10 Weird and (Not Always) Bad Arcade Games | Kim Justice 

I'm going to be real: Journey turning out to be video game nerds is the least surprising thing I've ever heard about them. Look at the men. Look at them.

I remember being absolutely stoked when my local arcade got Haunted Castle in, as I had just learned about Castlevania within the previous year or so and was definitely ready to spend all my money on it. And then I played it twice and was like "oh" and never touched it again. So bad.

Another vid proving why Kim is the best weird gaming historian on RU-vid.

My first exposure to Journey at the age of 3 was through the arcade game, my little kid brain was blown when I saw that the game was actually a band when I found their greatest hits album. 8 bit Don't Stop Beleiving made me a fan for life!!!

Great to see you, Kim! Your videos have been sorely missed

J J Squakers is a pretty weird one it plays great but very trippy visuals so much if you try to live Stream the Final boss most streaming software just turns the recording to a pixelated mess when its on stream. Exterminator by Gotlieb you just play as a Floating hand stomping on Bugs and Rolling Nuts and Toy Tanks some how got a Amiga port. Snack N Jackson is by far Midways weirdest Arcade game might be weirdest Breakout variant ever too.

Biggest issue with Survival Arts, is they didn't include the fatalities in the finished product. They intended to, buy Sammy ram out of time.

Probably the funniest thing about Best of Best is, if your opponent is in a crawling animation and you hit them, the game shames your character for it, saying "X IS UNMANLY", regardless of gender

Thank you Kim,friend,you put me back on track.wonderful vídeo,unbelievable sense of humor

I think “Haunted Castle” is also currently available as part of Hamster’s Arcade Archives line.

"... but it don't exactly dance with the devil in the pale moonlight. " Lol Kim !

While watching the bit about Haunted Castle, I was just about to comment on how much it reminds me of Nastar...

Oh heck yeah a Kim Justice video dropping right when I needed it

See him fly on the long jump, Qwazy is an absolute track star! 😂

Glad to see Rastan sequel get a shout. Yeah, I remember how disappointed I was when I first played one, huge fan of the first Rastan (damn that game was great). At least it was still beatable, and it's way more playable than Hainted Castle.

Loverboy was quite the eye opener when I first witnessed that. I think another game on that level of WOAH, NO is The Big Joke by Greyhound. It’s more of a quiz machine than an arcade game, but with you having to guess the punchlines of jokes rather than answering trivia. You can choose what categories of jokes... and two of those are sexist and ethnicity related. Yes. And they’re exactly as 1987 as you can imagine!

Always enjoyable, thank you!

Just been playing the hell out of journey. Love the actual journey music that plays while I'm trying to bounce people from the stage. (Hey... that rhymed!) 👏

"New Fantasia" was even more famous than "Gals Panic" among the italian arcades, due to its weirder nature compared to the game that started everything! 🤣 It was a very common cabinet to find inside of an arcade room, and it was played exclusively by particularly h**ny guys, with the audio all turned off for very specific reasons! 😃 It was also the most played arcade game by italian police officers! 🤣

If I remember correctly, Castlevania was included in Nintendo's Play Choice 10 machines (which were basically NES's with 10 selectable games and a quarter-based time limit), so Castlevania _could_ work in the arcades.

That boxing game Kengeki is one of my all time favs

Honourable mention should definitely go to Sega's Super Locomotive Drive your locomotive along a course of tracks shooting puffs of steam (or is it smoke? I'm not a locomotitianist) at aircraft and other locos trying to attack you, switching tracks to avoid them and pick up fuel - occasionally turning yourself into the temporarily invincible Super Locomotive to roll over everything in your path. AND with a passable chiptune version of Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Rydeen" as a soundtrack. It was an oddity - but somehow felt right Apparently only about 30 or 40 Cabs were ever made worldwide so even back in the day playing it on original hardware was extraordinarily uncommon. Had one in the arcade on Swanage seafront where I grew up (like literally - grew up in that arcade lol!)

LoL, I totally agree until Nastar Warrior; I really loved that game at the arcades and also hated it for the coin shredder in the boss battles...MAME thxs you 4 this 1

Haunted Castle also has a standalone Arcade Archives release, which has an option to turn off the limited continue system, meaning even if you blew the original 3 continues, you can keep going anyway (although you can still only dump 3 credits per lifebar).

There was a 1984 Berenstain Bears arcade game that, while impossible to get the true arcade feel with a MAME emulation, is embarrassingly behind the times in terms of design. This was the same year we'd get that creepy stretching neck clown game "Snacks n' Jaxson." Now apparently it was never completed and only a couple cabinets got made if any, but it was such a (no pun intended) threadbare experience, I doubt it would have been able to coast by it's popular at the time kid's book character branding.

The Journey arcade game takes me back to being 7 in '85... there was a roller rink I went to in the summer in Ft. Lauderdale that had a bunch of arcade games against the side wall so you could listen to Journey over the rink PA WHILE playing Journey "the game". I only ever saw the Batman game once... in an boardwalk arcade in Hampton Beach, NH... they had some amazing arcades there in the late 80s / early 90s. I played it once.. and was like... Meh. Its fine. But, Oooh, TIME TRAVELLER.. look it has a HOLOGRAM! (Ok the novelty wore off that in about 5 minutes too)

Journey's not even remotely close to being a bad game. People have terrible standards.

Great video As always been going through loads of your videos watching them 👍🏻

Great Review! Entertaining as always. Thanks for sticking up for Journey, loved that game.

I shall have to give these a looksee... I'm currently busy trying to get past the damned meteor stage in Scramble, a childhood favourite, and it remains almost impossible even with all the cheats enabled in MAME! It's absolutely nothing to do with my old man reflexes... of course!

Omg that Journey arcade game -- I had forgotten about that! I was around 10 when it came out. I got to play it a few times, definitely thought the digitized faces were impressive. But it seemed a little goofy as well. Never noticed the Tron DNA until you mentioned the connection. Definitely a weird game and a product of its time. I don't know how popular Journey were in the UK, but here in the US their brand was ubiquitous in the early 1980s, sort of like KISS was a few years earlier. Both bands licensed out their names and likenesses for all kinds of products.

Thanks for these videos Kim- they really are brilliant.

Always enjoy your vids mate.

Some great mentions here, including some I was totally unaware of ............ this vid definitely gave me a giggle.

Hi Kim! Going in a similar vein as Loverboy there was in the late 70s/early 80s an acrade game called Herpes. The object was to go around a city having sex with a many women as possible without contracting the disease. Graphically it was similar to 'Custer's Revenge'. The game seems to be in the videogame iceberg as there seems to be no reference to it online. It was mentioned in a BBC documentary about computers (can't remember what it was a called though).

Describing enemies in that dumb tile game as ne'erdowells = laugh of the day

Fond, fond memories of playing Rastan Saga on holiday in the arcades as a kid. Couldn't believe how absolutely shit Nastar was when I discovered it years later via MAME, lol.

I played all these pervy games, and painstakingly saved SO many of the "reveal" pics in them... but when I got to one of the Fantasia clones, I stopped. The model was an adult's body, but with a younger girl's head pasted on it. I just... stopped. Completely. After MONTHS of work.

The "Who are you? I'm Batman." exchange happens multiple times in the first level of that Batman game. lol I think Haunted Castle is awesome aesthetically. I like the gritty Frank Frazetta graphics of that era. Too bad it is ridiculously hard.

Ah amazing vid. You'll never know the stuff you got me through with your nonsense ❤ keep on keeping on Kim

Hmm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that I've played quite a lot of these already 😅

Sweet. Next half hour of life sorted. Cheers!

Wonderful Video Kim! As always. Did not know about that atari Batman game. PD: I've googled out "Lover boy"... WTF!!!

love this channel, love your voice

I also love Journey. Also, thank you for telling Ralph Baer's story, it's one of the funniest anecdotes from his book!

I ran into the Journey game in a bowling alley on the Texas coast when I was a kid. I remember liking it. I like Tron so I guess that makes sense.

It's hard to state how much my shitty week just picked up knowing a new Kim Justice video was out! Sunsoft's NES Batman game is one of the top-10 on the NES, at the very least for the soundtrack.

Nastar on the box art has way too many paks on his abs!! I recall seeing Hunchback in a US amusement park arcade and I never saw that weird game again!!

The Atari Batman game was heavily delayed because Jack Nicholson demanding they make changes in the game

If you ever revisit this topic in the future, Dino Rex might be an interesting one to cover - probably one of the most unintentionally hilarious fighting games ever made.

Journey: Dude! You left your bass on a different planet?!!!

Isn't Best of Best that one fighting game that literally plays lambada out of all things it could've played as soundtrack?

Here are 2 honorable (or dishonorable) mentions: 🐈‍⬛Black Panther (no, it's not based on the Marvel superhero) is a fast-paced side scroller beat-em up by Konami in which you control a cyborg black panther who runs around pouncing & mauling robots from destroying the earth. The game sounds cool on paper, but it feels sloppy with its fast-paced controls going out of control if you're not careful, some of the enemies fly all over the place & are hard to hit or avoid, its brutal difficulty, and its limited continues. The game is just as tedious to play as Haunted Castle. The redeeming qualities are that the game is at least playable if you're careful with the controls, the games' fast-paced action is entertaining, and it's always fun to watch the robot panther roar with lighting strikes in the background when it gets enough orbs. 🦖 Dinorex was the retarded crack-headed ancestor to Atari/Midway's Primal Rage and another stinker from Taito's library. The game had the potential to be a great fighting game: stop-motion dinosaurs, detailed graphics, decent soundtrack, Frank Frazetta artstyle, and its homage to the 60s cult classic One Million Years BC. However, Taito rushed the game to cash in on the fighting game craze only to crash and burn with bad controls, uncanny animations, obnoxious voice acting, the fact you can't get past the opponent and its high difficulty. Redeeming qualities are that the game is unintentionally funny with the laughable drunken cocaine dinosaurs, and the city rampage bonus levels are fun to play. Still, you're better off playing Primal Rage over this pile of Brachiasaurus crap.

christ I played so much of that Aerosmith arcade game... Had no idea, thanks for the reminder Kim

You definitely have to factor 'expectation' into this one. Something like Ping Pong Masters '93 in unbelievably bad to the point I still wonder if it's meant to hide some kind of gambling game, but it was published by a relatively small company, so doesn't come with the level of expectation you get from Konami with Haunted Castle. There were also a lot of games going for novelty appeal, that without the cabinets don't hold up at all; games like Alpine Surfer are so light on gameplay they're almost not worth mentioning, but the appeal was the ski controls of the original (Sega managed to put out games with novelty controllers that do hold up though, so it's not much of an excuse) A lot of the games people end up thinking of as 'worst games' are bad sequels to better games, it seemed to happen all too often. Games such as The Last Apostle Puppetshow tend to not make such lists, because while they don't play well, they were trying to do something a bit different and innovative for the time. Homedata did however put out a game called Battlecry a year later, and that... is bad. Some games also just don't make much sense. I'm still not sure what I'm actually meant to be doing on 'Taxi Driver' for example. Unless there's a major emulator flaw, or there is something physical with the cabinet missing, that's just a bad arcade game because it simply isn't clear what you're meant to do. One day I should really improve the emulation of Operation Wolf 3 too, but there was an original of that around here for a good number of years so I know only too well how bad that one is as a sequel.

Nice subject matter kim. Kudos.

I went into Southend the other day and viewed the arcades, gone are all the single cabinet systems and hard hitters from the 80's / 90's and its now just full of 'copy and paste' coin pushers, modern whack a mole, basket ball, air hockey or sports related games and 2010 era racing games ... very sad. Some of them arent bad but whats really killed them off if that they all cost £1-2 a go ... too expensive.

I approve of the Orson Welles method of censorship.

Hunchback Olympics was clearly programmed by somebody who had never seen shot putt. That run up!😂😂

Big fan of your work.

I actually feel that Taito SHOULD have gotten the Batman license for the arcade game as they could have used the same hardware used in Crime City and it would have similar gameplay to Thunder Fox and would also have an awesome Zuntata rendition of the Danny Elfman Batman theme.

New Fantasia is crazy 🤣

Journey and Batman will always be classic arcade games.

Rastan Saga had some of the best music for a game from that era.

3:31 I admit that pallete animated title screen is pretty eye catching, especially in 1983 4:47 Oh wowwww never drew that connecting- another band heavily influenced by gaming is Yellow Magic Orchestra 10:18 oh that damn Atari font - used in everything from paperboy on up. I love the resolution of these games, but outside of Peter Pack Rat the animation of these feels stiff and I don’t see much rapid scrolling or action 24:38 we’ll, we’re in a really cursed corner of MAME now … some people were really banking on Quasimodo to be the next franchise star. 29:47 Gals Panic feels like a game that’s being played in the filthiest smoke ridden Arcades by dead eyed salariman operating on pure lizard brain libido after ten obligatory after work drinks with the boss

I really enjoyed that vid! The Journey game is a favorite from my teen years, classic! I also distinctly remember being horribly disappointed when I finally got to play the Batman video game, it is so damn ugly, and just feels bad to play. I also appreciate being reminded what the name of the "Model turns into pinhead" game was. * * * * * 5 Stars!

The Batman game - The sprite looks weirdly hunched forward!

I can remember finishing the game World Heroes in the arcade by just spamming one attack. Violence Fight and Street Fighter stayed in the video store for about 10 years

Was expecting 'Zammo's Smack Odyssey' to make an appearance, but apparently, that was a license too far

Lover Boy - yes, that's definitely an abyss one should not want to look into.

I love the dark corners

Interesting stuff for sure

One wired arcade game I remember from my childhood in the early 90s was a game that you controlled a blue cowboy and I didn't know how to play it. The arcade cabinet was shaped like a dope and I think it used digital actors. Sadly I don't know the name of it.

21:00 Zammo! and Roland!

I don't think the 1983 crash had too big of an effect on arcades, it was mostly a home console thing.

The Sega 16-bit version of Batman is still better than the arcade game published by Atari Games/Midway Games West... The only saving grace in the Batman arcade game is the Danny Elfman score.

Have you done a video on the Kaneco Jackie Chan games, I was coincidently watching a mini documentary about them yesterday on the blu ray of police story 3 I have? For another weird fighting game, try Shanghai Kid, a pre street fighter ye air Kung Fu kinda thing

Best of Best looks more like Worst of Worst and about as abysmal as Fight Fever.

I remember seeing that Journey arcade game as a kid and wondering what in the world it was.

Thank god im not alone when thinking that Rastan 2 is utterly horrible, like in comparison to other barbaric plaformer/beat em up games of the same era is pretty baffling that they saw this and said "yeah its good enough" like dude if i was working on this and at the same time i looked at Ninja Gaiden, Altered Beast, Vigilante, Bloody Wolf and freaking Narc i could be "wow, this game we are doing is hot trash" and just scrap the entire thing.

Haunted castle may be terrible but that's soundtrack is absolutely fantastic

Please do Outfoxxies, it’s like Smash Bros meets Elevator Action :)

Random aside: Do Brits “get” the first-ballot-hall-of-fame reference?

**looks up Lover Boy** . . . weeeellllllllllp, that's a thing. 😐

At 00:11, the magnificence of that red afro and p0rn stash cannot be overstated. It's beauty can only possibly be surpassed by the opulence of the 1976 Chevy Camaro that he obviously drives, and the air brushed vanity plate that is certainly gracing the front of that regal "Disco Sled".

I would have thought the unreleased Judge Dredd game would be a good fit for this list .

I quite enjoy the Journey game

Isn't that game play of Hunchback the same level design from Jet Set Willly 2? Who ripped who off?

Yes, separate ways is journey's best song

oooh-kay... does anybody have a pint glass of bleach they can hand me?

Nice one Kim. Will watch in bed tonight

I sincerely am not trying to be mean... But when i was a kid i went to many speech therapy sessions... As... I was pronouncing my R's as W's. It was an odd experience ... But ... My friend the host of this channel could very well use some speech therapy on the very same issue i used to have myself... If this is something you are proud of... Feel free! But loke literally, i used to sing ... Winkle winkle wittle warh... I am very happy to have been assisted in helping fix auch an issue. (I had clogged ears)

Conan Belmont walks like he has a bad hip.

Was not bad if it made money. Was an entire industry based on arcade conversions. Would be 16 different versions of a game once all the home ports were done I recall?

i remember sometime in the last 2 years there was a newly preserved 80s arcade game from a small company that was complete and utter dross and they had the gall to advertise the simultaneously-released c64 version on the attract screen. i’m pretty sure there’s a demo of it on mamehaze’s channel, but i can’t for the life of me find it again. also iirc the dumping process was a real pain and there was some minor data loss from one of the rom chips, so some of the sprites look slightly garbled on mame (not that it matters too much, considering the graphics were so simple they looked like a late matisse collage, and not in a good way)

16:22

Trio the punch never forget me. Go check it out.😢

The Jackie Chan fighting games aren't that bad. Here's a few bad arcade games not in the video: Fight Fever: Terrible Korean Neo Geo fighter that only got made cos it's developers were snitches and suck-ups to SNK, Kim Kaphwan in KOF is named after their CEO Hachoo: Crap beat em up that looks and plays like Amiga shovelware Ninja Clowns: Crap beat em up by the makers of Time Killers Brute Force: Crap beat em up that looks and plays like DOS shovelware Holosseum: Absolutely atrocious fighting game released as a conversion kit for Sega's hologram FMV game Time Traveller The Burning Cavern: 80s Spanish IWBTG in terms of difficulty with terrible controls

Whoever took Aerosmith can keep them.

I actually learned here that Haunted Castle was NOT a Castlevania from the start, and only became that way to sell a troubled production... which kinda makes sense in retrospect. Also, Sord 5? Frankly I don't think that's even real. I think you cheeky Brits are having a lauhg. A giggle even. Trying to convince us something like that even exists, you had like a billion different microcomputers back in the day it's not unreasonable to presume you'll just... invent a few out of thin air just to mess with those outside the UK.