Dig Dug 2Mappy 14Dragon Buster 26Valkyrie 32Rolling Thunder 42Baraduke 48Märchen Maze 52The Genji and the Heike Clans(Genpei Toumaden) 54Youkai Douchuuki 60Wonder Momo 64Bravoman 66Pistol Daimyo no Bouken 68Lost Namco Games 69Burning Force 70Marvel Land 72The Outfoxies 74Lucky & Wild 76Mirai Ninja 78Bloodstained 82Still More Best Games of All Time 88Patreon Donors 93Table of ContentsCONTRIBUTORS:Kurt Kalata: Mappy, Dig Dug, Burning Force, Marvel Land, Valkyrie, Rolling Thunder, Märchen Maze, Bravoman, Wonder Momo, The Genji andthe Heike Clans, Youkai Douchuuki, Pistol Daimyo, BloodstainedSam Derboo: Dig DugAiden Monnens: Dragon BusterFederico Tiraboschi: BaradukeEd Burns: The OutfoxiesMichael Plasket: Lucky & WildHugo Provost: Mirai NinjaWord on the Wind, Michael “slowbeef” Sawyer, Chris Rasa: More Best Games of All TimeCover Art: Thor Thorvaldson – Website: https://www.deviantart.com/thormeister Twitter: @thormeister1971Managing Editor: Jason KowalczykCopy Editors: Nicolas DiNuzzo, Alexander McDonoughHardcore Gaming 101 Digest Vol. 6: Namco Arcade ClassicsDigital EditionFirst Printing: November 2019The images reproduced in this book are printed under the banner of fair use assupplemental visuals to support critical and historical writing. All imagescontained herein are copyright of their respective rights holder. This book isnot affiliated with Namco, or any video game developers or publishers in anyofficial capacity.Namco is basically a company with dual histories. Internationally, they’re known for games like Pac-Man andGalaga, groundbreaking classics in the golden age of arcade gaming. In Japan, however, they also had areputation for their offbeat, quirky output, often based on creating unique and interesting characters. Sincethey relied on overseas partners for their distribution, Americans and Europeans never really got to see mostof these titles, at least until both MAME and the Namco Museum line gave them greater exposure. This digest seeks to cover both of these aspects of Namco’s history. For the “popular” side, I chose DigDug and Mappy. Dig Dug was fairly well known, though it also had plenty of sequels that tend to beforgotten, which are fun to explore. Mappy, on the other hand, never quite caught on the same way, at leastin America. Since it wasn’t really ported as extensively as Namco’s other games, I didn’t experience it untillong after its prime, at my bachelor party at the Barcade in Jersey City. All the same, I was immediatelyenamored with it, and I hope to help explain its appeal to those who have yet to discover the title. For the company’s “quirky” side, I picked a lot of games that I had never really heard of until the 2006release of Namco x Capcom for the PlayStation 2. It wasn’t localized, and probably one of the reasons wasbecause so many of the Namco characters were unknown. There was Bravoman! And Wonder Momo! Andthe kid from Youkai Douchuuki (Tarosuke)! And the dude from Genpei Toumaden (Kagekiyo)! Some of thesegames weren’t necessarily great, but they did speak to an era that’s largely unknown to English speakers,and I wanted to explore this further. A few other interesting games, like the highly underrated Outfoxies, andthe forgotten multimedia project Mirai Ninja, are included here as well. Honestly, this edition only scratchesthe surface of Namco oddities, as there’s so much else out there (Tower of Druaga, Numan Athletics, somany weird Pac-Man games) we could definitely do another volume. Further, some of their shoot-em-ups likeXevious, Dragon Spirit, and Ordyne, are going to be covered in the upcoming Guide to Shoot-em-ups Vol. 2.Also, see Digest Vol. 3: The Guide to Retro Horror for a full look at the Splatterhouse series.Rounding out this digest are a few other features we couldn’t fit in our previous digests – reviews ofthe two Bloodstained games as an update to our Castlevania book, as well as five more “Best Games of AllTime”, covering more of our faves after that book was published back in 2015.-Kurt KalataNovember 2019Introduction
