A Long Overdue Collection

I was very excited when Data East Arcade Classics was announced. At long last, I would be able to relive two of my all-time favorite arcade games: Burger Time, and Magical Drop III. Two days ago, my disc finally arrived. With great anticipation, I opened and played the game.

The user interface was relatively standard - no fancy animated buttons, no fireworks to play each time you hover over a button - just simple "choose game, play game" functionality. It was quite intuitive and permitted me to jump into the game quickly.

I was happy to see that all of my favorites were there. Some of these games I had forgotten about: Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, Joe & Mac (in the pack it had the title "Caveman Ninja", probably due to licensing restrictions), and Wizard Fire (I remembered playing this a long time ago, and thought I'd never see it again! It's an unsung classic). In addition, you get Burger Time and Magical Drop III (two of my all-time favorites), Burnin' Rubber (Bump 'n' Jump), Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory (a challenging sequel to Burger Time), Express Raider, Super Real Darwin, Side Pocket, Crude Buster, Secret Agent, Heavy Barrel, Lock 'n' Chase (probably the weakest game in the pack), and Street Slam - for a total of 15 games.

To enhance the experience, the developers added five goals to each game. Completing the goals permits you to unlock features, such as images in the gallery, music tracks to play, or special game play modes which raise the difficulty of the standard games, effectively giving you 30 games. The game also permits you to save your high scores, and associate Mii's with your high scores.

The pack had a few weaknesses. For one thing, the music is kind of tinny - I'm not sure how much that has to do with the original sounds, which after all were made on relatively unsophisticated hardware. I would have liked it if the pack had some kind of autosave, or if it at least prompted you to save your game when you were finished (if you don't, you lose all of your progress - including high scores and achievements). Just remember to periodically save your progress and you'll be okay.

How high should I rate this? Well the primary reason for buying Data East Arcade Classics is to relive a good collection of classic games. The emulation was spot-on, and the choice of games was excellent - though it could have been better. Perhaps they're withholding some titles for a part two? (Hint: I need Karate Champ and Karnov!)

Overall, this game gets a 9.0 / 10.