Namco Museum Vol. 1 - Longplay
1710:00:00 - Opening/Entering the Museum
0:02:53 - Toy Pop exhibit
0:10:58 - Toy Pop (1986)
0:37:06 - Bosconian exhibit
0:43:38 - Bosconian (1981)
0:54:26 - Rally-X/New Rally-X exhibit
1:05:54 - Rally-X (1980)
1:11:05 - New Rally-X (1981)
1:20:23 - Pac-Man exhibit
1:30:30 - Pac-Man (1980)
1:39:11 - Galaga exhibit
1:46:30 - Galaga (1981)
2:05:19 - Pole Position exhibit
2:13:51 - Pole Position (1982)
2:18:21 - Lounge
2:28:50 - Jukebox: Toy Pop
2:32:10 - Jukebox: Galaga
2:34:01 - Jukebox: Rally-X
2:35:13 - Jukebox: Pac-Man
2:36:12 - Jukebox: Bosconian
2:37:24 - Jukebox: New Rally-X
2:39:23 - Jukebox: Pole Position
2:41:15 - Records
2:46:49 - Credits
Ah... Namco. Gradius may be my favorite video game series, and Mario may consume a lot of my life thanks to speedrunning, but Namco's arcade hits from the 80s are what got me into gaming. Nowadays, most gaming involves DLC, advanced graphics, online, multiplayer, and all that shit. Back in those days, you just put in a quarter (or two) and play until you got a game over. I was never around in the 80s or 90s, but I'm sure arcades back then were glorious.
And Namco was among one of the best companies out there, consistently churning out great classics like Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug. So, when 1995 rolls around, and the Playstation is rising in popularlity, Namco decided to package some of their greatest arcade games into a 5 (or 6) series sage called "Namco Museum". Namco Museum would later go on to be their default name for any future compilations, but the Museum title is truly deserved here (more on this later).
Volume 1 has a great lineup right out of the gate. You've got the obvious hits like Pac-Man, Galaga, and Pole Position, along with some of their underrated classics like Rally-X, New Rally-X, and Bosconian. Then there's Toy Pop, which I believe is one of the most underrated Namco titles out there. This compilation is worth owning for Toy Pop ALONE.
But that's not all. For the first several installments to this series, not only do you get the games themselves, but you are also able to explore a virtual museum. Each game has a hallway filled with exhibits containing slide shows, how to play/tips, and decor, merchandise, or artwork relating to the various games. Then there's the game rooms themselves, which are chock-full of detail all designed around the games themselves. For an early Playstation game, this is truly remarkable. I spend some time looking over all of the exhibits in this video, which you are free to skip over if you want to only see me play the games. A lot of exhibits contain Japanese writing, which I obviously can't translate, so I don't usually spend too much time on those. Also, this compilation was obviously released in Japan first; there are numerous grammatical errors that I can only imagine happened during translation.
I do have some gripes with this collection. First off, the emulation quality. The box claims that these are "the exact arcade translations". Are these the best you could've gotten outside of arcades in 1995? Probably. But Namco has done far better since this one. Pac-Man in particular is nasty-looking (unless you play in the game's native aspect ratio... but then you have to turn your TV sideways, and that's an obvious no. This option also exists for Galaga), and pretty much every other game has at least some sound inaccuracies. I can't really blame Namco too much, though; this was their first real crack at this and I can't imagine it was easy, especially considering how limiting the Playstation's hardware is compared to later consoles.
Controls and navigation have their advantages and disadvantages. This compilation was released before controllers had analog sticks, so the D-pad is required even if your controller has sticks. Navigating the museum is a bit awkward at times, as your character is particularly slow at turning and it's easy to get stuck on corners. Load times are obviously long since this is a Playstation console, but you are able to mash X to make Pac-Man run faster during them, which is just wonderful. You also can't pause and exit out of an arcade game during gameplay; you must be on the splash screen in order to exit out. That's just annoying. This wasn't fixed until Vol. 3.
But that's nothing to throw a fit over. This compilation is still great for the purpose it served, and paved the way for Namco to continue rereleasing their amazing classics for generation upon generation. These games have had a huge place in my heart for over a decade, and it's nice to know that this is where it all started. I just wish Bandai Namco would pay more attention to these old IPs and do new things with them...
Recorded from my Playstation 2 using my Namco Museum Vol. 1 disc.
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