Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection Review

"Retro Ship Pew Pew"

Campaign

May 14, 2019 at 10:07pm

As part of a wave of classic Konami old school compilation packages we’re given the Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection. This setup includes eight games from the olden days of the arcade and they’re mostly space shooter based. I honestly hadn’t heard of any of them prior to playing this, so it was a neat experience for sure. That aspect would also lean me into wondering just how “classic” these games necessarily are.

Whatever the case, there’s a quality to the presentation and it’s clean. If there’s not enough nostalgia here, you can also view the included eBook. This is a digital item within the game library that can be viewed which includes a pile of background content behind the creation of these titles. I thought that was neat to scroll through and take a look at, just for a view into the historic side of gaming. The game list will now follow below. The names were taken from the site as they include extra details in case of region title changes.

Included Games:
Haunted Castle, Typhoon (A-Jax), Nemesis (Gradius), Vulcan Venture (Gradius II), Life Force (Salamander), Thunder Cross, Scramble and TwinBee.

Gameplay

The titles all handle generally well, didn’t notice any real new problems. They can be fun to play, but are obviously products of their time. It was neat to see a range and that they thematically fit together for the most part. Generally you load the titles from a main hub area, from there you get choices. The games look just like they used to, but you now have an options area.

This allows you to modify certain elements and save/load progress. Some game settings include difficulty and the quantity of lives you get. There are also choices for the controls and some visual options. You could add a frame, tweak the blur or even alter the display ratio if you so choose to do so. I’ll also mention that the audio is on point and sounds great generally.
Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection Review Xbox Wallpaper Screenshot

The Conclusion

The Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection is a great way to revisit these games, I just didn’t find them to be too enticing as a package. I don’t necessarily have any problems with these games, they run fine and have been given some quality of life improvements. The pack has a theme to it, it’s just nothing too exciting ovreall.

You get to blast things in ships for the most part, but they haven’t all held up so well and I couldn’t even note a stand out here. I’d say that Life Force was probably my favorite, just because it was really weird. They can be fun, I’m just not generally sure that this will be something for everyone. If you are fans of the titles, it’s probably the best way to play them.

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Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Rating Overall: 6.5

Gamerheadquarters Reviewer Jason Stettner