Tecmo Hit Parade Hands-On

TOKYO--With so many companies having large back catalogs of old games to draw from, it's no wonder that more and more of them are getting in on the rerelease craze. Tecmo is the latest to take the plunge with Tecmo Hit Parade, a compilation that brings together seven Tecmo arcade games from the 1980s.

The seven arcade games on the disc are Star Force, Bomb Jack, Pleiads, Senjyo, Tecmo Cup, Pinball Action, and Solomon's Key. The games are complete and true to the arcade originals, right down to the crosshatches and ROM checks that run when the machines were booted up. Currently, the Tecmo Hit Parade doesn't appear to have much else beyond the games themselves and a menu that you can use to select them.

The games on the disc range from classics to, well, Pinball Action, which is a pretty obscure video pinball game that isn't all that exciting. But games like Bomb Jack and Solomon's Key hold up pretty well, and Pleiads is a classic shooter in the same vein as Phoenix. All the available games controlled well. However, the soccer game, Tecmo Cup, originally used a trackball for control, so it could pose a bit of a problem. Tecmo Hit Parade is currently scheduled to be released in Japan this November. No domestic release details have been announced at this time.

For more updates, be sure to check GameSpot's coverage of the Tokyo Game Show 2004.