Vimm's Lair: GBA Reviews - Namco Museum
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Game Boy Advance
Namco Museum

Graphics:
Sound:
Gameplay:
Overall:
9.40
8.00
8.20
8.20
Votes: 5
Reviews: 1


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Reviewer: Tricob Date: Apr 1, 2015
This has ports of five popular arcade games - Ms. Pac-man, Pole Position, Dig Dug, Galaga, and Galaxian.

Graphics: 9
If you want the graphics to resemble the arcade game, you're in excellent luck. If you want the graphics to go a step further though, the ports will leave you displeased.

Sound: 7
This can be summed up like the graphics - faithful to the arcade ports, but it never offers anything new for those wanting something more. There are still problems regardless, though - The sound in "Ms. Pac-man" is erratic at best. And then there's the collection's most major flaw - In Galaga, the music for the High Score entry screen is conspicuously absent.

Gameplay: 7
Some of these arcade games have aged worse than others. Then there's the quality of the port on top of it all.

Ms. Pac-man has control that seems clunky and unresponsive at times (at least on a real GBA). The NES Tengen port still remains the best IMO.

"Pole Position" has its own interesting problems. The images "from a distance" will "jump" from one area of the screen to another before they finally start "zooming in" towards the player. You really have to see this game in action to truly understand what I'm saying. But to see this happen countless times during the game is distracting. I'd just ignore the problem myself, except that the cars come in from the top of the screen, too! It's impossible to ignore what's on top of the screen without getting yourself killed. The gameplay works well (thankfully), but like many racing games, this is exactly the same every time you play it; the game offers no surprises once you've played it all the way through. And the "R" button to switch gears? Why not the Select button?

"Dig Dug" is a high-quality port, but the High Score table is absent in this port.

Galaga plays best here - loads of levels, and fast-paced gameplay on top of it. Far away the most entertaining entry in the bunch.

"Galaxian" is a flawless port, but the slow-paced gameplay simply hasn't aged well.

Overall: 7
The Ms. Pac-man port is the worst of the bunch. "Pole Position" is decent, and Galaxian is average at best. Dig Dug and Galaga are the two games that make the collection worth getting. If you're wanting to play some arcade games on your GBA, this collection isn't a bad way to go. It's not perfect, but I'd say it's worth picking up.

"R" to change gears in Pole Position? I still can't get over that.