Namco Museum Archives Volume 1
released on Jun 17, 2020
Take a trip down memory lane and relive the magical times of the Nintendo Entertainment System with a collection of Namco’s hits and long-lost treasures in Namco Museum Archives Volume 1.
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mappy on switch mappy on switch mappy on switch mappy on switch mappy on switch
It is good game but invincible mode is missing
Well preserved gems of yesteryear that are great fun, and infinitely playable, though many do serve as a reminder that one of the best things about video games are the endings. Looping until a kill screen brought on by too many points just isn't that conclusive. Play for Dig Dug, Xevious, Splatterhouse Wanpaku Graffiti, and the perfection that is the demake of Pac-Man Championship Edition. Maybe hesitate to remind yourself of Galaxian's slog to a high score.
Review in Progress:
So there are 11 Famicom ports of Namco arcade games on here. I prefer the console ports of arcade games. To me it feels unnatural to play the arcade ports at home. Anyway, some of these were Japanese-only so it's kind of cool to have them here even though the Japanese version of this collection has way more extras.
Anyway, the games:
Galaxian:
Namco's Space Invaders clone. It's... fun for like five minutes? I don't really like it.
Pac-Man:
Perfectly serviceable port of the classic. Not a bad way to have Pac-Man on your switch.
Xevious:
It's cool to see the blueprints here for modern shmups. It's pretty fun but very unforgiving.
Mappy:
I love how bizarre this thing is. I had no experience with the arcade version. You jump on trampolines? Collect... tvs? Chase cats as a cop but they are actually chasing you? I don't really know what's going on here but I kind of love it.
Dig Dug:
Perfectly playable Dig Dug. It's... Dig Dug. Dig Dug is cool. I've never understood what the heck I am doing. I am blowing up and murdering animals while digging around? huh
The Tower of Druaga:
I was absolutely loving this for the first few levels. Then... I got to level 5. There are wizards. These preceded the wizzrobes from Legend of Zelda but they are basically those on steroids. When one appears you have like a half second to react and turn to block with your shield. Maze games are supposed to be a tiny bit chill I think... this is not chill at all. I was so ready to have a good time with this but I am not interested in having a high-stress wizard-avoiding experience.
Sky Kid:
Fun shooter. Horizontal scrolling shooter where you shoot planes and bomb a target. It's pretty straight-forward.
Dragon Buster:
Definitely cool for 1984. Seems like a predecessor of Zelda II. The controls kind of suck but the dungeon platforming is respectable for mid 80's standards.
Dragon Spirit: The New Legend:
This is a fun shmup with a slick little fantasy story told through interstitial cutscenes. Pretty impressive for a Famicom game but not exactly mind-blowing by modern standards. Still, I feel like we somehow STILL don't have enough games where you control dragons.
Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti:
Cool to see this one localized in 2020. It's wacky and that's the best thing about it. The gameplay is fine but the goofy horror imagery is unique and the real draw here.
Pac-Man Championship Edition:
A demake of the original, I love how this is just billed as the title with no further description. It's amazing and a showcase for how good you could make an NES game given modern game design philosophies. This IS a Famicom game and would run on actual hardware. M2 is crazy, this is amazing, and honestly could be a $10 game in its own right. The package is cool without it, with it, it becomes an amazing, if incongruous, set of games.
So there are 11 Famicom ports of Namco arcade games on here. I prefer the console ports of arcade games. To me it feels unnatural to play the arcade ports at home. Anyway, some of these were Japanese-only so it's kind of cool to have them here even though the Japanese version of this collection has way more extras.
Anyway, the games:
Galaxian:
Namco's Space Invaders clone. It's... fun for like five minutes? I don't really like it.
Pac-Man:
Perfectly serviceable port of the classic. Not a bad way to have Pac-Man on your switch.
Xevious:
It's cool to see the blueprints here for modern shmups. It's pretty fun but very unforgiving.
Mappy:
I love how bizarre this thing is. I had no experience with the arcade version. You jump on trampolines? Collect... tvs? Chase cats as a cop but they are actually chasing you? I don't really know what's going on here but I kind of love it.
Dig Dug:
Perfectly playable Dig Dug. It's... Dig Dug. Dig Dug is cool. I've never understood what the heck I am doing. I am blowing up and murdering animals while digging around? huh
The Tower of Druaga:
I was absolutely loving this for the first few levels. Then... I got to level 5. There are wizards. These preceded the wizzrobes from Legend of Zelda but they are basically those on steroids. When one appears you have like a half second to react and turn to block with your shield. Maze games are supposed to be a tiny bit chill I think... this is not chill at all. I was so ready to have a good time with this but I am not interested in having a high-stress wizard-avoiding experience.
Sky Kid:
Fun shooter. Horizontal scrolling shooter where you shoot planes and bomb a target. It's pretty straight-forward.
Dragon Buster:
Definitely cool for 1984. Seems like a predecessor of Zelda II. The controls kind of suck but the dungeon platforming is respectable for mid 80's standards.
Dragon Spirit: The New Legend:
This is a fun shmup with a slick little fantasy story told through interstitial cutscenes. Pretty impressive for a Famicom game but not exactly mind-blowing by modern standards. Still, I feel like we somehow STILL don't have enough games where you control dragons.
Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti:
Cool to see this one localized in 2020. It's wacky and that's the best thing about it. The gameplay is fine but the goofy horror imagery is unique and the real draw here.
Pac-Man Championship Edition:
A demake of the original, I love how this is just billed as the title with no further description. It's amazing and a showcase for how good you could make an NES game given modern game design philosophies. This IS a Famicom game and would run on actual hardware. M2 is crazy, this is amazing, and honestly could be a $10 game in its own right. The package is cool without it, with it, it becomes an amazing, if incongruous, set of games.
rating and review is for M2s pac-man championship demake. it owns... so hard. the visuals are flashy but not distracting , it feels great to run through the maze at a speed a tad faster than i'm comfortable with, surprising myself when i do something right. the only bad part is the time limit -- i think it is bad and forces the player to partake in strategies that require a bit too much movement for my tastes. i really recommend picking it up if that bandai namco sale is still happening, or when it happens again. i'm visiting family right now and went to an arcade with World's Largest Pac-Man (not to be confused with World's Biggest Pac-Man). it seemed no one had played the machine, because i played badly and got the hi-score. photo here: https://ibb.co/YQtLYmw i planned to practice on the switch, come back, and flex on any children to future venture to the machine, alas it is only open on weekends, and i am leaving on wednesday. BUMMER!!!!
It's another round of Namco classics but honestly I just can't bring myself to feel interested about much of the stuff here. Sure you have classics like Pac-Man, Dig Dug and Mappy but these are all the NES versions. Why bother when you can get superior versions elsewhere easily.
Sure there's a few games here you can't easily get elsewhere like Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti but that isn't enough to really make the collection shine. It's also alarmingly barebones. No galleries, manuals or anything to look through. Only really worth it if you happen to be a retro fiend and only if it's on sale.
Sure there's a few games here you can't easily get elsewhere like Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti but that isn't enough to really make the collection shine. It's also alarmingly barebones. No galleries, manuals or anything to look through. Only really worth it if you happen to be a retro fiend and only if it's on sale.