Title: Toaplan Arcade 3
System: Evercade
Price: $19.99
Release Date: Late 2024
Prelude
After a year and half gap between Toaplan Arcade 2, we get the next volume of Toaplan titles with Toaplan Arcade 3! Including seven more titles from the Japanese shooting publisher, this includes a bulk of games I already reviewed individually via Bitwave ports; if you want to have any more info on the non Ghox games, search them in the site’s search bar and I’ll have even more to say about them!
Presentation
Like usual, another batch of Arcade games, and thus a bunch of different hardware specs to emulate, which Blaze managed to pull off brilliantly. Just a night and day difference between the Bitwave ports and these carts, really.
The only emulation oddity here I noticed was just how loud Ghox’s audio emulation is; so much so that even on the quietest volume of the EXP (a pretty quiet device) the game is excessively loud. I can only imagine playing this on max volume on a super pocket or an alpha would deafen you, so be wary of the audio with this game in particular. It still is emulated well, just rather loudly.
Gameplay
Like the prior two sets, I reviewed a good chunk (6/7) of these via their bitwave ports earlier this year! Also like those sets, this set emulates every Toaplan title far better than those Bitwave reissues managed to, and you even get a non-shooter here, making a port debut! Every game here is vertical this time around, too, making all of them pretty fitting for the Evercade EXP’s Tate mode.
Outzone– A top-down run and gun, this one got high praise from me in my review of the Bitwave port, save for the wonky audio. Well here on Evercade, we don’t have wonky audio, so now you have the means to enjoy an excellent, if brutal run and gun. Just shoot through continual stages, changing from an 8 way shot to a 3 way shot along the way, and try to gain energy to recover your decreasing health!
Outzone is still pretty damn tough, especially on these default DIP settings, but luckily you can continue on the spot if you play via local co-op. Ultimately, the meticulous checkpoint placement and great scoring mechanics make this one worth a go on 1CC, and trying to better and better your high scores is still enough to give Outzone plenty of replay value on this cart. Definitely worth the challenge!
Ghox– A brick breaking game by Toaplan, and this is an intriguing one since it didn’t use a dial like most games of the genre; indeed, you can move around in four directions! You’d think this would make Ghox very tough to control with a D-Pad or stick, but I found it to not be that bothersome, as holding one of the buttons helps you speed up the paddle if need be, and you have a very handy bomb that splits one of the two balls on the playfield into a multiball for use in a pinch.
Still, decent controls do not make Ghox easy by any means. You’re still playing a Toaplan title, and one that won’t hesitate to go all out on you, even if you’re just focused on breaking bricks here. The physics aren’t particularly consistent, and trying to aim at those last bricks is still just as frustrating as in most other brick breakers. I feel that’s likely why they added the bomb, since being able to flood the board with extra balls does help make those last brick situations much easier to deal with, but it can also be rather tempting to use it right away for taking out treasure chests or clusters of bricks.
There’s also a good chunk of power ups available to help you out, whether they be fairies that provide temporary upgrades such as a bigger paddle or piercing ball, or colored orbs that give you a permanent upgrade if you collect five in a row.
Yes, permanent, meaning that even if you use a continue you’ll retain any options and such you gain from these orbs. This does mean you can credit feed the entire game in under an hour with little trouble, so if you want to see the credits, you’ll be able to with ease, but the game is much, much more fun if you try to beat it with as few continues as possible, or go for that high score. Somehow, Ghox manages to still be pretty addicting regardless of how you play it, and with this being yet another local Co-Op title, this is definitely worth at least one playthrough. Still, try and go for the high score, and you may end up getting pretty addicted to this one, wonky physics aside!
Vimana– Another vertical shooter, this one aiming to be a little easier than the Toaplan titles which came before it. You not only have a simple charge shot, but your bombs are a handy homing shield, making them pretty useful for deploying with either big waves of enemies, or when dealing with the many, many minibosses you’ll encounter during the game.
Even more jarring than normal will be the lack of weapon variety, in favor of powering up that aforementioned charge shot. I didn’t really mind the change here, and since the main shot works good for both wide and close range attacks, it ultimately just adds to fulfilling Vimana’s goal of being a more easygoing shmup, and I feel it ultimately succeeds at that really damn well. It also helps that the music is absolutely incredible, and easily has an OST that I’d rate second best on the entire cartridge, with really god-tier FM songs. All in all, a simpler shooter that is still equally as addictive and one of the most accessible in this collection by far.
Fixeight– A spiritual successor to Outzone, this takes the overhead run and gun and pairs it with eight characters! Now instead of shifting directions like in Outzone, you have different characters with different means of attacks, and each of them has two means of attacking.
This time around you respawn right where you die, and while the game is flashier and more varied than before, I couldn’t help but find this to have less enjoyable stages than Outzone. Not bad ones by any means, but since Outzone was such an excellent game and so much fun with that checkpointing system, going from excellent to great is still a slight downgrade.
Oh well, this once again has local co-op and is still worth a full play, even if I didn’t find the scoring or level design to hit the same high marks as Outzone. The sheer amount of playable characters are enough to create plenty to enjoy out of FixEight, so as long as you go into this not expecting the amount of excellence that Outzone provided, you’ll find a great companion to that game here.
Truxton II– I mentioned in my review of Truxton II on Steam, just how horrific that port was, with the worst music emulation of the entire Bitwave line, along with my general distain for Tatsujin Oh as a game due to the extreme difficulty, not just compared to other Toaplan games, but compared to other difficult shooters in general. To put it bluntly for people who think this version is impossible, imagine non-stop, lightning speed bullets for the duration of the entire game.
Here on Evercade? Thankfully we get the western version of the game, and once again with proper sound emulation, making this a preferable option to the Bitwave port (which included both regional variants, but still had bad sound emulation even post patch) already. This western version tones down the game’s brutality just enough that you’ll at least be able to build yourself up and get enough practice to maybe stand a chance at scoring high and making progress through the stages. You once again have a ship with different colored powerups to use against enemies, along with the ability to pull off a bomb to save yourself in a pinch.
Don’t take the regional differences I noted as means for thinking Truxton II is short and easy though; it still is way tougher than the original Truxton, and while I like a lot of the new powerups here more than the weapons you had in that original game, the first Truxton still has the edge over this sequel solely due to not getting utterly ridiculous near the end of the game, as well as not being obscenely long.
Oh boy, you think most of these 15-40 min shooters are long? How about trying to deal with very, very long levels with a lot going on, leading to a game loop that can near an hour or more depending on how many times you’ll die. And you will be dying a lot here, with only local co-op as a means to respawn on the spot and brute force through the game.
Still, I had a decent amount of fun with this western version of Truxton II here, and while this is absolutely not a desirable scorechaser by any means due to the high barrier of entry and very high leaderboard scores, that does make it all the more satisfying to place on the in-game leaderboards at all! In the end, Truxton II is still a nasty, unbalanced game, but at least one with fun enough mechanics and great music that makes the game worth a shot.
Maybe you won’t want to clear a game loop of this one, but trying for the top spot on the in-game high score list is the next best thing here, and if you want something that could be deemed “hardest challenge on Evercade”, 1CCing this game is absolutely fitting of that title.
Batsugun– How many times will I review this game? Well, here’s the third time! This wonderful game helped kickstart the bullet hell genre, and despite being a very short game to clear, it absolutely is worth trying to 1CC at least once, and best your high scores.
From lots of hidden score techniques, three different playable characters with their own shot types to master, and a much gentler difficulty curve that rewards careful play without being overly brutal in the same way as their earlier shmups, Batsugun stands the test of time and is an incredible finale to the Toaplan shooter legacy. There’s a good reason I’ve reviewed it twice before, and now, three times. Just jump in, play, and you’ll get to grips with the game incredibly quickly, but if it still manages to be too tricky for you…
Batsugun: Special Edition– How many times will I review this game? Well, here’s the fourth time! This is the Special Edition of the game, which rebalanced the game by making your hitbox way smaller, improving the bomb to cover the whole screen, and by adding lots and lots of score bonuses and hidden secrets to discover.
Also, the game loops now, which makes this one the definitive version for both scorechasing and self-challenge purposes, while also being a bit easier than the base game due to the more forgiving hitbox. Somehow takes an already outstanding game and perfects it to the ultimate degree, leaving this game as one I can’t really complain much about at all.
Honest to god, this might just be in the top three of games to ever grace the Evercade, since Special Edition is really that great of a shooter, and the perfect starting point for anyone remotely interested in the genre. If you love score chasers, this is also a very addicting one to keep coming back to! There’s a good reason I’ve reviewed it thrice before, and now, four times.
Conclusion
In the end, Toaplan Arcade 3 may easily be the best cart on Evercade for a lot of people. It certainly is the new best Arcade cart for me, at the very least! Seven of the best Toaplan games of all time, all compiled into a nice little package, with plenty of scorechasing fun to be had here.
All have co-op, all work great in the Evercade EXP’s Tate mode, and all are just a pure blast to play, with even the weaker titles of the set like Truxton II having their own quirks to make them at least worth experiencing a few times. But when you have one of the best games in the entire shooting genre with Batsugun here, that makes Toaplan Arcade 3 worth it for that sole game alone; the five other excellent titles here just makes the pricepoint an absolute steal!
When the only things I can really lament about Toaplan 3 are the continual lack of DIP Switch options on Evercade along with this volume being a little shooter heavy, (with only one non-shooter in the entire set) that still makes this a pretty easy buy for Evercade owners. Might not look the best on the Super Pocket, but otherwise it’s a wonderful fit for every piece of Evercade hardware, and for all fans of shooters or scorechasing games. Definitely a must-own!
I give Toaplan Arcade 3 a 9 out of 10.