An amazing collection I had a blast with! The games play super well and I love the customizable arcade they have here too.

There's a few small things I wish the collection had (ex. Turn off border art, screen options, better crt filters, option to use Arcade Archives Pac-Land controls) but said things I wanted isn't enough for me to rank this collection lower. I was disappointed by recent game collections, but I'm really happy that this was a heavy hitter.

The missions were fun to do but I did hate how grindy Pac-Man 256 missions were. Its where I spent the bulk of my hours on

Overall, amazing collection glad I was abke to play Pac-Man Arrangement and Pac N Roll Remix again. I also really enjoyed Pac-In-Time. Didn't think I'd enjoy it but I ended up loving it.

Frasier Fantasy is a gameboy color game made well past the original hardware life of the handheld it’s designed for. You play Frasier Crane, Seattle radio personality and psychologist, on a mission to hold an unveiling ceremony for your new mother of pearl luncheon set. You soon realize you have three tasks to make it happen: get the grape scissors back from Niles, do your radio show, and get your dad and Eddie out of the condo before the event.

It’s a short game but it’s lovingly set in the sitcom world of Frasier, making references that fans of the show will understand; but like the show, the situations and characters are ridiculous enough to propel the comedy for all audiences. I immensely enjoyed my time playing it, and I wonder how the developer will top this title with his next one.

Best enjoyed with tossed salads and scrambled eggs.

I don't know who at Namco had the idea for us to babysit Pac-Man while armed with a slingshot to guide him through everyday life, but man is it funny. Even funnier that there's a witch out trying to inconvenience him even more than the player.

"What's the plot today o' mistress? World domination?"

"No, none of that petty bullshit. We're gonna stop Pac-Man from getting milk at the supermarket then bash his face in with these boxing gloves on sticks. That fucker will never see it coming!"

Imagine if Sega made a game where you could torment Sonic behind the security of the fourth wall and threw bananas peels at him so he could smash his face into a tree and dislocate his jaw. Shoot pellets at Amy so she gets pissed and flattens Sonic into the fucking ground, all while Eggman steals cookies from the cookie jar. Hours of comedy.

Haunted Castle is funny, and you're probably asking, "funny hah hah" or "funny peculiar"? Truthfully I think it goes both ways. I would like to first articulate the "funny peculiar" part as Haunted Castle sticks out from the rest of the games in the series like a particularly sore thumb.

It is of course an arcade game, an attempt at bringing the gameplay of the beloved NES title to the mean streets of the coin-op cabinet at your local pizzeria. You may have noticed it is also called "Haunted Castle" instead of "Castlevania", unlike the JP title Akumajō Dracula where it shares the same name with the Famicom Disk System game (along with later the Super Famicom and Sharp X68000 games, thanks lads I'm sure that's not confusing over there). I could actually wager a decent guess as to why they did this change. You see, the director was a massive fan of the Atari 2600 classic Haunted House, they just had to get their reference in. Remember the bat and the ghost? They in fact guest star in Haunted Castle, that's actually the same characters from Haunted House. I shit you not, my logic is infallible.

The game also bizarrely begins with an obvious Ghosts n' Goblins-esque intro with Simon peacefully walking along with his bride-to-be, only for an explosion to go off in the distance with Dracula flying in out of nowhere to whisk her away to god knows where (Ohio maybe) as Simon gives off a "curse you Dracula!" pose. Official documents state this was supposed to be a retelling of the first game, but I like to imagine that Dracula is constantly trying to inconvenience Simon at every turn. In the next Adventure Simon will be peacefully enjoying a meal at his favorite steakhouse only for it to be revealed that his steak was well done, then Dracula explodes from the background revealing his new ownership of the place and proceeds to put on the most annoying song in the jukebox.

This is where I stop farting about and actually comment on things that legitimately annoy me that have nothing to do with the gameplay, and that's the fact that Simon does not do his famous strut in this game. Instead he looks like he's clutching his tummy and needs to take a massive shit. It turns out there's no bride at all, Simon is just breaking into Dracula's castle to use his bathroom and ruin his plumbing. I am continuing the charade that this is all a childish rivalry between Mr. Belmondo and Mr. Dracula. There is also a second thing that annoys me, and that's that the best upgraded weapon in the game is a sword. That's right, Simon has sold out. He throws out his trademark whip for the most dull weapon to ever hit dullsville. The reason all of these peculiar things happen is most likely because Haunted Castle was originally not supposed to be related to Castlevania at all, and everything kind of got shoehorned in during the middle of development. It was also painfully early in the series' life, so maybe they figured they could just do anything since it was the new hotness and would probably make massive bank.

However! If you wish to make massive bank at the coin-op, maybe you should allow infinite continues! For the original release of these games, one credit was one life. That's all you got, and you could only continue with an additional credit three times, and after that? Do I hear wedding bells? Oh my, another explosion has taken place and Dracula took another one of your wives! Dearest me. Apparently Konami couldn't quite wrap their heads around how to properly gouge people of their money, because I doubt new players are going to bother with this kind of brutality, especially when the North American release features an insanely high damage boost to the enemies. In the original JP release of Haunted Castle, a bone thrown from an enemy skeleton results in a bit of damage. In the American release? One of those bones is now powerful enough to level the broadside of a Nimitz-class Supercarrier. There is also no pot roast in this game, and your health is not refilled between stages. You are given very little room for error.

Astonishing.

To say Haunted Castle is a hard game would be the biggest understatement since they invented the word "understatement". It is a game designed to make you pull your hair out with how often your Boston Big™ hitbox will be nailed by everything in sight as you get to watch a bat pull some spectacular aerial maneuvers to somehow not get hit by your whip and nibble your face off in retaliation. To be frank as Frankenstein, I also think the game just looks ugly. Many sprites feel haphazardly drawn, which gives credence to the game being quickly rejiggered into a Dracula of some kind instead of whatever it was originally going to be. The rock golem that's the boss of stage 4 literally doesn't do anything after you kill it. The game just freezes as the victory jingle goes off and you're given no satisfaction for your patience, no explosions, no decapitation, no nothing. Stage 6 is literally just walking to the left and hoping you can get by all the bats flying at you without the collapsing bridge behind you catching up. It's meant to be a setpiece, but it's just painfully boring and feels like a creative setup to make the final stage quickly, and make it less obvious that this was rushed out to bank off the success of Akumajō Dracula's name.

Now you may be thinking, "where's the funny hah hah"? Well, there's these boulders in stage 2, they make an incredibly cartoonish Scooby-Doo "bonk" sound when they hit the ground.

:)

I feel like I've done nothing but drone on here, but I guess that's what happens when it's both a Castlevania title and a bad game. Now imagine if it were also a fighting game on top of that, wow I wouldn't shut up. Oh god, I just realized something and had a vision please keep it away, oh god, oh jeez, oh god, oh fuck, oh jeez.

If you are looking for nostalgia, quality and replay value this is the masterpiece you are looking for.
It's the only KOF game that gives you the feeling of a tournament as it's shown that the matches are being broadcasted and the audience are cheering. Also, I miss the other teammates cheering or getting frustrated in the background which is missing from the later KOF games. Also, Rugal is scarier that other bosses. To most of the KOF fans KOF XIII is the best one but to me KOF 98 is the best KOF game