{"id":20135,"date":"2020-06-05T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=20135"},"modified":"2020-05-09T12:07:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-09T12:07:39","slug":"the-games-of-the-konami-anniversary-collection-arcade-classics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/05\/the-games-of-the-konami-anniversary-collection-arcade-classics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Games of the Konami Anniversary Collection: Arcade Classics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A few of the games I got on sale recently are three collections of Konami classic games.\u00a0 So today we\u2019ll look at the collection with a bunch of Konami arcade titles.\u00a0 I\u2019ll go over the other collections in the coming weeks, don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 They should\u2019ve called this the Shooter Collection, because with the exception of one game on here, they\u2019re all shooters.\u00a0 So let\u2019s take a look at what\u2019s on here!<\/p>\n

Before we do, though, I would like to mention a couple of extras on here.\u00a0 You can view a scanned booklet with history and art of all the games, and even sheet music!\u00a0 It looks like something that was printed, and makes me wonder if they were planning a physical copy of this at some point.\u00a0 I would\u2019ve paid 20 or 30 bucks for a physical version of this, but not digital as it only has 8 games.\u00a0 Konami made a better collection of arcade titles on the PSOne and had stuff like Time Pilot and Gyruss on it.\u00a0 Wish this one had those.\u00a0 You can also play the Japanese version of most of these games as well, but save for a couple of titles, there\u2019s not a lot of difference in them.<\/p>\n

Scramble<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was a very early 80\u2019s arcade shooter.\u00a0 Sometimes Konami likes to call it the prequel to Gradius, but I don\u2019t know about that.\u00a0 They also sometimes like to call Rush\u2019N Attack\/Green Beret the prequel to Contra.\u00a0 But anyway, it\u2019s just a basic shooter where you can bomb rockets and fuel tanks on the ground, and if you bomb the fuel tanks, you refill your ship and can keep flying somehow.\u00a0 I don\u2019t ever remember seeing this in arcades, but even if I did, I probably wouldn\u2019t have paid too much attention to it as it\u2019s pretty generic and looks like every other space shooter out there at the time.<\/p>\n

TwinBee<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was probably one of the first examples of the \u2018cute \u2018em up\u2019 sub-genre of shooters, as you fly over colorful settings and shoot flying food.\u00a0 You pilot cute little round mechs and if you take a hit on the side, you can lose one of your shooting arms but can still fly.\u00a0 It\u2019s really one of the more playable titles on here and I got pretty far in it on my first try.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember ever seeing this in arcades, because I think it was Japan only, but I do remember hearing that the European version went under the name Bells and Whistles once.\u00a0 The first time I remember seeing a TwinBee game was reading about one of the side scrolling spinoffs that came out in the US under the name Stinger.\u00a0 For the TwinBee 10th<\/sup> Anniversary, Konami made an arcade game called TwinBee Yahoo and it\u2019s really good!\u00a0 I\u2019ve played it on a TwinBee collection I imported for my PSP.\u00a0 If you\u2019re a fan of TwinBee, you should check it out!\u00a0 Also, did you know that in Japan, there was a TwinBee anime?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it got translated to English, but I know the Goemon one did because I have it on DVD!<\/p>\n

Nemesis<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always thought Nemesis was the European name for Gradius, but yeah, this is the first Gradius game.\u00a0 People call it the granddaddy of all shooters, but while it\u2019s not the first one, it\u2019s one that perfected it.\u00a0 Fun fact: the first game I played on the SNES was NOT Super Mario World, but Gradius 3.\u00a0 Anyway, I don\u2019t remember ever seeing Gradius in arcades until MUCH later.\u00a0 I had already played Gradius 3 when I first saw the original in an arcade.\u00a0 So I mostly knew it from the NES version.\u00a0 I like Gradius\u2019 unique power-up system, but it has one flaw: if you die, you\u2019re screwed as you lose all your parts and must start over at a checkpoint with no powers and a ship that\u2019s slow as molasses.\u00a0 But even though the games are stupid hard, I still like the Gradius series for some reason.\u00a0 The stages are very imaginative (love the Easter Island heads) and I always feel like I can get a little farther each time I die.\u00a0 It\u2019s tough, but fair (sort of).\u00a0 I actually got to play a super rare Gradius game in an arcade once.\u00a0 It was called Solar Assault and was a cross between Gradius and Star Fox!<\/p>\n

Life Force<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a lot of good memories renting this game on the NES a bunch and playing it with my friend.\u00a0 We beat it together, even though we did use the Konami code and I\u2019m sure he got further than me.\u00a0 I did see this in an arcade once at Six Flags, though.\u00a0 Back then, Six Flags had a lot of good arcades and I even think game makers used those arcades to test out new machines.\u00a0 That\u2019s how I think I got to play the TMNT arcade game WAY early at Six Flags anyway.\u00a0 Life Force is a Gradius spinoff and has more of an organic biological theme to it.\u00a0 And some of the stages scroll vertically.\u00a0 It may just be me, but this version seems to have wonky hit detection, though.\u00a0 The power up system is slightly different, but one cool thing is that you can pick up your \u2018options\u2019 if you die.<\/p>\n

Life Force went through three different interesting changes.\u00a0 In Japan, the game was called Salamander, and when they brought it to the US, they changed the name to Life Force and altered some graphics and voices to make it look more organic.\u00a0 For instance, the 2nd<\/sup> stage set in space in Salamander now has a background and the voice tells you the asteroids are kidney stones!\u00a0 But then they brought Life Force BACK to Japan with even more changes!\u00a0 Now the asteroids are a pink flesh color and the mechanical core ship boss of the second stage is now a brain with four green arms!\u00a0 Anyway, you can play Salamander and US Life Force on this collection, but not the Japan Life Force.\u00a0 I have a Salamander collection imported on my PSP and Salamander 2 is really cool.\u00a0 The first stage is like the original level in Life Force, except the brain with arms taunts you the whole way, only to be eating by a giant worm at the end!\u00a0 And then you have to beat that worm!<\/p>\n

Typhoon<\/strong><\/p>\n

This shooter uses a lot of \u201cMode 7\u201d scaling graphics, but not in a good way.\u00a0 In the first level, it looks like you\u2019re shooting straight down into the ocean, and you attack a giant aircraft carrier by flying towards it.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t seem very logical to me.\u00a0 And the second area you\u2019re in a helicopter in a more generic vertically scrolling shooter.\u00a0 But by then it gets crazy hard so I stopped playing it.\u00a0 I think Namco did a better job using that \u201cMode 7\u201d technology in their shooters like Ordyne, Assault, and Phelios.<\/p>\n

Haunted Castle<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the arcade version of Castlevania.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t even know there was an arcade version of Castlevania until the Internet told me.\u00a0 It\u2019s the only game on here that\u2019s not a shooter, and I don\u2019t know why they didn\u2019t put it on the Castlevania Collection (which I\u2019ll go over in a future blog).\u00a0 I\u2019m not really a big Castlevania fan, and this game didn\u2019t do anything to change that.\u00a0 Too many cheap hits and knockbacks to be playable.\u00a0 I will say the graphics look nice for the time.<\/p>\n

Vulcan Venture<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s just Gradius 2.\u00a0 I never saw it in arcades but I do remember reading about it in magazines back then and I always thought it looked cool. Even the Famicom version looked neat and I wish we could\u2019ve gotten it over here.\u00a0 It\u2019s still super hard, though.\u00a0\u00a0By the way, you can put games in this collection on \u2018Easy\u2019 mode, but they don\u2019t seem any easier to me!<\/p>\n

Thunder Cross<\/strong><\/p>\n

And last is this shooter I never saw in arcades either.\u00a0 I think they wanted it to be a Gradius game because a lot of the ships have the same formations, and the bosses remind me of Gradius ones as well.\u00a0 You even get two options flying with you at the start of the game, and can pick up two more plus better rapid fire if you can stay alive long enough.\u00a0 One thing this game has going for it is that you can continue right where you left off, so it\u2019s the only one on this collection I actually beat!\u00a0 Only bad thing is the graphics are very garish.\u00a0 One level has you flying in sickly green clouds, and another had red clouds in a sunset, but the colors were so bright it almost gave me a headache!\u00a0 But other than that it\u2019s an all right shooter.<\/p>\n

And those are all the games on this collection!\u00a0 Let me know what you think, and tell me your favorite Konami arcade games!\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few of the games I got on sale recently are three collections of Konami classic games.\u00a0 So today we\u2019ll look at the collection with a bunch of Konami arcade titles.\u00a0 I\u2019ll go over the other collections in the coming weeks, don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 They should\u2019ve called this the Shooter Collection, because with the exception of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20135"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20141,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20135\/revisions\/20141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}