Hamster arcade archives again, for Switch and PS4. https://www.4gamer.net/games/708/G070884/20230522050/
Now listed on hamsters page for all regions. Bought today in USA. now if i can just actually get a ps4 of my own to test if it's running at 60Hz or the correct rate.
Okay it's 60hz lock on Mihara's say so (Hamster was willing to run it at the real refresh rate), because there wasn't really a fair way to get around it on the consoles themselves. While PS5 will do VRR, ps4 is aparently hard capped at 60 for games. Once again, ps4 has better latency than Switch.
Called it! Not gonna lie I'm kind of disappointed about the frame rate as well as the weird combined leaderboards that somehow combine normal mode and death mode into an unreadable mess. Master mode at least has a separate leaderboard but the whole thing feels unpolished. The Arika URL changing to "DEMONSTRATION" so that there's now the same word scrolling in two different fonts also seems worse than the alternative which is someone visits a .co.jp url and finds out the website is in Japanese. ...I guess for 7 euros we can't really complain and should be happy people can now legally own and play the game for less than the cost of a JAMMA supergun plus whatever gouged inflation price the PCB currently goes for.
from what i can see, the credits roll lasts the same number of frames, so on ACA its' a little over a minute.
I feel like PS2 TAP was virtually guaranteed to be a 60Hz release if it had come about at the time. It just feels like smoothing out the framerate quirk was an eventuality of the game coming to home consoles. The leaderboard thing just seems like a drawback of the ACA framework; any game's Original leaderboard is inherently going to be a mashup of all modes and rulesets. Original is a bit unserious anyhow as you can still pause or use Interrupt Saves and submit a score. Conveniently, every core single player mode has a separate Hi Score or Caravan leaderboard anyhow: Hi Score Master, Hi Score TGM+, Caravan Normal (easily clearable in 5 minutes), and Caravan Death (just barely clearable in 5 minutes). For the majority of us out there that cannot clear Caravan Death, it's still within reason to show a good Death score on the Original leaderboard. It all fits about as neatly as it can within ACA's pre-established structure. It is strange, but apparently it's due to a Guideline conflict. Can't be helped. Sometimes these releases need to find workarounds, although I wish they had put in some other approved text there. Yep, $8 instead of $800 is what I've been saying. ACA TGM and ACA TAP have their quirks, but overall this feels like a massive win.
Two basic questions about this port: (Q1) Is it possible to play versus mode against computer (and in that case what difficulty settings are available)? (Q2) Is it possible to play versus mode online?
No, and no. TAP never had a computer to play against and there is no netplay. The only way to play versus online currently is Fightcade.
