Namco Museum Archives Vol. 2

My honest first reaction to this collection was mild surprise: where Vol. 1 leaned on the greatest hits everyone already knows, Vol. 2 leans hard into the weird corners of Namco's Famicom catalog. That is either its biggest strength or its biggest obstacle, depending entirely on who's holding the controller. The eleven games are Galaga, Battle City, Pac-Land, Dig Dug II, Super Xevious, Mappy-Land, Legacy of the Wizard, Rolling Thunder, Dragon Buster II, Mendel Palace, and Gaplus, the last one being a brand-new 8-bit consolized demake created specifically for this release, which is the kind of thing that makes retro enthusiasts sit up straight. Galaga is the obvious anchor, and it still holds up as a tight, satisfying fixed shooter, enemies loop in with real personality, formations break apart mid-wave, and the dual-ship trick remains one of the cleverest risk-reward moves in arcade history. Gaplus (technically Galaga 3) is the real curveball: unlike the original where your ship is pinned to the bottom of the screen, here you can roam the entire play field, which changes the rhythm of the shooter completely. Mendel Palace is the collection's sleeper, a quirky action-puzzler by a pre-Pokemon Game Freak where you flip floor tiles to launch enemies into walls, it's strange, it's fast, and it genuinely holds up. Legacy of the Wizard is a sprawling 2D action-platformer with light RPG elements from Falcom, still interesting even if the lack of any real in-game tutorial makes it rough to get into cold. Pac-Land, on the other hand, is genuinely awkward by modern standards, historically significant as a side-scroller that predates Super Mario Bros., but not much fun in 2020-plus. The wrapper around all eleven games is functional but thin. Save states, a rewind feature, and basic screen filters are present, which is the minimum you'd want. The rewind system has a real quirk: it jumps back at fixed intervals without showing you how far back you're going, which makes it less useful than it sounds. There's no button remapping, no artwork gallery, no sound test, no in-universe museum to poke around in, critics across the board flagged that the name 'Namco Museum' sets an expectation that the actual package doesn't meet. M2 handled the emulation itself, and the games run cleanly; the quality of the underlying ports isn't in question. It's the presentation layer that feels bare. Who is this for? Retro collectors who already know they want Mappy-Land or Legacy of the Wizard in a clean PC package will get exactly what they came for. Galaga alone is worth something to anyone who grew up with it, and the Gaplus demake is a genuine exclusive you can't play elsewhere. Casual players who weren't already invested in this specific slice of late-80s Famicom history will bounce off the thinner titles quickly and probably wonder what the fuss is about. If you haven't touched Vol. 1, start there, the roster is more consistent. If Vol. 1 left you wanting more Namco strangeness, this is where the deep cuts live.

Alex · Scout Team

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