Thank you @ArsInvictus !
This is my favorite game in the Raiden series.
Raiden Fighters Jet (Seibu -1998)
This is the final game released in the Raiden series, and with this overlay I’ve completed the set. The marquee and instruction card for this have been impossible to locate, so I created a custom marquee that is similar in style to the original. Hopefully the art for this will turn up at some point and I can come back and update the overlay.
Thank you so much!
You are welcome @Rion! It was a great suggestion, I wasn’t that familiar with the Raiden series until now and it’s become one of my favorites too, and this set is an awesome addition to our overlays collection
Heated Barrel (TAD Corporation - 1992)
This is another mostly forgotten title from TAD Corporation (better known for Toki and Cabal) and it was their last game before folding. I got this marquee as part of the bundle for Raiden Fighters so felt I should put an overlay together for it despite it’s obscurity. The instruction strip is another recreation from an extremely blurry photo (I couldn’t even make out the text, so that may be incorrect) and images from the arcade manual.
Toki (TAD Corporation - 1989)
Keeping on with the TAD games, here is Toki. The marquee here was purchased scanned and restored by RaspBear/UDB from the MameWorld art forum.
Star Wars:The Empire Strikes Back (1985) (ATARI)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CZsrp_qyF8QPCc4hi-zi7-LRx0NtxU5r/view?usp=sharing
Updated Ninja Baseball Bat Man (IREM - 1993)
This overlay has been updated with a new marquee and control panel overlay.
I found an interview with Drew Maniscalco, the original game/character/art designer for this game where he mentioned that he had a copy of this very rare artwork. I reached out to Drew and he generously shared a high quality scan of the marquee. Drew is the current IP owner for both the game and artwork so this is in the free and clear. Many thanks to Drew for both sharing this artwork and for creating this amazingly creative piece of arcade gaming history!
For the control panel, I had heard mention of a generic black IREM logo CPO that was used for a number of their games, but had never seen a picture. I recently stumbled on a nice clear photo of this one on the KLOV forums and vectorized it.
There are both full bezel and large screen versions of this overlay.
Magic Sword (1990) (CAPCOM)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YUZQVCothUmNocwl2wU9SVT4QbZ8ithy/view?usp=sharing
Good Afternoon!! Here is a classic Arcade, I used this amazing marquee from @ArsInvictus Thank
Beautiful job here, Ars! Way to reach out to Drew. Great story behind this one.
Art style is so adorable here, I stuck with it for a while tonight – just playing casually as an interactive cartoon without worrying about gameplay mechanics. Totally fun experience for the wonderful art design.
Thanks so much for the fantastic gift.
Thanks @benlogan! Yeah, Ninja Baseball Bat Man has really become known as a cult classic over the years. It’s unfortunate that it was developed and released after fighting games had displaced pretty much every other genre in the industry. Only about 40 or so copies of this game were distributed in NA when it came out, so the art itself was rare to start with.
But the game is a fantastic beat 'em up, with colorful, quirky character design, huge sprites and lovely pixel art, as well as smooth and responsive controls and play mechanics. So it’s great that it has been able to get some recognition via emulation and more people have had the opportunity to play it.
Battle Circuit is another example of an excellent beat 'em up that many people have never heard about (and one of my personal top 3 in the genre). It was the last beat em up produced for the arcades and never released in NA but it’s also one of the best beat 'em ups ever produced and even incorporated some elements from the fighting genre into the combat. It was included in the recent Capcom beat 'em up bundle and that’s the first time it was released in any format for NA, and how I first discovered it. I created some custom art for that overlay based on the game flyer and I’ll be updating that overlay with a CPO version soon too.
Strider (Capcom - 1989)
The art here was all provided via @mrdo. There are both full bezel and large screen versions included.
Truxton (Toaplan - 1988)
This is just an update of the previous overlay for this game including a new control panel I recreated using assets from the bezel by @MrRetroLust. Thanks again @MrRetroLust for providing the raw art files so I could put this together.
UPDATE: 12/19, tweaked the black levels so it looks more like actual vinyl/paper for the CPO/bezel, rather than floating in total blackness.
Nice I was hoping a new incarnation of Strider would come!!! Definitely one of my favorite games, running down that Siberian mountain felt so epic!
Commando (1985) (DATA EAST / CAPCOM)
Happy Christmas!! Here is a classic Arcade, I used this amazing marquee from @ArsInvictus Thank!!!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12YlYGcWm_emW0zolHoKmIUB86CcSzBmB/view?usp=sharing
Demon Front (IGS - 2002)
This game is a shameless clone of the Metal Slug series of run and gun games but with a brighter feel, similarly beautiful pixel art, 60fps graphics and somewhat faster pacing. It’s definitely worth a try if you are a fan of the Metal Slug series.
The marquee and CPO here were contributed by @evil_jarrad (on insta) of Wizard Reproductions. He created this artwork for use on his own arcade cabinet for this game and I thought it looked really fantastic so I reached out to him to see if we could use it for this overlay. He was happy to share this so more people could use his work and I gave the marquee a facelift with a vectorized logo and smoothed out character art.
I was also lucky to find that MuckyFingers on one of the arcade forums had a high resolution scan of the english instruction strip for the game and he shared that with me as well.
This is Konami’s famous 1992 “Wild West Cowboys Of Moo Mesa”
I used this amazing marquee from @Thoggo, Thanks!!!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D-6nW3HishFUiRnhYE9oAJTLoiWMa7LU/view?usp=sharing
These are all great! I’m assuming you have all had several requests so keep up the good work!