A thread to talk about both the latest and past releases in Hamster Corporation's Archive series, for fans of old arcade games. Every Thursday I check the e-shops to see what the latest release is, as well as to talk about games we hope to get released (I know there was already a thread to discuss games we hoped to see released on Console Archives).

What are your favorite releases from Hamster?

This week: Konami's Mega Zone, originally released in 1983.

This one of the games I've been waiting for, as it's quite obscure. I used to play this in the entryway of a grocery store when I was a kid, while my mom went grocery shopping. It's a vertical-scrolling shoot-em-up in the vein of Namco's Xevious, with branching paths and the ability to upgrade your fighter (at the cost of one of your lives, however). The eyeball-shaped enemies can only be destroyed when shot in the eye, and they drop icons that eliminate every enemy on the screen.

I did a video on this game about ten years ago, but I'm thinking of revisiting it, as my old video was made on much more spare equipment and didn't have voice commentary.

Lotta classics in there, though vs Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders would be my personal picks.

Still waiting for Ridge Racer and Air Combat to go on sale to check 'em out, as well as got my eye on Rave Racers later this month.

This week's Arcade and Console Archives drops:

Arcade: Taito's Adventure Canoe (1982): Paddle a canoe down a dangerous river riddled with obstacles like driftwood, rapids, crocodiles, and dangeroud outlaws.

Console: Athena's Dezaemon (1991, Famicom): The first in the popular in Japan shoot-em-up creator series. Allows you to create pixel art protagonist, enemies, backgrounds, and even compose 8-bit music.

My fav arcade game that I have not seen a modern console release for are Superman (Taito), Bad dudes vs Dragon ninja and Crude Bros - I know they aren't brilliant but I have rose tinted specs on for my youth spent in arcades
I picked up Ridge Racer and have Space Invaders and Bomb Jack duo on my watch list from Hamster - I know Rave Racer is on the horizon however I wish they would let us know the roadmap (although on the other hand its nice to see a surprise game each Weds)