Thread by @SarahSSowertty

This week's Arcade Archives is odd- Vs. Gradius. That's on both Switch ~and~ PS4, strange seeing as it's NES-based hardware. It's NES Gradius!

Switch
nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo…

PSN (US link)
store.playstation.com/en-us/product/…

(Normally I link to the EU PSN, but I had to use the US of A store this time because Vs. Gradius is not on EU PSN. At all.

In fact, EU PSN has actually gone back and ~delisted~ Arcade Archives: Time Pilot which is just, augh, why, is this because I didn't buy 10-Yard Fight)

Storefront incompetence will not stop me from doing what I was going to do, though- talk briefly about the Vs. System!

NES stuff generally isn't my forte- in Gaming Hell's 10+-year history, there's only been one NES game covered- but the Vs. System stuff is pretty interesting.

This was a modified NES in an arcade cab, with some cab types allowing for head-to-head play, as you can see in this flyer.

flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&d…

It was distinct from the later PlayChoice cabinets as it didn't use a timer, and it used unique versions of these games.

What interests me is how these games were sometimes quite different from their home counterparts- Vs. Super Mario Bros. (first advertised as Vs. Mario's Adventure) famously has much harder levels than the original, some which would be reused for JP SMB2.

flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&d…

Some of these changes are more subtle- Vs. Castlevania, for instance, reduces the amount of time you have to clear each level.

Others are bigger- Vs. Duck Hunt alternates between two-duck stages, clay pidgeon stages, and an exclusive bonus stage where you can shoot the dog.

Even weirder is that one game- Vs. The Goonies- was available only as a Vs. System game in the West! It received a cart release in Japan but Konami only released The Goonies 2 over here.

flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&d…

This may have been the intended case for another game, Sunsoft's Vs. The Wings of Madoola, a version of The Wing of Madoola / Madūra no Tsubasa, which adds a text intro. The release was cancelled even in Japan, though.

Sunsoft's Vs. Lionex also went unreleased, one of the very few Vs. System game made specifically for the format rather than released on the NES / Famicom. A prototype has been preserved but not publically released.

There's a couple of other undumped Vs. System games, some of which are known to exist like Vs. Blaster Master, and others which are just named with nothing to show like Vs. Quest of Ki, listed here. Hopefully they're dumped someday.

mamedev.emulab.it/undumped/index…

Anyway, not an exhaustive look at the system, but it's interesting, isn't it? I hope you thought so too.

See you next tweet!