Tecmo Classic Arcade

September 22,2005 - Retro gaming compilations are becoming more and more common these days. Many game companies have been in business for years and have quite an extensive back catalog to draw on. For them, it’s a natural fit to bundle together a bunch of their most popular old games for those people that want to relive their childhood, or show their kids what games were like back in the day. Tecmo is no different; they have a large back catalog of games they can draw from. Tecmo Classic Arcade is their entry into the Retro game compilation market.

The disc features a collection of eleven games from both the Tehkan and Tecmo eras. Most of the games will be unknown to most players, as they weren’t all that popular in North America. There are a few notables though, like Tecmo Bowl. This arcade football game took North America by storm when it was released for the NES. Most people have probably never played the original dual monitor arcade version of the game. The two versions of the game were quite different, with the arcade version supporting up to 4 players at once. 

Rygar is another of Tecmo’s more popular games for the NES. The arcade version was also quite different, being more of a straight forward side-scrolling action game, as opposed to the NES version which had added adventure game elements. Also included is their first arcade game Pleiads, a space shoot ‘em up that combines elements from popular games of the time like Space Invaders, Centipede, and Galaga, and adds scrolling playfields and boss fights. Bomb Jack, is a single screen platform game where the object is to collect all the bombs on screen while avoiding the enemies that are trying to get you. Solomon’s Key is a single screen puzzle platform game where the object is to first make your way to the Key to open the door to the next level, and then make your way to that door. Solomon’s Key had a bit of success on the NES as well, and the two versions of the game are remarkably similar. 

Tecmo Cup is a top-down soccer game similar in style to Tecmo Bowl. Most people have never played this one. Senjyo is a rather unique though not all that fun Space Tank game. The goal is to shoot down enemies and projectiles before they can hit you. The game featured a unique 3D game environment, but it just wasn’t all that fun to play. Swimmer has you swimming along a scrolling river, avoiding logs and other hazards while collecting fruits. There wasn’t all that much to this game, so it was largely overlooked by most people. Pinball Action is a rather average video pinball game. It has largely uninspired table designs and very unrealistic ball physics. One has to wonder why Tecmo chose to make that game, given that it came out when real pinball tables were in their prime. 

Star Force is a top down scrolling shooter that has you shooting everything that moves. It’s pretty basic in every way, and didn’t really do anything to separate itself from the crowd of similar games that were out back then. Closing out the list of games is Strato Fighter, a side scrolling shooter similar to R-Type or Gradius. The ability to turn your ship around to shoot at enemies behind you adds a small sense of innovation. It also has two-player simultaneous gameplay, which is still quite fun today.

The game controls work well. The A and B buttons act as a particular game’s action buttons, the X button inserts coins into the virtual machines, the Y button brings up the Pause menu, and the Start button starts each game after inserting a coin. This will take a bit of getting used to, since typically the Start button is used to pause a game. There is no option for alternative controller layouts.

All of the games in the collection are running emulated. The emulation is very good, and there are not any noticeable graphical or sound glitches. There was a bit of slowdown during Strato Fighter’s two player mode where both ships and a lot of enemies and bullets were on screen at once. It’s not something that happens too often, though, and it doesn’t really affect gameplay. Each game offers various options to set the difficulty and the bonus threshold.

Since the main goal of most of the games is to get the highest score possible, it would have been nice if Tecmo had included some online score board. The game does save your high scores to your Xbox hard disk, but unlike some other compilations, there are no online leader boards. Having this would have added some much needed value to this compilation.

From a visual standpoint, Tecmo Classic Arcade shows the evolution of early arcade games. All of the games look as they should; no enhancements of any sort were made to them. This is a good thing for authenticity. Each game has its own screen calibration options which allow you to center the screen or zoom it in or out. The games play with a border to keep the aspect ratio as close to the original arcade machines as possible. This is most noticeable on Tecmo Bowl, where the game runs in a very large letterbox to simulate the dual screen aspect ratio. Tecmo Classic Arcade sports a very clean, simple, UI for game selection. It uses a twelve tile menu, with each tile representing a game. The lower right tile is for the game’s Image Gallery.

Much like the graphics, the audio also shows the rapid evolution of video games. Synthetic bleeps and blips give way to FM synthesized music and some speech as well. Tecmo didn’t mess with their games in the least, again, this keeps things as authentic as possible. The front-end audio isn’t anything extraordinary, but the myriad of attract mode sounds blending together do a better job of creating an arcade atmosphere than most collections do.

Most retro compilations offer some kind of bonus material. Tecmo Classic Arcade is a little lacking in that area. It has an image gallery that contains scans of the arcade flyers, marquees, cabinets, and instruction cards. Those that were looking for behind the scenes videos or trivia will not find it here.

Of the eleven games in this collection, there are only two or three that have aged gracefully. The rest of the games don’t quite hold up. What’s even more disappointing is the omission of a few of Tecmo’s more popular games like Ninja Gaiden. There should have been more games in this collection. For $30, this disc doesn’t offer nearly as much as it could have. It is hard to recommend this to anyone but the most die-hard of retro gamers.

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