Hamster Corporation joined in on the Nintendo Direct celebrations earlier this week, with not one but two Namco game releases on the Switch eShop.
First up we've got the original PAC-MAN title, released in arcades in 1980. The same rules apply here - players must clear stages by eating all the dots in each round without getting caught by any of the four ghosts. And eating power pellets will allow you to eat the ghosts. This game uses the Japanese ROM for the main part of the game.
Next up we've got the 1982 scrolling shooter, Xevious. In this title, players will take control of the Sovalou as they face off against the Xevious forces by defeating flying enemies with the zapper and terrestrial enemies with the blaster.
This title features 26 character types with their own codenames and uses the Japanese ROM for the main part of the game.
Both of these titles support up to two players and will set you back $7.99 or your regional equivalent. Will you be adding either of these classics to your Nintendo Switch HOME menu? Tell us down in the comments.
Comments 63
Always like to have the classic vanilla Pacman on any system that I can, so I picked it up. Was surprised it took this long for it to appear
@Hav Out of curiosity, is there any difference between this version of Pac-Man and the version in the Switch’s Namco Museum?
We're all like, "Who's gonna pay $7.99 for XEVIOUS?"
Japan is all like: Hamster Arcade Archives XEVIOUS becomes the top selling Switch title of all time.
@DeathByLasagna not sure to be honest! I just wanted the plain, single-game old school Pacman rather than any bundle (at least, I think that was a bundle?)
I already have the Namco Arcade Pak for Pac-Man. It doesn’t include Xevious, but I am not much into that one. Maybe on a sale, but the Arcade Archives rarely go on sale.
Pac-Man is such a classic. 😊
@DeathByLasagna This one's an emulation while the one in Namco Museum is a port. Traditionally that's meant that things like old patterns don't successfully work in the latter, but I've not personally dug into the Pac-Man port on Switch and have just played it casually a couple of times.
So this port may be more accurate than it was in past Namco Museums, which other than the 50th Anniversary Collection on XB/GCN/PS2 that featured emulation by Digital Eclipse, have always been ports going back to the original Playstation line.
But with Hamster always going the emulation route and with their reputation for accurate emulation with the Arcade Archives line, you're guaranteed this one will behave exactly as it should.
That said, if you're a casual Pac-Man player and already own Namco Museum, I don't see that you're gaining a whole lot by double dipping for the utmost accuracy when Namco Museum looks, feels, and plays as one expects from Pac-Man.
The only thing you're gaining is the confidence that any old Pac-Man pattern will work as it should, where as ports usually miss some of the nuances of the ghost behavior and break those old patterns.
Edit: And this may be ideal for flip grip owners. I recall some sort of problem with trying to use Namco Museum with that (I think the screen rotated the exact opposite way of other vertical arcade releases on the NS, leaving the game upside down).
Glad to see Hamster picking up the slack for the lackluster existing Namco Museum Arcade Pac on the Switch. Maybe that means we'll finally get Pole Position and even Ms. Pac-Man. Yes, the $8 asking price per game is steep, but I guess it's better than nothing.
Thanks to Hamster's efforts the Switch has far and away more Arcade coin-ops represented than any console in history.
Even so, there are still some gaping holes remaining to be filled. After multiple generations of having offered collections of their Arcade titles like Joust, Marble Madness, Root Beer Tapper, and Defender, Midway has surprisingly been absent this far. Ditto Sega (Zaxxon, Congo Bongo, Pengo, and their host of later iconic machines ranging from Afterburner and Super Hang-On to Model 2 titles like Daytona USA). Another iconic game from back in the day is Q-Bert by Gottlieb. It would be awesome if Hamster and/or another capable publisher like M2 brought at least some of these to Switch.
I have both on my Evercade.
Xevious was one of the first games to have bosses.
Such a classic
price? 8$ I'll never pay!
$8 is too expensive for many of these arcade classics. If there were more on sale at a reasonable cost, I’d have brought more of them.
The arcade classics should be free to download and you pay for tokens to play them. Once you have paid for $8 worth of tokens for a particular game, then that game becomes free to play.
Hamster putting in the work as usual.
They are both on the namco collection
I love Pac-Man and Xevious, but between Namco Museum and Namco Museum Archives, I have what I need. That said, I'll gladly double dip if Hamster does a sale.
At AU$10.50 a piece, they're a tough pill to swallow. I did buy some of the Nintendo rarities, but I just don't play many of them for very long and I couldn't justify buying the rest of them (such as Mahjong, Soccer, Donkey Kong 3 etc.) as it was becoming much too expensive.
Though I would leap at a physical compilation in a heartbeat, but as it stands, these are far, far too expensive for what they have to offer.
Yeah, these seem expensive; but I can make them fill the entire screen.
This gives me hope for Mappy.
I was very disappointed when I realized the Namco collection was just crusty NES versions and the Arcade collection from the Switch release didn't have Mappy at all.
New Rally X would be very cool as well.
@Atariboy You’re a legend, thanks for the info!
@Hav Understood, fam. Classic Pac-Man is amazing 😎
I owned the namco arcade bundle. But I still bought this because I hated the game selection screen in the game and it’s Home Screen icon. Hamster keeps everything simple and looking the same. Plus I get to save some space on the SD card.
Now I can have hopes for pole position 1/2/3 and other companies such as capcom releasing games on hamster.
Honestly, this was one of my favorite announcements at the Direct. It's really nice knowing that we're finally going to have a great library of Namco's arcade classics on one platform, since the Namco Museum format has always limited things to a certain extent. I was moreso hoping for a new line of releases than anything (I would KILL for a PC archives line) but this is still really cool.
I think I'd find the original Pacman boring to play after the fantastic Pacman 99 and Pacman Championship Edition 2.
Good to see Namco releasing Arcade Archives. Maybe more incoming. Pole Position or some of the later 3D Arcades?
I think this is good news. Hopefully it opens up the door for a Namco Ms. Pac-Man release. Or if by some miracle get Midway to join the classics line.
Am I right in saying these are the first Namco games they have brought to Switch? (Was hoping for the arcade Pac-Land, but kinda lost hop after the NES one turned up lol.) Love Pac-man, but never got into Xevious.
@Fraba Man, I WISH we could get the Midway Treasures trilogy on Switch somehow. I would be a very happy bunny!
I don’t want to go off topic but I’m a huge Nintendo Switch fanatic. The only thing that I wish Nintendo would spend more money on would be for the game exclusives that are only on the Arcade 1up machines. If that were to happen you could have the Hamster Corporation involved in the emulation. Seriously who here has the money to buy every Arcade 1up machine just for a particular game?
@AtlanteanMan I would love to play Daytona on handheld 🙏🏻😊😊
@AtlanteanMan @Fraba problem is that Namco do not own the rights to Ms. PACMAN. Atgames, yes, that Atgames - notorious for bad Genesis console remakes, owns the right to it...
@Atariboy
Really surprised nobody has mentioned a big draw of these one-shot Arcade Archives releases:
Online leaderboards!
These releases are great for capturing that "one more try" score chasing feeling ♡
Why would anyone buy these two games separately when the Namco arcade collection contains both of them and is more economical?
@TheWingedAvenger If your copy of that collection has Xevious on it, you might want to hold on to it. It's rare!
I have no problem with the price. Nice to see both added to Switch library.
This tiny announcement from the direct made me happy, I do enjoy Pac-Man, though I just have the game on older systems like Game Boy and GBA. Good timing too since I was considering one of the more modern releases on 3DS and Wii U (though they're the NES version).
Before anyone asks, yes, I have Pac-Man 99 and play it occasionally.
I have the three Namco Museum collections on Switch, I don’t need these although if they bring the awesome Ms. Pac-Man I am in.
@Expa0
"I was very disappointed when I realized the Namco collection was just crusty NES versions and the Arcade collection from the Switch release didn't have Mappy at all."
(wishes to have more details of this "Namco collection")
It was really encouraging to see Hamster announce these! I played a bit of Xevious back on the PS Namco collection.
Hoping despite the odds that somehow, someway, they can bring Ms. PAC-man too!
@Mario500 I found this confusing. There are three Namco Museum collections on Switch.
The Arcade one has about eight titles but also includes the GC Pac-Man Vs. $30. Later they added Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Plus (but I don’t have this version).
The Archives Vol 1 and 2 have 11 titles each, but they are the console ports of the arcade games (like NES versions). $20 each.
These are still woefully overpriced.
@GrailUK I believe yes. Namco usually releases their arcade games through their own compilations.
Now that Bandai Namco has joined the Arcade Archives, I hope to see some of their other games available there.
If we get New Rally X, I will totally drop the £8 to play that on Switch. Its been on previous Namco collections for other consoles, I was so bummed out it wasn't included on the Switch ones.
If WB Games has no interest in bringing the Midway/Williams/Atari Games selections to consoles, Hamster should make a deal with them to start bringing those over to Arcade Archives. I'd love to have some of those games on Switch, like Marble Madness, Paperboy, Joust, Tapper, Spy Hunter, TRON. Also early Sega arcade games like Zaxxon, Pengo, Congo Bongo.
@GrailUK to my knowledge Switch has only gotten the NES port before this. Here's the catch: I love the NES port!
@kingbk A majority of those games are not own by WB though. From the Midway acquisition, I believe WB only bought the rights to the Mortal Kombat games, Atari got the rights to Primal Rage and I believe a few of those other arcade games either went to Nintendo like Cruis'n, Microsoft like Killer Instinct, EA, Activision, Natsume, and/or Bandai Namco.
What does it mean Pac-man takes the Japanese ROM for most of the game?
Anyway, I have it on Namco Museum, but Xevious arcade version is a game I don't own in any form, so I'll get it eventually.
Good thing that Namco has joined Hamster, but those games have actually been available many times even on this console, and make the scheduled ones come even later.
@GrailUK
True, the Namco arcade collection for Switch doesn't feature Xevious, but the Namco Museum Archive collection features the superior NES version of Xevious, in addition to the NES versions of Dragon Spirit and Galaxian which are also better than the arcade originals. In other words, buying the single versions of Pac-Man and Xevious is a waste of money.
@techdude I'm aware of the Ms. Pac-Man rights situation, but AtGames could profit as well from licensing its use out to Hamster. So I won't give up hope on it out of the gate.
Although licensing rights have definitely become a serious thorn in the side of the hobby. On that point I readily agree.
@Zach Do you prefer it to the arcade?
@GrailUK I've never played the arcade version! I bet I'd like that more, but do I want to spend $8 to find out?
@Zach Casually, if you have 20 or so goes on it, then I think it's worth it. Not sure I like the game to have 20 goes lol. But obviously, if you chase high scores etc, then the value shoots up. Some folk who don't see the value in arcade games don't seem to realise they don't get them lol.
Interestingly, Xevious has a feature in the Arcade Archive release that lets you enable targets showing where the hidden Sol citadels and Special Flags are located, along with a display showing a difficulty number that increases and/or decreases depending on what happens in the game.
I've only seen this same feature offered in the DS Namco Museum, but they seem to be going a little further with these BaNam releases. The Pac-Man one even has toggles to enable or disable the Level 256 kill screen, and to change the names of the Japanese ghosts to different "nicknames"....but not the ones you expect.
Anyone interested in "Xevious" who has a 3DS should just get the superior 3D version of the game instead.
This was one of the highlights for me in the recent Direct. With Konami, SNK,Taito and Namco among others it would be great to see Sega release older titles in the Arcade Archive cillection.
Anyway, now that Namco are aboard with the Arcade Archive series Im hoping that we see more of the lesser known Namco games that never feature reguarly in their collections.
I’d would love an Arcade version of Congo Bongo.
@TheIronChimp final lap please. I don’t know why there aren’t more hamster 80s 90s racers
@DeathByLasagna @Atariboy The Flip Grip does work with the Namco Museum Arcade Pak. I just tried it out with Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug. No problems.
I can’t remember the game either, but there was one that flipped the opposite way.
BAMCO should give Solvalou and Starblade to HAMSTER for worldwide release this time instead of locking it to the JP WiiVCA
In the States, it was (and is) common for arcade owners to rig the Pac-Man (and Ms. Pac-Man) machines to run many times faster than they do by default. Namco officially does not endorse this mod, so it's never been an option on any of their re-releases, but since this is how I've always played it, it's hard for me to enjoy the games at standard speed.
I doubt it, but if the Arcade Archives release gave me this option I would pick it up day one.
I hope that these two opens the door for more Namco arcade games as part of the Arcade Archives series.
@BulbasaurusRex I thought 3D Classics Xevious was a NES port, like Excitebike and Kid Icarus?
@sixrings Im hoping for Final lap too. Many a day wasted on it.
@Atariboy Nope, it's the arcade version.
@KevynOnVideo Hmm, that's like how I prefer the Galaga arcade machines that are modded to remove the player limit of only being able to have 2 shots on the screen at once.
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