Hey, guys!
Welcome back!
If you've lived through, and loved, the arcade experience back from the 80s and 90s,
you'll probably recall that some games never got converted to home consoles and computers
when they were supposed to.
So, here's a selection of video games that, back in the day, remained exclusive to arcades
and some were many years later made available to modern systems!
Let's take a look!
I recall the time when I was eager to play that port of that particular Arcade coin-op game.
I remember, like if it was yesterday, and as clear as water, picking up Chase H.Q. and
RoboCop for my ZX Spectrum,
Shadow Dancer for my Amiga
and Golden Axe for my beloved Mega Drive,
but there was also the case when arcade coin-op games would never come home.
The following titles were, and still are, amazing pieces of software
in every single aspect!
Played most of them back in the day and, just a few, several years later through emulation,
'cause those never came out in Europe or simply never showed up at any of my favorite
local arcade saloons.
And I felt extremely lucky, 'cause in the city I live in, we had a bunch of these amazing
and well-stocked places separated for just a couple of meters!
It was like being in heaven!
So, without a specific order, here's a bunch of great titles, many still exclusives to
arcades and a few recently released for modern consoles through compilations or emulation,
that I would love to see, and play, back in the day, on any of the systems that I personally
owned or even on others that I would only dream about!
Aliens
One of my favorite arcade coin-op games, that I've included in my personal Top 26 Arcade
games episode, is Aliens by Konami, released in 1990.
This was a totally different game from the ones that were available for home computers
three years prior, by Activision, Software Studios and Square, all hoping to cash-in
on the hype around the astonishing movie by James Cameron.
This one was highly focused towards action and some elements didn't even resemble the
movie in which it was supposed to be based, like the presence of zombies for instance!
Sure that in the movie we had these infected humans, but they would simply stay put and
not chase us down like maniacs!
But not being true to the motion picture isn't a bad thing!
On the contrary!
It's highly frenetic, intense and even scary!...
Ahhhhmmmm, if we exclude these pink Aliens!…
Did the guys from Konami even watched the movie?...
And a blond Sigourney Weaver?...
Blood Bros.
Remember Tad Corporation?
Yeah, the guys behind the gorgeous Toki and, obviously, the highly frantic Cabal!
These two got proper home ports for practically all systems available by then, but Blood Bros
was completely left aside.
It retained that humorous side of Cabal, but in a western setting in where we could play
the role of one of two brothers, a cowboy or an American Indian.
Yeah, brothers!
Blood brothers!
I can only conclude that, shooting innocent horses and can-can women wasn't certainly
a very welcomed thing that developers would want to bring to home computers and consoles.
Crime Fighters
The Double Dragon success formula was cloned and used by so many other arcade titles, and
Crime Fighters was no exception.
Except, this one never came home.
Capcom was the master of scrolling fighters, but Konami also wanted a slice of that same
pie.
Up to four players could join in to try and rescue seven girls that were kidnapped by
a so called "fat toad".
Just look at this advert!
How cheesy is this?
By that time, young kids like myself would idolatrize guys like Jean-Claude Van Damme
and Michael Dudikoff and wanted to be like them!
This genre would allow us to portray this mighty street fighter who beats the hell out
of bad guys and, in the end, saves the girl!
In this case, saves 7 girls!
And the music is freakin' awesome!
Sad that it never got home…
Hey, it's 15 girls after all and not 7!
And just look at this even cheesier line?...
"Do you mind being kidnapped again… by me?"…
Racing Hero
OutRun is what comes in mind when seeing Racing Hero for the very first time.
But this time around it's OutRun in two wheels!
Thinking of it, Racing Hero has the best from both worlds:
the best from OutRun and the best from Hang-On.
It used the same hardware as Sega's After Burner and these colorful trans-continental
graphics is what really attracts me in the genre and made me love the OutRun franchise
so much!
I normally end up running away from boring circuit racing, so these point-to-point races
are totally my thing!
Racing Hero never arrived home, probably 'cause it ran out of time or fuel!
The Karate Tournament
Mitchell Corporation is best known for another of my all-time favorites at the arcades:
Pang or Pomping World or Buster Bros, it depends where you're at.
Three years later they came up with this karate championship style of arcade game, named simply
The Karate Tournament.
It brought so many awesome memories of playing International Karate on the C64 and Way of
the Exploding Fist on the ZX Spectrum a few years before, and I used to love this genre
so much back in the 80s, again highly influenced by 80s fighting movies and TV series.
Sadly, it never got converted to home systems, probably because around that same time, this
huge bomb also arrived at the arcades!
Battletoads Arcade
Rare's Battletoads franchise had its last installment on the arcades with Battletoads
Arcade, also known as Super Battletoads.
This particular game was never brought home after its original debut, by the end of 1994,
but, as you recall, back in 2015 was included in the exclusive Xbox One "Rare Replay"
compilation.
This franchise came about when the Stamper Brothers, founders of Ultimate Play the Game
and Rare, realized that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a major success on the NES, so,
instead of turtles, they offered NES gamers the chance to play with toads.
And they've nailed it!
It was an instant success!
So, after a few successful games for home consoles and computers, the Toads arrived
to arcades with its humor, frenetic beat 'em up action, a higher level of violence and
even voiceovers!
It was an instant hit that, unfortunately, was never converted to the powerful consoles
of the time, like the PlayStation, the Saturn or the N64.
Final Star Force
The third chapter of the popular Star Force series arrived in 1992 and, whilst the original
was ported to the Famicom and Sega Master System, and the second entry - named Super
Star Force - was a Famicom exclusive, Final Star Force remains also exclusive, but for
arcades.
It didn't bring anything new or innovative to the vertical-scrolling genre, but, because
of that, is a pretty solid shooter!
It has beautiful and colorful graphics and a decent soundtrack and effects, but what
really nails it is the friendly difficulty curve.
It's quite a simple game that we pick up and play, excluding the over the top gameplay
of many other similar titles, both in the options available and gameplay areas.
If you have a sweet spot for the genre, go play it!
It's really worth it!
Aqua Jack
Combining ideas taken from Chase HQ and Operation Wolf gave birth to this rail-shooter by the
name Aqua Jack, a really popular genre by the end of the 80s.
I only wished that it had a health bar, so that we could survive a bit more in this kind
of bullet hell nightmare.
One hit and we're dead!
Even so, all this action and thrilling ride keeps me entertained for a while, 'til I
get disappointed with the clumsy and unforgiving hit detection.
Give it a spin!
It's not that bad!
The music is awesome, but, with all hell breaking loose, it's almost impossible to stop firing
to listen to it!
Willow
Willow started as a movie written by George Lucas, directed by Ron Howard and starred
by Val Kilmer.
It had several home versions released in 1988 alongside the movie:
for DOS, Amiga, Atari ST and the Commodore 64.
A year later, an NES and arcade versions were developed and published by Capcom, both completely
distinct from one another and from those aforementioned home computer games.
And, guess what!
If you love Ghouls 'N Ghosts you'll also love the arcade version of Willow!
So beautiful and colorful, and with that same mechanics as Ghosts 'N Goblins and Ghouls
'N Ghosts!
It's like being in heaven!
It manages to follow the movie's plot quite well in where we even play with different
characters in different levels, each one with their unique fighting characteristics.
And the fantasy inspired soundtrack is really beautiful and captivating!
Play it!
You won't regret it!
Shock Troopers
In one of It's a Pixel THING recent episodes, I mentioned MERCS on the Amiga, the sequel
to Commando, a Japanese franchise from Capcom known, on its native country,
as Wolf of the Battlefield.
Many years later, by 1997, Saurus grabbed that same concept and brought us Shock Troopers
that, by 2008, was included in the SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 available for the PlayStation 2,
PSP and Wii.
Later, by 2011, was also included on the Neo Geo Classic line available for download for
the PS3 and PSP, followed by Wii's Virtual Console service a year later and, in 2016,
for Windows, iOS and Linux through Humble Bundle and Steam.
But I wanted to play it home right after it was released on the arcades, and not 11 years
later!
And I didn't saw it as a clone of Mercs or Commando, but as an homage to those two
amazing games from the past and even others, like Ikari Warriors!
Shock Troopers even improved the formula to a higher level, with multiple routes to reach
the main objective for each stage, eight distinct fighters to take into battle, and more!
I don't want to spoil it for you, so, grab it using one of the options mentioned earlier!
Prehistoric Isle in 1930
This setting is a treat for me!
I simply love jungle based games, and Prehistoric Isle in 1930 is really gorgeous!
I can't quite understand why it never came home back in the day!
Besides the beautiful and exotic graphics, it plays like a dream!
We're flying over this island populated with prehistoric animals of all sorts
- lizards, dinosaurs and pterodactyls, giant insects and even angry caveman -,
in a horizontal style of shooter that can drastically change its direction, diving into
caves, waterfalls, cliffsides, and it even has a small touch of "R-Type" with a turret
that can be oriented around the plane that comes really handy during all those crazy
changes of momentum!
Now comes the time when you tell me that Prehistoric Isle in 1930 was also made available through
the PlayStation store for the PSP, Vita and PS3 back in 2012!
Indeed, it was!
But, again, I wished that it would have came out back in the end of the 80s, when I was
eager to play it!
Nowadays, all my hype simply vanished and prefer to play it using my arcade cabinet
with a good old arcade stick!
So, guys!
These were just a few of a huge list of unconverted games back from the glory days of the arcades.
Feel free to check my other Arcade related episodes, and if you've enjoyed this particular one,
and if you want to see more, just leave a comment down below and I'll certainly bring
Part II!
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to It's a Pixel THING!
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Thank you very much for watching and…
I'll see you all in the next episode!
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