Atariboy

The classier move would've been to make them free on the eShop and upload them to YouTube.

Oh well, I don't have the space on my Wii U anyways.

@Ninfan Gravitar is an Atari Inc release, which means it's today owned by Atari SA.

Hamster has no licensing deal with the rights holders of Atari's arcade heritage (Pre 1984 is Atari SA owned minus Battlezone which is owned by Rebellion; The Atari Games lineup from 1984 to the end is owned by Warner Brothers).

But the good news is that it's already on the Nintendo Switch in both arcade and Atari 2600 form as part of Atari Flashback Classics along with 31 other Atari Inc/Kee Games arcade classics, 16 Atari 5200 games, and 102 Atari 2600 games.

Happy to see Arabian. Was hopeful after Kangaroo appeared that this one wouldn't be too far behind.

I wish Hamster would seek out some American licenses. Would love to see them releasing some Exidy, Williams, Midway, Atari Inc, Stern, and Atari Games classics.

@Papichulo What I'm saying is that the non backwards compatible models of the Wii and all Wii U's, are internally capable of natively running GameCube code. Nintendont utilizes that, even though some emulator style tricks like forcing 16:9 are possible.

@Papichulo Nintendont isn't emulation. GameCube games are running natively.

@Mallen001 Only $10.85 here, lol.

But I also got that Amazon refund yesterday.

I hope the Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition gets rereleased next year for the 35th anniversary. I only owned a DS and DS Lite the last two times. No DSi or 3DS for me back then.

Who cares? What's inside the cartridge is what matters.

Can the annoying voices be muted? I don't so much mind the checkpoint calls and such, but the quips the driver makes.

Sadly they think this franchise started with the lousy 3D games, so I doubt it will be interesting.

Would love to see beautiful HD remasters of the Mac versions of Prince of Persia 1 and 2.

I don't even own a Switch, yet just preordered it. Nintendo's strategy sadly working, I suppose.

But I like these three too much to pass over them in HD remastered form, so I'll be a sucker and play along to make sure I have this for the day when I do finally buy the system.

@Tourtus Hopefully he just didn't realize that the DLC is bought in-game and not directly from the eShop.

If not, the relisting means little for me since I own it physically and just wanted the expansions.

Can't support this review at all. Still a fine compilation and one of videogaming's greatest remasters. Remains my preferred way to play SMB2 and 3, although I prefer the NES original for SMB1.

I also hope Hamster can get Popeye cleared for release one of these days.

A nice anti-consumer move by Nintendo. While I own the disc and enjoyed it, the DLC was one of the few Wii U items left on my to-buy list.

I can't believe they felt compelled to even remove the DLC. You can only access it to buy it from in-game. So anyone able to buy it already owns Pikmin 3 on the Wii U.

If they're that scared that someone might buy a $20 Wii U download instead of a $60 Switch download, I'm willing to let Nintendo satisfy their irrational fear. But also removing the DLC is a step too far.

@GrailUK Sadly, it appears they're focusing on approximately 1990-1995 with this.

All the great 1980's Sega games will probably largely be ignored, although I do see Fantasy Zone is at least here for one that's a few years before the area of focus.

So perhaps there's still hope.

@joey302 I hope I'm wrong, too. But they've always announced these well in advance of release and new announcements would start happening well before the previous wave of releases had concluded.

Yet we're almost to the end of the final batch of 6 games that was announced in March 2019, so it's sadly looking like the end is near.

Too bad this is the last one in the line. Nothing more to look forward to.

@BanjoPickles @Juga @MeloMan @KnightRider666 @SuperToe

Good news, Hamster has announced that Kangaroo is coming to their Arcade Archives line.

Too bad there's no Super Darius II for the PC Engine. Didn't make the cut for the TurboGrafx-16 Mini.

@YANDMAN Sorry, I thought I was being helpful.

Right after you said "no Neo Turf Masters?", you transition into complaining why another game was mysteriously removed shortly after release and hasn't yet been restored for sale. So it's not exactly a big leap that I made here that you're talking about availability.

When this game is for some strange reason marketed in the west under a name that isn't familiar to many Neo Geo fans outside of Japan, I would not be shocked if a few fans out there that would download it simply don't even know it's actually available (Although I now see in the article that NintendoLife is wisely listing it under the familiar name).

@YANDMAN Neo Turf Masters came out in March 2017.

Search for it on the eShop as Big Tournament Golf (Hamster released it in the west under the original Japanese name for some reason).

I own a Mega Sg, so I'm all set.

Sure hope it's not Activision or Electronic Arts. The classic arcade catalog will never see the light of day again if one of those two buy it.

Take-Two Interactive at least seems willing to do smaller scale releases on occasion rather than always chasing the next game that could sell 20 million copies, so perhaps they'd be the best choice for this heritage that can be modestly successful commercially but would always be small potatoes for today's Activision or EA.

If one of these giants does buy it, I'd be thrilled if they sold off the classic Midway/Williams/Bally/Atari Games catalog to a smaller company that would actually make use of it (I'm sure the buyer would hold onto Mortal Kombat though, which reportably was the only reason why WB bought Midway's remains in the first place).

@Toy_Link That's too bad that Turtles in Time has issues on that release. Doesn't sound like a good option to enjoy it.

@bozz It happened as I said it did. Not making it up.

There's no massive campaign against certain old episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies (If so, I'm sadly sure CBS would pull the allegedly problematic episodes from the syndication package; Yet anyone can pull up the CBS Syndication Bible and see that all 274 episodes are available).

While I obviously can't say with 100% certainly that there weren't private complaints, publicly it was just one complainer on MeTV's Facebook page and the channel quickly replied with an apology to the person and a promise not to air those episodes in the future.

In the unlikely event that someone is out there reading this that is familiar with this show and wonders what episodes were in question after seeing my comments, it was the several episodes with a recurring character named Shorty Kellums that had the viewer upset (And which MeTV now skips).

It's too bad since the episodes in question are entirely innocent and among the better episodes of the later seasons of the show.

As far as I'm aware, the classic Konami games you guys are longing for have seen semi recent emulated releases on modern gaming hardware. Too bad so many of you apparently missed out, unless the wishes are just because you'd like to see them hit the Switch.

While the licenses didn't appeal to me so they were some of the few classic arcade games I've passed over the chance to buy, I'm 99% certain that Konami's Simpsons, X-Men, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles saw Xbox Live Arcade releases on the 360 (And likely releases for the PS3 as well). Alas though, I think all three were delisted well before the Xbox One backwards compatibility initiative, so owners can only play them on an actual 360.

And while we have to go all the way back to the PS2 era and 2005, Wikipedia says that even Turtles in Time made it out on the PS2, GameCube, and original Xbox. I can understand the desire with the age of these systems and today's HD televisions in wanting this one revisited on a modern platform like the Switch, but it's nice just the same that there's an official option to enjoy the emulated arcade original on consoles that many of us own at least one of at NintendoLife.

If nothing else, the fact that the wishes of many of you actually happened just a few years ago should give you hope that these Konami games could again resurface officially down the road.

@Shinobi1Kenoby There wasn't a true arcade version of Rad Racer.

What was out there was the NES game running on Nintendo's Playchoice-10 arcade hardware.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayChoice-10

Playing it on a NES will yield the same experience. And on something like an emulator or Nt Mini or AVS, you can even utilize the garish Playchoice-10 color palette to complete the look.

@bozz It happens.

For instance Me-TV pulled several episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies with the promise not to air them again after a viewer complained on their Facebook page.

Just one person got them yanked from a national classic tv network.

Not too exciting where my tastes are concerned.

I was hoping for something more interesting. I'd especially be excited if it had been news of Popeye joining the Arcade Archives line. That's the big one that's still missing. Obviously involves an outside license though, so it's anything but assured of happening. Mostly depends on if Hamster is willing to do the ground work and if the rights holders (I believe it's King Features Syndicate) are willing to play ball at a realistic price.

There are also some other much more obscure early 80's Nintendo releases I'd be happy to pay for that don't involve any outside licensing. Radar Scope, Sheriff, Heli Fire, Space Fever (A Nintendo rip off of Space Invaders), and likely a few others.

The time is anything but right.

Microsoft has better things to worry about as they prepare to launch their next-gen console than letting 1st party developers work on Switch projects, working to enable the streaming of Xbox games on the Switch, or directly porting Microsoft IP to Nintendo's platform while Nintendo does nothing to reciprocate.

I'm all up for stuff like Cuphead reaching wider audiences, but they have bigger things to concern themselves with at the moment than potential Switch projects. They have a new system that needs to establish itself. When that work is done and the platform is succeeding in the way MS obviously hopes, then they worry about side things like this article discusses.

And the desire for Rare Replay is naive with the author apparently unaware of the very nature of that compilation. I can't begin to imagine how much the collection would have to be priced just to recoup expenses and turn a modest profit if a total of 9 Xbox 360 games, many of them full fledged retail releases and utilizing a variety of different game engines, would have to be ported to the system.

It only worked on the Xbox One itself thanks to Microsoft's Xbox 360 backwards compatibility initiative enabling their inclusion at essentially no cost to the Rare Replay project itself (Rare Replay premiered the XB1's BC program). An alternate take on Rare Replay though could be interesting.

Strip out the Xbox 360 games since they'd be cost prohibitive to port over as a group. In their place, substitute emulated N64 versions for Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie, and Banjo Tooie instead of their XBLA ports that appeared on Rare Replay. And get Nintendo to kick in the 16-bit Donkey Kong Country trilogy for the SNES, Killer Instinct Gold for the N64, and perhaps the Donkey Kong Land trilogy for the Game Boy.

Maybe even Goldeneye 007 wouldn't be a fantasy if they were to work together.

Yeah, it's not newsworthy. It's just standard business operating practices. Trademark renewals aren't indicative of anything of note where gamers are concerned.

@AtlanteanMan This isn't an arcade collection. It's a collection of Famicom and NES games.

Looks interesting, so count me in. I'm fond of many of the NES ports from Namco and I'm always up for another classic gaming compilation.

Too bad the newly translated Mappy Kids isn't here as well. I wonder if Evercade has an exclusive on that or if it's being held back for a potential future volume.

If only they had retained a pit road like Top Gear on the Super Nintendo and the ability to short fill your gas tank (You didn't have to wait for an entire tank and could exit pit road when you hoped you had received enough gas to make it to the checkered flag).

The current fuel mechanics in Horizon Chase where you collect it from floating icons are the only part I'm not crazy about.

I had wanted this thanks to the screenshots and was excited to hear it announced for the Switch. But the lack of any sense of speed in gameplay videos is a complete turn-off.

They all look like Pole Position or Outrun being played by an ignorant player in low gear that's blissfully unaware there's a high gear to switch into (Of which there are tons of videos on YouTube).

If they can improve with a sequel and make it feel fast, I'd be happy to take it out for a spin. But I'll be passing on this initial effort.

So because the e-mail Nintendo sent about removal was sent at the same time they also e-mailed them about a patch, Team Reptile only bothered to open one of the two e-mails?

I would think if you're doing business here, every e-mail from Nintendo is worth opening and reading. So if that's any clue as to their attention of detail, I'm not shocked to learn that undisclosed violence wasn't revealed to ratings boards.

The lack of a new announcement for months concerns me. Only Herzog Zwei is left on the release calendar after this.

@Moroboshi876 I seem to recall there being another PS4 Arcade Archives release that like Wonder Boy, never left Japan. So there may be another one that doesn't ever pop up on the Switch.

Edit: Judging by Wikipedia, there are three others that remain exclusive to Japan. Ark Area (UPL; 2017), Darius (Taito; 2016), and Mutant Night (UPL; 2017). I suspect Hamster's contracts might be restricting wider distribution of these as well. Particularly Darius.

Technically, Thunder Cross is one more that hasn't crossed the Pacific for a still Japanese exclusive PS4 Arcade Archives release, but the Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection has since included it. So I imagine that's more the cause than potential contractual limitations.

It's Electronic Arts, so nothing to get excited over. About the only projects they could do that would thrill me are classic compilations that will never happen.

I could go for a compilation of the Strike games. At minimum, it would need to include the SNES & Genesis versions of the first three alongside PS1 ports of Soviet and Nuclear Strike.

Another fun one would be a Need for Speed compilation up through and including Porsche Unleashed (PC versions except for the 3DO original that remains the best version of NFS1).

Or how about a Wing Commander compilation?

@TheWingedAvenger Daytona USA already had an excellent HD remaster/port, so I'm personally not too interested in seeing M2 tackle that for the Switch when it's on my 360 and XB1 already. But I can see how those that may not own a PS3, 360, or XB1 would want to see it.

I don't fully agree with them skipping 3DS content. We in the west never even got Turbo Outrun like Japanese 3DS gamers did. And Afterburner II, Galaxy Force II, Power Drift, and Thunder Blade all deserve another shot on the Switch.

I personally didn't view the 3DS controls as the best for several of these, Afterburner II has been AWOL on consoles outside of Shenmue and Yakuza for many years, and only import gamers ever got arcade accurate home console ports of Power Drift and Galaxy Force II.

And Thunder Blade and Turbo Outrun have both never gotten an arcade accurate release on a home console. Only on the tiny screen of the 3DS can they be officially played (And like I said, the latter only on a Japanese 3DS).

These are all familiar subjects to M2. Sprinkling these throughout like the previously released Outrun is a good way to keep up the pace of releases while keeping the budgets reasonable, since M2 doesn't have to reinvent the wheel to get these out.

So I think these Super Scaler arcade games haven't wore out their welcome and are viewed positively when they appear, unlike retreads of Genesis games that no matter how great, have been rereleased many times before in the 2000's.

@TheWingedAvenger Because Panzer Dragoon isn't a Sega Ages release. It's a remake from a completely different developer and isn't even being published by Sega themselves.

Surprised someone has a negative opinion of 'The Revenge of Dead Adder' (Which for the record did get a US arcade release).

The golden age arcade classics from the Sega library that I'd most like to see M2 tackle would be Monaco GP (And Pro Monaco GP) and Turbo.

Monaco GP would pose an interesting challenge for M2 since it's the last big discrete logic arcade game. No microprocessor running software code in that machine, which means emulation as we know it is impossible.

So it would either have to be an old fashion port written from scratch that has the look-and-feel of the original arcade game, or a simulator that virtually replicates the physical wiring and TTL circuitry of the original machine.

@Grumblevolcano Nonsense

Glad I'm close to the end of my 3DS and Wii U wishlist.

The bigger stuff I still need to grab on the 3DS is A-Train 3D and the DLC for New Super Mario Bros. 2. And over on the Wii U, the DLC for Pikmin 3 and Breath of the Wild.

There's also a handful of favorites left that I'd like to download off the Virtual Console, but they're low priority with me owning them in their original form. I only wanted them on handheld or in the case of the Wii U VC downloads left, for a nicer picture on my HDTV.

So many good arcade classics left to go for the 70's and 80's. Here's a wishlist off the top of my head of games I'd love to see that haven't gotten an official emulated home console release of the arcade original. Many aren't owned by companies Hamster is involved with, but it's a wishlist and doesn't need to be realistic.

-Arabian
-Berzerk
-Cisco Heat
-Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat
-Domino Man
-Frenzy
-Gorf
-Hydra
-Juno First
-Jr. Pac-Man
-Kangaroo
-Lady Bug
-Lock 'n' Chase
-Mouse Trap
-Pepper II
-Popeye
-Rip-Off
-Satan of Saturn/Zarzon
-Solar Fox
-Stocker
-Turbo (Obviously would have to be a Sega Ages release)
-Turbo Outrun (Obviously would have to be a Sega Ages release; Breaking my qualifications, this did see a 3DS release in Japan)

And there are a lot of games I'd like to see get a fresh release. In particular, the overhead racing/driving games from the Midway collections. These were always unplayable in past collections, but the emulation experts at Code Mystics came up with a clever solution on their Atari Flashback Classics collection for the several included overhead racers.

Instead of moving the stick left or right to rotate the arcade's free-spinning 360 degree wheel, you instead push the stick in the direction you want your car to move towards. So if you want to steer towards the upper right corner of your tv, you simply move the stick to the 3 o'clock position. Made the overhead racers like Sprint 2 and Super Bug actually fun and enjoyable to play rather than a chore like Super Sprint and such were on the Midway Arcade Treasures trilogy and Midway Arcade Origins.

So I'd like to see Super Sprint, Championship Sprint, Badlands, Super Off-Road (With the Track-Pack), and A.P.B. get another chance with this steering setup. And the beautiful Capcom game Ghouls 'n Ghosts is crying out for an accurate emulation on a high-definition capable home console as well. The old Capcom Classics Collection release on our modern displays doesn't do the beauty of this one justice even through component cables.

Great news amid all the bad news in the real world. I've been hoping for Bump 'n' Jump (Burnin' Rubber) and Burgertime for ages. Glad the heavily filtered Johnny Turbo line never touched the golden age stuff now, since I much more prefer Hamster's efforts.

Their last appearance on the PSP and Wii had significant audio issues and the screen resolution at the time couldn't really do justice to their vertical orientation without significant issues with uneven pixel sizes.

Hopefully Lock 'n' Chase is next. The audio is downright broken in that one on Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii.

@DrDaisy No, it was more recent than that PS4/XB1 release.

The story with Ms. Pac-Man is a complicated one. Essentially a 3rd party by the name of General Computer Corporation that was composed of a bunch of talented college kids, started making unofficial add-on boards to remix arcade hits that were becoming stale for their owners.

Their Pac-Man add-on mod, then known as Crazy Otto, became known to Midway which was the company that had the arcade rights to Pac-Man in North America. They were so impressed that they acquired the rights and with the knowledge and input of Namco, had the GCC team modify it into a Pac-Man sequel now known as Ms. Pac-Man.

Later on when it became a huge hit, Namco got annoyed and sued despite being involved in the development process. And the GCC team also sued. Midway was making a fortune off Ms. Pac-Man with videogames, cartoons, toys, and even breakfast cereal. GCC believed they were owed royalties for having created Ms. Pac-Man (And Jr. Pac-Man). A 3 way agreement was ironed out to spell out the rights and GCC was to be paid royalties whenever a copy of Ms. Pac-Man was sold (Namco later bought out Midway's rights).

Through the years, Namco conveniently forgot about GCC and had stopped paying royalties when rereleasing Ms. Pac-Man. Then in the 2000's, GCC reminded Namco of their obligations, which apparently was quite a shock when the old contract was faxed over and Namco discovered they not only hadn't developed Ms. Pac-Man, but they also didn't fully own one of their biggest games.

Namco started to pay royalties which is why we suddenly started to see Ms. Pac-Man skipped over in later Namco Museum collections to avoid paying. It's also why it was the sole paid add-on in Pac-Man Collection on PS3 and 360. It's also likely behind why when Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 + Arcade Game Series was released physically on Xbox One and Playstation 4, Ms. Pac-Man was the only game of the four arcade classics Namco had released digitally in that line to be excluded from the physical version.

Namco apparently was negotiating to buy out GCC a year or so ago when AtGames swooped in and agreed to pay GCC's asking price. Namco sued, but I believe I've read at AtariAge that AtGames was successful in court. So Ms. Pac-Man is now in limbo with neither party wanting to work together. Older digital versions of Ms. Pac-Man continue to be sold, but it could be quite sometime before we see another release of this classic.

Will the maps have other game styles to select from?

The trailer only showed Super Mario World style map graphics for the world maps, which doesn't fit too well if your levels are of another game style like Super Mario Bros. 3.

I'd love to try Ed Logg's NES port of Centipede. Wonder if it's out there in prototype form.