This week's Arcade Archives release is... Vs. Star Luster (Namco, 1985)
PSN
EU
US (Listed as 'Announced', not yet available)
The Preference Settings allow you to display your score in-game as opposed to waiting until the game is over. Also, the Arcade Archives livestream has a small section at 3:39:20 explaining the differences between this arcade release and the Famicom port- there's a different title screen, the addition of a credit input screen, the escort plane does not appear in the final boss (I'm not 100% sure on this one), the score calculation is different and, the most arcade-operator-friendly choice you can only replenish your energy once at each base you visit so you can't just keep getting energy top-ups.
In the year 2407, the United Galaxy Space Force is facing an unprecedented crisis. The Battura, an evil empire determined to rule the entire galaxy, has begun taking over star systems under UGSF jurisfiction, and there's barely any time to mount a sizable counterattack. In desperation, the G.A.I.A. spacefighter is hastily put together to strike back alone. With its warp drive technology and basic armaments, its mission is to protect the planets and bases of these star systems and fight back against the Battura, fending off waves of spacefighters and even their mobile vanguard fortress, the Dark Planet. The fate of these star systems is in your hands. Good luck on Operation: Star Luster!
Yes, that's the same UGSF canon that has Baraduke, Starblade and Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere. Anyway, this is a coin-operated version of the fairly early Famicom title of the same name (and this is the Western debut of the game!... Or it would be if there wasn't an Evercade version already, of course there was) that, impressively, is a Mapper 0 game meaning there's no extra MMC chips or anything powering this game. Considering it's a first-person space combat sim, that's quite the feat! There's definitely some graphical sleight-of-hand going on to make this possible, but it's pretty convincing for a 1985 console game.
Sadly, I don't have too much to say about the game myself as I'm not a huge space sim person, but what I've played is pretty neat- there's three different difficulties available and there's a tactical element in that you have a map that lets you travel to any point of interest, but you need to prioritise enemy units closest to vulnerable targets as they will, over time, move in on them and destroy them. There's also things like your radar and shields that can be damaged in battle, and even a secret helper you can summon once per game if you're desperate (in the Famicom version, you'd summon them by holding the buttons and shouting into the microphone!) so this has a surprising amount going on. It makes sense that one of the citations on the game's Wikipedia page is a history of Star Fox 2 that mentions the game was an influence on some of director Katsuya Eguchi's ideas for that game!
In any case, I'd definitely like to spend a bit more time with this one in the future as it seems really interesting, so my apologies for not having too much to say right now but maybe in the future I'll be a bit more learned about it. In the meantime, the appearance of Vs. System Namco games is pretty neat- these versions have never really been ported, and there's a handful of Namco games frequently listed for it online with no dump or proof they exist, such as The Quest of Ki, Babel no Tou and... Valkyrie no Bouken? An RPG in an arcade cabinet, really?! So who knows, maybe Hamster has a couple of surprise Vs. System games for us in the future.
... Anyway, the sorta-follow-up Star Ixiom on Playstation 1 has the Geosword from Starblade as a playable craft. That rules.