SpringDivorce

@phonebook

I'll see you in 12 months to laugh at that comment. Ninty won't even break stride, this has 'niche' written all over it.

@SalvorHardin

Exactly. Initially, I was pretty excited, but quickly realised unless you stick to console-style games, it's probably going to be an arse to use. I wouldn't like to try and replay the original Deus Ex on it for instance.

@joey302

Yeah that's a big hole. Fortunately for me, Midway Arcade Collection is one of this month's Xbox live games. I've got the disc, but I'm so much more likely to play five minutes of Robotron when I don't have to get out of my chain to do it!

@X68000

Thundercross 1&2, Kotetsu Yousai Strahl, P-47 Thunderbolt, A-Jax, Trigon, Flak Attack, Omega Fighter just off the top of my head... all previously unconverted. How's that regurgitating?

Then there are the Arcade Archive releases that got home ports of some description, all of them compromised in some way.

These Toaplan games have never received perfect ports previously (I suppose Toaplan Shooting Battle on PS1 counts if you're into stupidly priced imports).

I'm not seeing your point at all.

Yes, the PCE was impressive in its day (I owned an extensive collection until a decade ago, so this is first hand), but every one of its ports was gimped in some way - bar Nemesis and Salamander, which actually may have been better than the originals. It's original games, looking back, were really nothing special - Gunhed, Super Star Soldier and Sapphire were good, but not great.

I know which machine I'd rather own if I had to pick one.

@X68000

Nah, no chance. The PCE was brilliant in its time, but every arcade port on there was compromised in some way. Thw Switch is home to a stupid number of (some previously unconverted) classics through the Arcade Archive series, we've got Cave ports coming, Ikaruga, Psyvarier, Sisters Royale, Rolling Gunner, Devil Engine, the Thunderforce games on AGES, the stuff on Capcom's comp.... there's no other machine that can match this breadth and depth.

So I'm excited, because they're two classic games. I'm not wild on the pricing though. Probably going to translate to around £35-£40 here for two games. The M2 gadgets are great don't get me wrong, but with Toaplan shooters being a bit older than Cave - not to mention the recent Mushihimesama release only costing £15.00 - I was hoping for a Capcom-style compilation or two. This could get expensive.

@Rafie

Nah, they suck. As did the horrible shoebox machine, in comparison to the SFC's curves.

One of my absolute favourite racers ever. Still come back every couple of years and blast through Master level again. I'd bite, but when I had to get rid of my SNES/SFC collections, this was literally the only game I couldn't let go of, I've still got a mint JPN copy on my game shelf.

@UltraZelda64

I hear you, but I'd MUCH rather have the arcade versions....

Glad I grabbed it day 1. Hopefully, this won't delay any of the other Cave releases.

@ModdedInkling

Ha, I've still got the PCE CD version actually, one of the few things I've never parted with. The arranged soundtrack is cool.

@Clyde_Radcliffe

Funnily enough, the arcade version (and I think maybe even the Saturn version) were based around the Super SFII engine and supposedly pretty good, if ugly. The PS1 version was completely re-coded for some strange reason.

@moodycat
Disagree there. Look at, for instance, Superman 64. That is an objectively bad video game. People may have gotten enjoyment from it, but I doubt it was in the way intended.

My god that's a line up. I can't afford it, I really can't. If I can still pick one up after Xmas, I'll bite.

Mine has always been the original Street Fighter. I find it absolutely fascinating, because as clunky and unbalanced as it is to play, the seeds of absolutely everything the series would later become are all already there.

@AtlanteanMan

Was gutted when Sega stopped the Ages range. I know Daytona and its ilk might have been out of the question, but after the job they did with Virtua Racing, I though we'd at least have gotten Hang-On / Super, OutRunners, Power Drift, AB Cop, Thunder Blade & After Burner. Apparently, they sold better than expected in the West, it was the Eastern region that let them down which is odd.

@AtlanteanMan

You forgot OutRunners, other than that, solid list!

Really looking forward to this. I'm a bit of a sucker for racers, currently sat in the queue are: Dirt 5, Wreckfest, Sonic Team Racing, Crash Bandicoot Nitro-Kart, Inertial Drift, GRID, 80's Overdrive, and what am I doing? Replaying the GBA F-Zero titles again.

I had a Panasonic Q, beautiful machine. I didn't realise at the time however, that attempting to use a UK memory card in it resulted in it wiping the existing data completely. That was an unpleasant surprise.

@gcunit

I appreciate the physical resale point, but I'm not jumping in on stupidly-priced Limited Editions for my kids to sell them off when I'm dead and gone

@Zuljaras

Genuinely, I don't know why people are so hung up on physical now. I mean, I buy NIntendo stuff because it holds its value. Some others, like Hades, Dead Cells, weren't any more expensive that their Eshop equivalents. But stuff like Castlevania collection regularly drops to £4.00 - I can't justify the extra £80-£100 for a (nice) cardboard box with a lot of tat inside. The Doom games - I've probably paid £5.00 for 1, 2 & 3.

A bit unsure to be honest. Panzer Dragoon performed so much better on my PsPro I ended up double-dipping. I'd definitely like physical, but neither are games I'm likely to play on the go so I'd prefer these two for one of the other machines.

@Moroboshi876

The pad is a thing of beauty though. D-pad is far better than the 8bitdo / Retro-bit pads I'm using on Switch, will probably end up picking up an adaptor if any of them allow its use.

I'm just puzzled how they can be certain of a release date at this point? Original was fun if kind of rough, one to perhaps keeps an eye on.

@Dethmunk

Exactly, you'd think the PS4 slim / Xbox 1S were a thing listening to some on here....

@nhSnork

I hear you on the memory card situation - currently 32gb of my 512 left.... I've just picked up a few of the larger games on PS4 (Panxer Dragoon Remake was a big one) just to make room on there!

Just agreeing with the 'please let me buy the console itself' comments. I've just forked out for Joy-Cons so don't need any more. The old dock is fine - this does look much nicer, but not £60 nicer. And over the past 12-18 months, the Switch itself hasn't really been used handheld. But, I'd probably bite at £150 for the console alone, keep my original docked with my 8bitdo/Retro-bit controllers, and throw the joy-cons on the new one for a dedicated portable.

@Friendly

If you play portable quite a bit, it's a massive difference. Myself, not so much so.

@StephenYap3

Bugger, you're right. Did Camelot used to helm it?
Checking, it seems Camelot were responsible for the original, everything else has been Clap Hanz. Hmm, Camelot could take a few tips from them in that case. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure even Mario Golf 64 had a proper grid view for landing shots, and a power % indicator? Just seem odd things for a golf game to miss.

@weisske

Ah, sorry man!

@weisske

Because it's a genre that, at one point, seemed it danger of dying out almost completely, that is currently having a massive resurgence? I'd say that makes it worth an article.

Still waiting patiently for M2's Toaplan conversions. Flying Shark is one of my all-time favourites, can't wait to own that on Switch. Getting my ass kicked by Raiden at the moment, an absolutely brilliant game. Got R-Type Final paid up for my birthday in a few weeks.

A little lesser-known, but Konami fans should give the Thunder Cross titles a spin. Whenever someone brings up Konami shooters, talk inevitably centres around Gradius / Salamander / Parodius, but there two are up there with them.

@StephenYap3

I'm a bit disappointed by Mario Golf. It's missing lots of features in comparison to Camelot's 'Everybody's Golf' on PS4. And the 'course scan' thing is dreadful, why not just let me flick straight to a grid view of exactly where by ball is going to land? Why can't I see how much my power is affected from shooting out of rough? Just lots of odd little omissions that make it feel a little half-baked.

@RadioHedgeFund

Oh the AI in single-player is utter *****. I've given up trying to get gold on everything, because I'm so sick of wining the first two races, then the AI always ending up with whatever weapon it needs exactly when it needs it.

And agreed on MK battle mode - it's just perfect. One thing that's always aggrieved me about MK is that on the original, it was still possible to miss with a red shell. The way they swing around to home in means they're not necessarily an instant hit unless you're patient. The sequels pretty much ditched that.

@Prizm

It's not a huge hassle to set up, it's more the inconvenience it causes to others while it is!

But seriously, they've done a cracking job implementing the traditional MK elements into it, I'm hardly going to sit and hammer through it in single-player, but the kids and I will set it up for an hour or two over the weekend and have a blast.

Plus, the novelty of racing around my own pad hasn't quite worn off yet!

@Teksetter
Pretty poor isn't it?
IMO the Blizzard Collection is the standard for 16-bit ports. Including the SNES, MD and 'Ultimate' versions does proper justice to the games.
The only criticism of Rock & Roll Racing I ever had was that the screen was a tony bit too zoomed in - although it's strangely not mentioned anywhere, they even implemented three zoom levels in the Ultimate Edition!

@romanista

I did, but it was very very busy last time I checked in, I prefer things a little smaller. I mostly hang at shmups.com, there's some cracking threads on classic/2D gaming there. I do miss WOS though, had some fun on there.

@romanista

I'd love some more SNES tracks. I've just delved into the mobile game, and I must admit it made me smile to see some of the SNES tracks with their original music in there.

I'll have to get this back out this weekend. I've not played a lot of it admittedly, but the kids absolutely love it. Although our house is big, it's a funny shape, so it takes up most of downstairs to try and make a decent course.

@HamatoYoshi

I remember it being the same with crappier visuals and sound?
Anyhow, this sounds a bit half-arsed. If it's a good top-down shooter you want and you haven't already, buy the Capcom Arcade pack with Mercs on it and get another nine games for the same price. I'll bit if it ever goes on sale for a couple of quid.

Is there any reason the Arcade Archives series is always missing from these lists? I mean, it's only Raiden this week! If any 90's shooter could be described as 'iconic', Raiden is one of them!

@Brownmonster

A water-based game would be amazing. Desperately short of Wave Race-alikes on Switch and I really anjoyed the boats in Transformed!

@Brownmonster

You've just elevated yourself to legend in my eyes. Sonic Transformed is one of the best Kart racers of all time - I actually prefer it to MK8 in single-player due to the physics and World Tour. Kudos man!

@Brownmonster

You mentioned Neo Drift Out - I'm definitely sold!

Instant buy, it reminds me of the old Neo Geo racers with gorgeous graphics.

If you like top-down racers and don't own it already, I can't recommend Mantis Burn Racing highly enough. Absolutely brilliant stuff with tonnes of tracks and really nice handling.

@PlusFan

The game bits were great, the chase bits not so much. Same with Downpour, the exploration was decent, but it was ruined by god-awful combat.

Well I DL'd this expecting some sort of gatcha cash-grab after all the whinging about it. What I found was a decent Mario Kart game that I haven't had to spend a penny on, can play on the bog when I don't have my Switch, and that has SNES tracks and music which nearly made me explode with glee. It's pretty cool all told. I'd definitely love a Mario Kart Ultimate for Switch though. Something along the lines of the Street Fighter Anniversary thing, that let you choose every version of every character. That would be sweet.

@masterLEON

Ah man, don't even start me about my Neo collection. About 15 years ago I had to sell my AES and approx 25 carts - think I got roughly 3.5k. I got curious the other week and checked up on Ebay - the collection I had would now net me enough for a good sized family car or house deposit even at bottom prices. Wounded.

Didn't get on with Momodora - found the controls 'stiff' feeling. Switching to Iconocalsts immediately afterwards was like night and day.

@romanista

Never played it on DS, only experience is with the X360 version - seems a perfect port of that.

Also, Hi! I presume you're the same Romanista that used to be on the World of Stuart board (I was Marc)?

First one was decent but as stated above, it's hard to see what more they can add. Either way, once you've got Space Invaders Extreme, it pretty much renders any other take on SI irrelevant.

@Dimey

Well liquid kids has been announced recently, so Taito certainly aren't done just yet. But they haven't announced any of their better-known classics - NewZealand Story, Rainbow Islands, Rastan, Chase HQ... makes me wonder if they're saving them for the Egret mini.

@masterLEON

I had to sell off most of my Cave 360 shooters last year. I kept Futari as for me it's a stone-cold classic, but I really miss Muchi Muchi Pork - absolutely brilliant game with scoring mechanics that actually worked well, unlike some of their more overly-complicated stuff.