Review #738: Konami Collector's Series - Arcade Advanced

 These games offer no-quarter!

 Not looking to be left out of the rerelease fever, Konami brought a few of their Arcade classics to the GBA with Konami Collector's Series - Arcade Advanced. It's a six-game compilation that features a couple of true classics as well as a few forgotten little games.

 The games are presented as is, with no way to tweak the difficulty, amount of lives or continues which... really sucks. Arcade games were designed with one thing in mind and one thing only: Take your quarters, and they really gave no-quarter when doing so, so that makes these games feel quite cheap and getting far on any game will require quite a bit trial-and-error alongside having to learn how they work in-and-out.

Yie Ar Kung-Fu

 Yier Ar Kung-Fu is a very simple, very cheap 1 on 1 fighting game in which you, as Oolong ,must fight various martial artists and their individual styles, some even use projectiles. There are plenty of moves you can use with A and B, while inputting different directions on the d-pad, but it's mostly a masher. Might be nostalgia, but I liked it a lot and had a lot of fun playing it.

 This game was the reason I bought this cart, and I don't regret it one bit.
7.0 out of 10

Rush'n Attack

 Rush'n Attack is a sidescrolling action game in which you must move from left to right while killing endless amounts of enemy waves with your knife. Defeating blue enemies will grant you weapons such as a bazooka or a flamethrower which can make easy work of enemies.

 Simple, to the point, surprisingly fun.
6.0 out of 10

Gyruss

 I was ready to hate this game, because I dislike shooters, but lo and behold, it wound it up being quite fun! Think Galaxian but on a cylinder.You can roll all over the screen while enemies take turns coming towards you with their attacks. It's quite a decent time waster.

 6.0 out of 10

Time Pilot

 Time Pilot plays a bit like Asteroids, with the whole 360 degree turn-movement, but you have to bring down enemy planes instead of rocks and rescue allies. It's hard to the point of cheapness, where it feels like enemy bombs track you, but the difficulty is also what makes it exciting.

5.0 out of 10

Scramble

 This was the game I liked the least on this collection, but it's still rather fun, for what it is, a sidescrolling shooter in which you play as an invader and must bring down ships and towers with bombs and lasers. As straightforward as it gets.
 5.0 out of 10

Frogger

 You can fight me on this, but Frogger is an all-time classic and it's fun to this day. You must help frogs cross streets and rivers to make it to the pond at the end of the screen. It's as simple as that, except that you must avoid traffic and cross the river by jumping over logs and turtles. The biggest issue is the purple frog bonus, since it's hard to see on the GBA's screen, making it for a handicap instead of a bonus!
 7.5 out of 10

 That's all fine and dandy, but what if I told you that the game houses a few bonuses and secrets? Using the Konami code on any game will produce different results. Rush'n Attack and Time Pilot get a few new levels, which is OK I guess, but Gyruss gets a bonus X level with slightly enhanced graphics. Pretty nifty, right? Yie Ar Kung-Fu gets bonus characters for the multiplayer mode, which is fine, but I can't play it by myself. But what about Scramble and Frogger? Well...

 Complete and total graphical overhauls. This is quite probably one of the best looking Frogger versions out there, and it's almost criminal that it's hidden behind a code so that a lot of people won't find out that their games contain this neat little extras. Having clearer graphics, different ships and an easier to read HUD makes Scramble a bit more fun, and the new graphics make Frogger seem like a new game. These extras should've been extra options on the menu!

 Konami Collector's Series - Arcade Advanced is a decent way to pass the time, and the Konami-Code extras are brilliant, but Arcade games shouldn't be rereleased without infinite continues. I wish the game would've had less shooters, and maybe put Castlevania Arcade instead of Time Patrol, but Frogger is worth the price of admission alone, and the other games are worth a look or two.
 7.0 out of 10