[Nintendo DS] Konami Arcade Classics

[DarthHomer]

System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Genre: Arcade Compilation
Players: 1

Konami have a proud history of arcade gaming that most people don’t really know all too well. Granted, most people will immediately remember them for their Bemani games (such as Guitar Freaks, Drum Mania and, of course, Dance Dance Revolution), they’re better regarded as a developer whom although puts out quality arcade work, is better known for their home console games. After all, how many people do you see talking about the arcade versions of Contra or Gradius or Track & Field over the NES ports? If you’ve ever wanted to experience Konami’s lesser known past, Konami Arcade Classics for the Nintendo DS is your answer.

For your money, you get 15 emulated arcade games. Though don’t expect a port of DDR or anything released in the past decade. No, that’s 15 ‘classic’ games, all of which are from the 1980’s. The full list is:

Scramble
Horror Maze
Pooyan
Time Pilot
Track and Field
Roc 'N Rope
Basketball
Circus Charlie
Road Fighter
RainbowBell
Yie Ar Kung-Fu
Shao-Lin's Road
Gradius
Rush 'n Attack
Contra

Out of these fifteen, most gamers should be familiar with at least four of these games (that’d be Contra, Gradius, Yie Ar Kung-Fu and Track & Field). What’s interesting is that a number of these games were designed by legendary game designed Yoshiki Okamoto, whom would later go onto create the Street Fighter series of games at Capcom. The inclusion of Rainbow Bell is also something – don’t let the name fool you though, it’s a translation of the first TwinBee game, a series of SHUMPS that Konami fans will be intimately familiar with (it’s referred to in a lot of Konami games, such as Parodius, Konami Krazy Racers, Beatmania and more).European gamers were fortunate – two of the games managed to get released under the name “Pop N Twinbee”. It’s the first time that the original game has been released outside of Japan, and it holds up over 20 years since its release.

Aside from this, there’s a wealth of extra material for your pleasure. You can listen to every bit of sound from each of the fifteen games, as well as read up on each of their respective histories. In a neat little touch, the touch screen is used to show off the instruction card for each of the games, so you’ll have an idea of how to play each game. And in an option strictly tailored to the hardcore, you can change the orientation of the screen in to a variety of ways. Want to play Contra in book view? It’s as simple as selecting when the game is paused. No need to reset the game either, which is nice.

Despite promise, there are two really big disappoints with this collection. The first is the actual game selection. As was mention earlier, four of those games should be familiar with most gamers, five if you’re really hardcore, but out of all these, only two really hold up really well (that’d be Contra and Gradius). The rest? Not so well. Rush ‘n Attack, in particular (the hidden meaning of the title explains it). It would’ve also helped if Konami bucked from the ‘classic’ trend and also released some of the more interestingly niche arcade titles, such as the legendary Parodius (released in the late 80’s), or even released some of their work from the 90’s. A touch screen enabled Lethal Enforcers would have been nice, or even (though incredibly unlikely) re-releases of The Simpsons, X-Men or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. An arcade perfect port of Turtles in Time with other games would be more than worth the price of admission.

This leads into the second disappointment – there’s no multiplayer. You can’t take any one of these games and play them with anybody, which is a huge shame, especially since nearly all the games were originally multiplayer games to begin with! This is especially in the case of something like Contra, where you’ll want to have a buddy to back you up. Granted, it would be a difficult feat to accomplish on the DS, but the lack of any form of multiplayer for any of the games is really disappointing. Hell, even alternating multiplayer would have been nice.

Graphically, each of the games differ in quality radically. Remember, we’re talking about a series of games that are, individually, twenty years old (the earliest of which are from 1981, the latest is 1987’s Contra). Granted, the newer games (Gradius and Contra) do hold up visually, while others don’t as much. The downgrade to a DS screen also hasn’t helped some of the games, with the text on a lot of the games often hard to make out, as well as bullets and some other projectiles. Again, don’t go expecting the greatest visuals in the world, and you’ll be right.

Aurally, it again varies. None of the games feature updated soundtracks, so you’ll be listening to the ‘classic’ sounds of 80’s arcade games. Not that it’s a problem by any stretch of the imagination, but like with the visuals, some games sound better than others. Despite this, the option to pick and choose the music and sound effects from each individual game to listen to is a nice and welcome feature. Best part? You don’t need to unlock the option or any of the music.

Score: 7/10 - "Good buy"
Overall, whether or not you’ll like the collection is judged by how much you love classic arcade gaming. The novelty of having the arcade version of Contra playable, whereas the only other way is to beat Contra 4, as well as playing classic games like Gradius or Yie Ar Kung Fu is nice. The option to listen to each of the individual games music is also a nice touch. Though while a good portion of the games don’t really hold up nowadays, and the lack of multiplayer hurts a huge portion of the games, there is still some fun to be had here. Just don’t be expecting the greatest arcade compilation that you can buy on the DS.

Review by Jamie (DarthHomer)

[Capt. Billy]

Dawww, he's all growed up. XD

Nice review though. I must say, when I think of Konami in an arcade context, all that comes up is obscure eurobeat and J-Pop songs.

[BoonMcNougat]

Nice review. When I think of Konami I think of Turtles in Time. Greatest Turtles game by a log-shot.

[Adam]

Ah man. I remember playing 'Yie Ar Kung Fu', that was gold. Tempted to buy this just for that.

[DarthHomer]

Billy, the only Nintendo related thing you should be d'awwing over is Kirby.

Same here Boon. Such a great game. Though I was partial to the SNES fighting game.

It's aged decently Adam. Though you'll crave a little something more evolved (like Street Fighter, for instance).

[Hyper the Metroid]

I've been playing the arcade versions of Contra and Super C for a while now on the Xbox Live Arcade. Both are incredibly fun and much superior to their NES counterparts. I've never played the arcade version of Gradius and i've always been a fan of the NES Gradius, so perhaps I should pick this up. ^_^

[DarthHomer]

I'd assume it's basically the same game Hyper - though it'd been better had Konami put Contra 3 as an unlock.