Title: Gaelco Arcade 1
System: Evercade
Price: $19.99
Release Date: Late 2021
Prelude
The final Piko Arcade collection we’ve yet to cover here on SFG, we worked our way backwards to the first Gaelco collection. While the second one had some oddball picks, this first one is generally well regarded in the Evercade community for having a few oddballs and some legitimate gems, one of which you may have even seen here in America back in the day. I ended up getting lucky enough to see another game in this set in person, and having gone through these titles recently, is this set of Arcade obscurities from Spain better than the last one, or are these best left buried overseas?
Presentation
Just like the other Gaelco Set, this is a batch of Arcade titles with their own various Emulation quirks, though unlike Gaelco 2, I didn’t notice any weird bugs when it came to loading up save states. One of the games originally had a weird crash bug, but was eventually patched to the point even MAME took notes from Blaze’s patch to fix the game proper on emulation. Pretty nifty!
But otherwise, yet another set of games with very strange looking character designs, weird rock music, and a lot of wild concepts that somehow merged to form actual video games.
Gameplay
Thunder Hoop– Remember how I said in Gaelco 2 that Thunder Hoop 2 was pretty frantic and a visual spectacle, even if it wasn’t much of a score chaser? Well, the original Thunder Hoop is neither of those two aspects, and you don’t have co-op to make the journey easier.
Instead, the first Thunder Hoop has you playing as a dorky looking kid, who has the ability to shoot out energy blasts at very weird enemies, and platform throughout several stages. Pretty typical action platformer stuff with a lot of cheap enemy placement, weird balancing, and a kid who really loves to scream incredibly loudly any time you brush against anything hazardous.
One thing you’ll notice in a lot of these Gaelco games is the fact that the local high score thresholds are very, very high, almost to the point of impracticality. Thus, Thunder Hoop isn’t really good as a scorechaser, and quite frankly it even sucks as a game to try and bother finishing. Definitely one to use save states for, but considering how the Sequel smashes this game to pieces, this original entry really just comes off as a novelty.
The most interesting part of Thunder Hoop honestly comes from the weird emulation quirk behind the original release of this cart. See, upon reaching Stage 4 and dying, the game would just softlock. No way to respawn, no way to progress, you’d die and the game would die as well. Apparently, this was an issue with emulation of the game for as long as the game has been available to emulate on MAME, so Blaze went in and actually fixed the game to make Thunder Hoop more Arcade accurate and easier to actually beat, and thus MAME got those improvements too. Unfortunately, Thunder Hoop is still a frustratingly balanced platformer, and one I really don’t recommend you bother finishing. If you try playing this game for the first time on a Super Pocket and notice long load times, that’s the Super Pocket patching the game to work past stage 3, so please don’t mess with the update or your cart will corrupt!
Alligator Hunt– Now this one rules. Still some absurdly high score thresholds, but now you have a local co-op take on the gallery shooter that’s all about spectacle. You take control of one of two ships as you and a friend team up to defeat the universe from some wild aliens, and Alligator Hunt is just a blast to play, either solo or with a friend. Sure, it’s no Wild Guns, and is still a fairly typical take on the genre albeit with some weirdly compressed rock music playing throughout the entire game, but it really is a fun, half-hour romp that doesn’t need to explain much to get you into the action. Pure, fast-paced Arcade fun and tough as nails, but not in the unfair way that Thunder Hoop was for me.
Glass– So interesting fact about this one… This was basically a game where the main selling point was seeing suggestive images of humans upon clearing a stage. It didn’t get nearly as NSFW as the uncensored Pipi and Bibi’s game in Toaplan 4, but still was bordering on explicit nevertheless. Thus, this EC release uses a variant that replaces the suggestive images with very silly doodles, and it honestly leads to Glass being an unintentionally hilarious journey that really doesn’t have much going for it on a gameplay front, but is pretty fun to drag a friend along for the ride.
In this game, your main goal is to sweep the board of the obstructions blocking the board, all while defeating enemies that try to get in your way. Rinse and repeat, and you’ll eventually move onto the next stage and further worlds with increasing difficulty. Very simple concept, and not one that works as a particularly great score chaser either. The high score threshold continues to be rather high, and the gameplay isn’t exactly the most engaging loop. Still, I found it fun enough to play through the whole thing co-op with a friend, so at the very least you can bring a friend along and have a decent afternoon credit feeding the game. Might be the weakest title on the cart by far.
World Rally– This is the one you may recognize. Here you have an overhead rally racer not unlike OverTop, where you choose between several difficulties and take on various courses across the world in order to duel a stricter and stricter time limit as you progress. The high score thresholds here are reasonable, the challenge is fair enough that with practice you can defeat those time limits, and the controls are delightfully smooth. Pretty much the same good stuff I said in my Gaelco 2 review about the sequel apply here, and this is where the World Rally fun all began.
Biomechanical Toy– The highlight of the cart for me by far, and somehow the game I had the pleasure of playing on a real cabinet. Yes, in the United States. Either way, you take control of a reanimated Toy who sets out across various worlds to defeat an army of evil toys and various wacky creatures in this pretty fun little checkpoint run and gun.
It ain’t co-op, but Biomechanical Toy is a very enjoyable game with tight controls and some very funky music. Yet again, the high score thresholds are pretty darn high, but this was one I really just treated more like a Console game I was aiming to actually beat. Unlike Thunder Hoop’s unbalanced difficulty and terrible design with everything, Biomechanical Toy actually feels like it wants you to practice the stages and get better at it! Plenty of bosses and minibosses to fight along your journey as well, and all in all, a pretty darn good run and gun that’s well worth a playthrough. I could even see this one being semi-reasonable for a 1CC attempt!
Snowboard Championship– You know World Rally? Well, take that concept and apply it into a Snowboarding game. It pretty much is identical in the sense that you’re pushing against tight time limits, progressing further into new courses, and still dealing with smooth, fair controls. Unlike the World Rally games however, I didn’t particularly enjoy the course design here nearly as much. Nothing bad, just pretty darn forgettable and one that made me go back to the Car games over this one. You’ll probably forget about this too.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Gaelco 1 is a decent start to a fun little pair of Evercade cartridges. While I do wish we got the 3D games Gaelco would make later on, the Evercade would probably choke if it tried running the 3D version of Radikal Bikers, so we have to deal with these two carts, and this first one is a pretty solid pickup. Biomechanical Toy is a great action platformer, and the two racers are pretty fun, pick up and play scorechasing attempts that you can casually play for a little bit and put away. As for the other three, Alligator Hunt is easily the highlight, being a great co-op spectacle and well worth a play, while Thunder Hoop and Glass really are just too clunky to get much enjoyment out of.
All in all, while I find it a little funny I worked backwards on Piko’s Arcade Carts, at least we ended on the one that barely edged out the other two! Seriously, Biomechnical Toy and World Rally do a lot of the legwork here, and are well worth picking this collection up for alone. While I’m not ready to finish that review now, I can also vouch for the former game being an excellent title for the Evercade Alpha, and really works to the game’s benefit. Definitely worth snagging before the Piko partnership expires for good soon!
I give Gaelco Arcade 1 a 7 out of 10.