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Everyone knows the arcade classics – Street Fighter, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, etc. These are the games that moulded a generation of gamers and are still very much alive today, decades after their first appearance in mainstream media. The commercial success of a release is often indicative of a title’s overall quality, even though there are plenty of times when an absolute gem fails to garner the attention it deserves. In this blog post we’ll explore some of our favourite arcade games that have all the heart of an instant icon, but never quite managed to become household names.
The early 90s were a prime time for beat-em-ups with series such as Streets of Rage, Final Fight, and Battle Toads dominating the arcades. In such a heavily oversaturated genre, there wasn’t much breathing room for Technōs Japan’s Shadow Force to distinguish itself from the crowd. Those who did play it (which in all honesty, wasn’t very many), would come to appreciate the complexity of Shadow Force which required the use of six buttons rather than the arcade cabinet standard of two; adding a whole new dimension of play. The extended control scheme meant that Shadow Force had a much larger move pool than pretty much any other beat-em-up game out at the time and with each attack having its own speed and range, the 90s audience were mind blown at the level of combat realism. Another cool little feature that set Shadow Force apart was the ability to possess normal enemies and temporarily gain access to their move pool, a novel and creative idea that only added to the feeling that Technōs Japan had plenty of ideas for what the future of beat-em-ups should look like.
As far as plot is concerned, Shadow Force was slightly on the outlandish side. You are asked to select one of four characters and defeat an evil organisation called Teaser – who are, as was so common in the 90s, creating monsters to take over the world. You fight through a bunch of soldiers, samurais, and monsters to get to the boss at the end of each level. After a couple of levels of this, you’re swallowed by a boss and fight Teaser’s most powerful creation to halt their global conquest.
Shadow Force has major difficulty spikes and an ending that can only be described as being pretty meh. To make matters worse, the publisher Technōs Japan went bankrupt in 1996 making Shadow Force their last arcade release. While it may lack some of the polish of other games in the genre, Shadow Force is an incredibly creative title and if you’re able to overlook some of its shortcomings, it’s a title bound to stick with you for a long time. Shadow Force is available to play straight out of the box with any of our Classic or Mega Arcade Machines alongside Technōs Japan’s other beloved fighting game IP – the Double Dragons franchise.
If you’re familiar with Qix – the classic puzzle game released for in 1981, you probably already have a pretty good idea of how Volfied plays. You use a spaceship to draw lines across the level in an attempt to trap enemies; once an area is claimed by the player, any enemies trapped inside are destroyed and that section is replaced with a graphic from the following stage. Power ups are also scattered across the level to grant the player extra speed or weapons when collected. In order to clear a level, 80% or more of the area has to be claimed by the player. With super simple yet addictive gameplay, Volfied is an overlooked classic that you can keep coming back to in an attempt to beat that elusive high score.
In Volfied you take the role of a space pilot returning home from a distant galaxy to find that your home planet is under attack. Due to what I presume must be a poorly allocated planetary defence budget, it’s up to you alone to wipe out the alien invaders and bring peace back to your homeland. With unique enemy types and a boss at the end of each of its levels, Volfied is absolutely packed with content – why not give it a try on one of our Classic or Mega Arcade Machines? Both Volfied and Qix are included in our built-in games list.
Right, it wouldn’t be a proper list of hidden gem arcade games without a mention of the absolutely ridiculous Boogie Wings. Do you want to fight tanks while riding your battle elephant? How about a one-on-one with Santa himself? While Boogie Wings was quickly forgotten amongst the stream of new gaming releases, its sheer craziness captured our hearts and the hearts of the not-so-many who had the opportunity to try this title. The game has you take control of an inventor (who is also a pilot) battling a series of villainous professors (who are also time travellers) in an attempt to halt their villainous plans (which aren’t really expanded upon). Taking place as a horizontal scrolling shooter, Boogie Wings has you shooting your way through the professor’s henchmen while also utilising the ‘Skyhook’ – a grappling hook attached to the protagonist’s biplane – to pick up and throw around enemies, vehicles, or pretty much any other onscreen objects. There’s a bit of skill needed to master the Skyhook, but in the right hands it becomes a weapon of mass chaos – a general theme you’ll be seeing a lot of across Boogie Wings’ runtime.
The individual levels are where Bookie Wings really shines and you’ll be fighting enemies through some very creative locations such as a natural history museum with full dinosaur displays, a Christmastime city illuminated in festive lights, or even an amusement park where you’re chased by a rampant Ferris wheel. Each of these environments are intricately designed and packed with minor details that really bring the whole scene to life; add in an iconic pixel art style that looks very clean – even by today’s standards, and you have a game that has stood the test of time shining just as brightly as it did when it was first released. The European version of Boogie Wings (which is pretty much identical to the Japanese ver) is available through our 10,000-game list on any of our Classic or Mega Arcade Machines.
The game industry has always been a rapidly changing one, and sometimes titles suffer purely because they drop at the wrong times. Something similar happened to Elevator Action Returns – the sequel to 1983’s Elevator Action, which dropped in that awkward in-between phase just as the shoot-em-up genre was slowly transitioning to 3D. To make matters worse, the shoot-em-ups that had been so popular in the late 80s and early 90s was now evolving into something a little bit different – something that would become known as the bullet hell subgenre. Caught in a changing landscape with unstable consumer demand, Elevator Action Returns was instantly overlooked as a title from yesteryear with US video game magazine Next Generation perfectly summarising gamer attitudes in their review of the title –
“Elevator Action 2 brings out the impulsive, frenzied, shooting psychopath in you, and in that, it’s fun. But if this side of your personality is already spent, and ours certainly is, then you’ll pass this classic shooter right up”
Several decades later and in a time where traditional shoot-em-ups are limited primarily to the indie space, we had the chance to revisit Elevator Action Returns, finally seeing it for the quality title that it always was. You play as one of three characters – each with their own combat stats, starting weapons, and upgrade paths – as they track down nuclear bombs planted by a terrorist group across a series of facilities. The player must traverse the level, entering all of the red doors in order to collect intel on how to defuse the bombs, before then making it to the exit. Naturally, the bad guys want to stop you from doing so and can be fought off with a vast array of weapons such as pistols, rifles, and even missile launchers. As the title of the game suggests, each stage also has multiple elevators running between floors that allow the player to move to different parts of the facility as well as to strategically dispose of enemies; if not careful, however, the player can get crushed by said elevators or even fall down the chutes. The gameplay of Elevator Action Returns is incredibly fun and it earns our pick as one of our favourite titles to simply pick up and play; add in the well implemented co-op mode for extra carnage and you have a title perfect for when you’re needing that cheesy action fix. Play both Elevator Action and Elevator Action Returns included with any of our arcade machine cabinets.
Continuing with the theme of beat-em-ups that deserve more love, we have Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, a tie in to the TV series of the same name also released in 1993. Set in the 26th century, during a time where dinosaurs roam the earth, you play as one of four characters fighting against an organisation creatively dubbed the Black Marketeers in order to prevent their dinosaur poaching misdeeds. The quest for dino conservation takes our heroes through swamp forests, coal mines, jungles, and underground laboratories – all rendered in beautifully detailed pixel art. Good luck finding a game anywhere else that let’s you fight gangsters and dinosaurs, all the while driving around in iconic vintage cars. However silly the premise may sound; Cadillacs and Dinosaurs makes it work through tight gameplay and a charming art direction.
Playing like a standard beat-em-up, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs has all of the fun bits you would expect from the genre – grapple attacks, special moves, weapon picks-ups, etc. In that sense, it’s not all that different from most other games in the genre; that is, until you start getting chased around the level by an angry T-Rex. While it doesn’t exactly set itself apart in terms of gameplay, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is another prime example of Capcom being the masters of their craft having put together a title that feels about as clean as a game could in the early 90s. We would highly recommend checking out this overlooked classic by trying it on one of our arcade machine cabinets.
Did any of our hidden gem arcade classics catch your eye? You can play all of the titles above as well as thousands more included in our Classic or Mega Arcade Machines game lists. If you have any questions about our product range or would like to speak to a member of our team directly, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
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