Nat, at what point would you say you think Namco found their groove?
THat's a tough call, even more so because I don't have a list of all Namco's games in chronological order.
The early shitty games that spring instantly to mind are
Genpei Toumaden (Samurai Ghost 1), Wonder Momo, Xevious, Pac-Land, Ordyne, Bravoman, and
Dragon Spirit. And by "shitty" I'm not necessarily talking about the gameplay itself, but rather the overall production quality (graphics, music, little details, etc). Although the majority of the titles listed above are actually pretty crappy games, too. Two of the games on that list I would argue are the all-time worst PCE/Turbo games ever released. Xevious and Pac-Land you could almost give a pass to because they are just replicas of the arcades which were ugly to begin with. Many of the games listed feature very dirty graphics and look bad even compared to NES games.
Namco really picked up the ball with
Galaga '90, Splatterhouse, Samurai Ghost (Genpei Toumaden 2), Final Lap Twin, and
Dragon Saber (Dragon Spirit 2). These games all scream "quality" and give you the impression that someone spent more than an afternoon throwing them together.
Namco has more games on the Turbo that what I've listed here, but these are the ones that really stand out to me. Because of the poor crap:decent ratio, Namco remains my least favorite third-party developer for the Turbo. Even behind the infamous Pack-In Video, whose often-bashed
Deep Blue I actually find pleasing to look at and fun to play.
Topic: PAC-LAND (Read 451 times)
