 Review By: Jared Black |
Developer: | Konami |
| Publisher: | Konami | |
| Genre: | Compilation | |
| ESRB: | Everyone 10+ | |
| # Of Players: | 1-2 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Wi-Fi (local play, share scores and replays) | |
| Buy Now: |   |
Retro collections have always been hit or miss, particularly in the handheld realm where they’re usually more limited out of necessity. Publishers naturally try to limit the number and quality of the games included in each collection, trying to strike a fine balance that allows them to sell copies of each installment while stretching their back catalog of classics out over as many releases as possible. Konami has managed to find a pretty good balance in Konami Classics Series Arcade Hits, in particular with an attention to presentation that sets it above most other collections.
Fifteen titles are included in the compilation, and they are:
- Contra
- Scramble
- Horror Maze
- Pooyan
- Time Pilot
- Roc’n Rope
- Track & Field
- Circus Charlie
- Basketball
- Road Fighter
- Yie Ar Kung-Fu
- Rainbow Bell
- Shao-lin’s Road
- Gradius
- Rush’n Attack
Contra and Gradius are the two obvious heavy-hitters in the collection, and will likely sell 90% of the copies that are sold alone. They’ve been re-released in better forms in the past (for example, Gradius in Gradius Collection on the PSP and Contra on Xbox Live Arcade), but only because of the limitations of the hardware itself (namely the screen size). The emulation itself is solid (as it is throughout the collection), and each game can be played in several different screen formats. Sadly, no games can be played across both screens (despite the fact that most were originally released as vertical cabinets), and instead instructions occupy the second screen at all times. That’s really the only glaring oversight made here, because it results in a much smaller play area than the DS is capable of (making the bullets in shooters much harder to see for example)
Outside of those two games, several titles will definitely set old-school hearts a’flutter, incluing Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Rainbow Bell (aka TwinBee), and Time Pilot. I have no doubt that Track & Field will do the same, but personally I’ve always found it pretty mundane and never understood its appeal. That’s not to say that there isn’t fun to be had in the rest of the collection, because titles like Circus Charlie and Roc’n Rope (AKA Donkey Kong meets Bionic Commando) are fun for what they are and well worth a few play sessions. Not necessarily true classics of course, but fun anyway. Of course, there are always duds in these things, and this time around they include Basketball (you only play offense…for a minute…trying to make up a fifteen-point deficit for some reason…and you have to button-mash just to dribble) and Road Fighter (it’s not horrible, just boring).
Presentation-wise, Konami certainly put a lot of effort into this collection. There’s a jukebox to listen to music from the games included, which will continue playing even with the DS closed. As I mentioned before, games can be played in several different screen ratios, although there are some drawbacks to some such as garbled text as lines of resolution are lost in non-native ratios. Instructions, tips, and other information are available in the “library” for each game, although some of it seems rather hastily written with poor grammar. There are galleries as well, with Japanese instruction cards, leaflets, pictures of the arcade boards, and other goodies. On the whole, the amount of extra fluff is impressive for a portable title.
The customization options are what really set it apart from most retro compilations though. Dig in deep, and you’ll have access to pretty much everything arcade cabinet repairmen had at the time. You can actually change virtual dipswitches overlaying pictures of the original boards by sliding them using the stylus. This allows you to configure almost anything: difficulty, point amounts needed for bonuses, number of lives, plays per coin, and other game-specific settings. Button mappings are also entirely adjustable, even adjusting things like the rate of fire on a specific button. So, if you wanted to, in Contra you could have two different shoot buttons, each firing at a different rate. Pointless, but neat.
Wireless support includes single-card download play for two, including co-op and alternating play depending on the game. You can also send replays to other DS systems with a copy of the game, and even share demos with other systems wirelessly. Also pointlessly, you can even play a game wirelessly using one DS, while the game is actually in another.
Bottom Line:
Sure, Konami could’ve put a better roster of titles in here, but what they did include makes for a nice collection. Throw in wireless multiplayer support, single-card download play, and the incredible amount of customization options available (along with the geeky cool dipswitch presentation), and you’ve got one of the better retro collections in some time.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 7.7 |
Posted: 2007-04-19 20:08:19 PST