Gaming Hell

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Solitary Fighter (Taito, 1991)

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Only one version of the game is included- as mentioned by gosokkyu, this was originally exclusive to Western arcades, getting its first release in Japan in Taito Milestones 2 earlier this year. A preference option is included to improve the responsiveness of the controls, eliminating most of the game's own input lag for a smoother, more violent fight.

I will not dare to summarise this game's plot by myself, and will instead quote the absolutely perfect attract mode intro of VIOLENCE FIGHT, the first game in this series, also included in this version:

In the early part of 1950's in the USA, a game called "VIOLENCE FIGHT"was in vogue among mafia, reckless drivers and general businessmen.
The "VIOLENCE FIGHT" was the game to struggle for "NO. 1 QUARRELER" with fighters who were gathered from all parts of the USA, speaking boastingly of their strength.
And of course a lot of winning money as well as the honor were given to the "Winner".
Here in a downtown in L.A., a young fighter "Bat" and his manager "Blinks" seek for the winning money eagerly.
As a matter of fact, can Bat take the No. 1 place of the USA?

And, as pointed out by Hatman on Twitter, wait a little longer and there's another even better attract mode intro:

On the occasion , the fighting of men called
"VIOLENCE FIGHT"
certainly occured.
Now, howeveronly,a few people remember that name.
Once more, now, men of hot-blood who get tired of peace come together to make a new legend.

This is an updated version of the 1989 fighting game Violence Fight (which, I must admit, is definitely the better name) which adds and changes quite a few things. The basic structure and gameplay remains in-tact- with scrolling brawler-esque movement around the arena, use your punch, kick and jump buttons to wear your opponent's health down while using barrels and crates to your advantage and dodging bottles thrown by the rowdy crowd. Oh, and you can also fight a tiger in a bonus round to improve your punches or kicks. New features include being able to select all six characters (two were computer-only in Violence Fight), multiple new backgrounds including Las Vegas, a woman with a knife who can interrupt the fight, a new bonus round replacing the second tiger fight with a bear fight and new post-battle art. This is one of those releases that mostly overwrites the previous game, but it's a little strange Hamster didn't release Violence Fight beforehand- maybe that's in our future?

Solitary Fighter is... A video game. It plays pretty weirdly, probably a result of being an update of a 1989 release in the Wild West of fighting games before Street Fighter II came along (from what I can tell, this was released slightly before Atari's Pit-Fighter, so it's a case of different developers coming to similar conclusions by chance) but while I'm not a huge fan of how it feels (I highly suggest you switch the new preference option on for a much more palatable experience) it absolutely has goofy charm on its side. I mean, you read that intro, right? Both games are famous for their hilarious comic book-style sound effects such as DOGON and BOGOON when the fighters are hit, plus silly bits of text in post-fight displays such as SAMMY YOU! which i'm still trying to decipher. If you have a friend willing to deal with a bit of jank, you can have a laugh with this one!

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Mystic Warriors (Konami, 1993)

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The Japanese and US revisions are included- while not noted in the manual, there are differences including massively-increased health amounts for bosses in the US release, and subtitles for the speech in the Japanese release- and you can switch between two and four-player cabinets via the game settings. Additionally, the original game had a lot of slowdown with multiple players, but this version includes an option to tone this down significantly, making the game run at the same speed whether you have one or four players.

SKULL Enterprise, an evil mega-corporation, has been builing an evil ninja army and is hell-bent on taking over the world. However, five brave ninjas- Spyros, Kojiro, Keima, Yuri and Brad- rise against the evil ninja corps after one of their own is captured. Across the city, the rivers and even the sky, these ninjas will fight to save their friend and crush the ambitions of SKULL Enterprise. It's sure to be mega-hit!

Well, well, well, this one's taken its time, but 30 years after its initial arcade release, Mystic Warriors is finally home, probably one of the most requested Arcade Archives releases. This is a spiritual successor to the popular Rolling Thunder-style run-and-gun Sunset Riders but with the theme completely changed to modern-day ninja action (although there's a cute nod to Sunset Riders in the first stage as a movie at a drive-in theater). There's a few changes here, though- you can now take three hits before dying, you have a melee attack that does a lot more damage to vehicles and bosses, there are a few power-ups like a screen-clearing bomb and a barrier and the characters have a lot more differences between them including their spread of shurikens, the size of their projectiles and whether they have proper rapid-fire or a more limited form.

I'm preaching to the choir here but Mystic Warriors is excellent, one of Konami's best from the era and it's so good to finally have it available at home. The game mechanics of Sunset Riders have been refined a little with some very nice additions and the presentation is just as vibrant and colourful as its predecessor, maybe even more so. If anything, it almost feels like an American comic book or Hollywood movie interpretation of ninjas, with everything being vibrant and over-the-top, which is helped by the excellent voice clips- the opening "SKULL CAPTURED YOUR FRIEND!!" is a perfect way to start the game, and there's some genuinely dramatic moments here, as ridiculous as it is. It does get quite difficult- the elevator sequence near the end of the game in particular is really tough- but it's an incredibly entertaining entry in the genre. Highly recommended.

Additionally, this does sort out a lot of emulation errors that were present in previous versions of MAME, mostly related to transparencies, in particular any fade-outs are properly rendered here, plus the ending is displayed correctly (which IIRC is still an issue to this day in MAME). The only real problem I've noticed is that the music is a touch off- try messing around with this port's sound settings to get a better balance.

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Aero Fighters (Video System, 1992)

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Both the Japanese (Sonic Wings) and World (Aero Fighters) versions are included. Additionally, one of the Preference Settings lets you play as the Player 2 ships when playing solo (usually these are locked to each player side).

The start of Video System's Aero Fighters series and a preview of what was to come with the work of Psikyo (a company formed after some staff members left due to Video System moving to the Neo Geo and abandoning vertical screen monitors, thanks gosokkyu!). Worth noting that Rabio & Lepus, the two ships from Rabio Lepus / Rabbit Punch, are not in this version as they were secret characters exclusive to the SNES port.

The world is in peril! Multiple cities have been attacked by an unknown force! The United Nations are powerless against the overwhelming enemy forces, but eight brave pilots from across the world- including Blaster Keaton from the US, the idol Mao Mao from Japan, Lord River-n-White from England and Kowful the Vikinig from Sweden, with four others accompanying them- hop into their fighter planes to fight for justice against impossible odds. Can they ever hope to succeed...?

While the Aero Fighters series is probably best known for its Neo Geo installments,it began as a proper vertical monitor shmup before settling for a vertizontal approach, so if you've never played the original, this is a good opportunity to see where the series started, although it's perhaps a little less silly than the later sequels (there's no dolphin frying over a jungle here, sorry). It's a little surprising this one came so late, but there might be a reason for that- as noted by gosokkyu, Hamster have done a port of this in the past in the generally-poorly-regarded Playstation 2 port as part of their Oretachi Game Centre series of rereleases, and so a bit like Trio the Punch, perhaps they took their time with this one to make sure they got it right.

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Pole Position II (Namco, 1983)

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Similar to the first Pole Position, this release only includes the Japanese ROM and replaces the roadside signs to be Namco references, and this is one of the few home versions to include the original courses, the Fuji Speedway and the Suzuka course. Many home versions including Namco Museum Vol. 3 on PS1, Namco Museum on PS2, Gamecube and Xbox and Namco Museum Virtual Arcade replaced these with slightly-different Namco and Wonder courses, you can see the differences in this tweet with more details on the 50th Anniversary collection via LanceBoyle94 (thanks for pointing this out again!).

We're back out on the asphalt with Pole Position II, and this time there's four whole courses to choose from- the famous Fuji Speedway and Suzuka courses as well as the simple Test and sceneic Seaside tracks. Once again, the challenge comes in the form of the sensitive controls and mastering the art of leaning into corners without smashing into a sign or another racer. This has always been the weakness of home ports of this game and its predecessor, but the Arcade Archives release has a few different analogue settings for you to mess about with, so you might be able to fine-tune it to your liking.

Not much else for me to say I'm afraid- I have even less experience with this one than the last Pole Position- but this does mean we're closing in on having all the games on the PS1 Namco Museum titles available via Arcade Archives! The only ones left are Cutie Q, Bomb Bee and the one that's absolutely not happening, Ms. Pac-Man. And there's still more Namco games to go...

... Shall we post the ad for the Atari home version of the first game again? Yes. Yes we shall.