Konami Collector's Series: Arcade Advanced
Six classic arcade games remade for the Game Boy Advance.
Konami Collector's Series: Arcade Advanced is a 2002 compilation for the Game Boy Advance featuring enhanced remakes of six Konami arcade titles from the 1980s. It includes updated visuals and multiplayer support via the Game Link Cable. The collection was developed over six months under the direction of Minoru Toyota.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Konami
- Publisher
- Konami (Game Boy Advance)
- Majesco (TV plug & play)
- Konami Digital Entertainment (PC plug & play)
- Director
- Minoru Toyota
- Artist
- Masaki Sugimoto
- Composer
- Jun Funihashi
- Genre
- Action, Multicart
- Modes
- Single player, multiplayer
- Platforms
- Game Boy Advance, Plug & play
Facts from the source article.
Overview
Arcade Advanced is a multicart compilation of six Konami action arcade games from the 1980s. From a selection screen, the player can choose among Frogger, Scramble, Time Pilot, Gyruss, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, and Rush'n Attack. The games feature enhanced graphics and multiplayer modes via the Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable. The Konami Code unlocks enhanced aspects of each game, such as new stages in Time Pilot and Gyruss or improved visuals in Frogger and Scramble. Frogger, a 1981 action game, tasks the player with navigating a frog across a busy road and river; it includes a timed competitive two-player mode. Scramble is a 1981 horizontally scrolling shooter whose enhanced version lets the player select the ship type. Time Pilot, a 1982 multidirectional shooter, has the player fight enemies across different time periods and includes a two-player high-score competition. Gyruss, a 1983 tube shooter by the designer of Time Pilot, contains a hidden Black Hole level accessed by the Konami Code. Yie Ar Kung-Fu, a 1984 fighting game, pits the player against a roster of fighters and adds a two-player versus mode. Rush'n Attack, a 1985 run and gun game, requires the player to rescue hostages from a Soviet base and offers cooperative two-player play.
Development
Konami handled both development and publishing of Arcade Advanced, a project that took six months and was overseen by director Minoru Toyota. Four programmers made up the core team. Three of them were each tasked with the single-player mode for two specific games: Jimi Ishihara worked on Frogger and Yie Ar Kung Fu, Yuji Yoshiie took Scramble and Gyruss, and David Mantzel handled Time Pilot and Rush'n Attack. Masaki Sugimoto acted as lead artist, with other artists assigned to individual titles, while Jun Funihashi managed the audio. Toyota himself built the overall system and the multiplayer modes. The team chose the six included games based on how notable and enjoyable they considered Konami's library, though they wished they could have added more. Instead of emulating the original arcade hardware, they rewrote the games for the Game Boy Advance, which meant adjusting for the smaller screen. Character sprites were also modified, with changes to Scramble and Rush'n Attack continuing right up to the end of development. The music in Frogger was updated to draw in new players, with an eye on the series' future. For multiplayer, the team looked at Nintendo's sample program but built their own system tailored to these games. Toyota found this part especially tough, mainly because the ROM had to stay small enough to support single-cartridge multiplayer. To shrink file sizes, major cuts were made to Yie Ar Kung Fu and Rush'n Attack. Single-cartridge play requires the transferred data to fit inside the handheld's 256KB of internal RAM. The compilation was revealed late in 2001, with a planned April 2002 release, but it actually shipped early in North America near the end of March 2002 on a 32 megabit Game Pak. Konami promoted it at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles in May 2002, and it reached Europe the following month. Majesco put out a plug and play version in 2004, and two years later Konami Digital Entertainment released a Konami Live! plug and play controller that emulated four of the titles online.
Reception
Konami Collector's Series: Arcade Advanced received generally favorable reviews according to Metacritic. Prior to release, Game Boy Xtreme staff noted more attention had been given to this compilation than other retro collections, considering it a decent deal. IGN's Craig Harris praised the conversion's accuracy in a preview. GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann commended the faithful reproduction of the original arcade games but criticized the audiovisuals as drab by contemporary standards. He lauded the game selection and the single-cartridge multiplayer options, and highlighted upgrades to Yie Ar Kung-Fu that elevate it to a full-fledged fighting game. Harris lamented the lack of options from the original arcade machines but praised the near-perfect reproduction and extra features, calling Arcade Advanced the most thorough compilation on the system due to its multiplayer capabilities. Yolk magazine's Renan Balanga called the games classics and described the collection as an opportunity to relive memories. Nintendo Power nominated the game for Best Remake of 2002. European reception was more mixed. German magazine Club Nintendo praised the European release as a bargain, recommending it to fans of fast-paced games and noting nostalgic fans would enjoy it more. Jeuxvideo staff was more critical, stating that nostalgia did not compensate for poor and dated audiovisuals, and that the games are uninteresting and forgettable.
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