaySpaceJam The Parish mention I know was somewhere in the Segaiden reviews of the SG-1000. "...while Pop Flamer is a piece of crap..."

Fun fact: Jaleco stands for JApan LEather COmpany. They started out making leather but then turned to electronics, and they even put out their own console, the JalecoVision, in 1982.

At least that WOULD be a fun fact if it were true.

@KingMike
You shouldn't listen to anything that Jeremy Parish says about videogames, because he doesn't know much about the topic apart from trivia.

@TheWingedAvenger I find him entertaining, but I've definitely seen some mistakes in his videos. Can remember that after it seems he didn't know the input to change the screen size in Game Boy Pac-Man, he found out pretty quick from the comments.
(the other big Game Boy Works slip I recall, in Palamedes Game Boy, he missed the core gimmick of pressing a button to exchange poker hands made with blocks, in order to clear lines. Something the NES version devoted its entire cart label to explaining. )

@KingMike
Yeah, he often doesn't know how to play the games. Also, he often fails to realize the game he's discussing is an outright clone of an older game. He doesn't know much about gaming before the NES, which isn't ideal when you want to do gaming retrospectives.