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Namco Museum Battle Collection

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Namco Museum Battle Collection
North American cover art
Developer(s)Tose
Publisher(s)
Director(s)Yasuhiro Nishimoto[1]
Producer(s)Nobutaka Nakajima[1]
SeriesNamco Museum
Platform(s)PlayStation Portable
Release
  • JP: February 24, 2005
  • NA: August 23, 2005
  • EU: December 9, 2005
Genre(s)Various
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Namco Museum Battle Collection[a] is a 2005 video game compilation developed by Tose and published by Namco for the PlayStation Portable; the first Namco Museum since the PS1 series to be developed in Japan. It includes 21 games - four of these are brand-new "arrangement" remakes of older Namco games, while the rest are emulated ports of Namco arcade games from the 1970s and 1980s. These ports include an options menu that allows the player to modify the in-game settings, such as the screen orientation and number of lives. Players can send one-level demos to a friend's console via the "Game Sharing" option in the main menu.

Battle Collection was the first PlayStation Portable game to make use of the system's game sharing function. The Japanese version of the game, simply titled Namco Museum, was split into two different volumes - the second volume includes three games not found in international releases, these being Dragon Spirit and two new "arrangement" games based on Pac-Man and Motos. Battle Collection was met with a positive response from critics; reviewers applauded the large library of games, emulation quality and multiplayer features, although would heave criticism towards the Game Sharing option, which many deemed "useless", and for the game requiring a firmware update to boot. In Japan, the first game sold 79,572 copies in its first week of release.[2]

Games

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Namco Museum Battle Collection includes a total of 21 games; 17 of these are ports of Namco arcade games from the 1970s and 1980s, including Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga. They encompass several different game genres, such as maze, shoot'em up and platform. Each of the arcade game ports allow the player to modify the in-game settings, such as the number of lives and screen orientation, as well as access to a sound test and autosave feature.[3] A "Game Sharing" option can be accessed from the main menu, allowing the player to send one-level demos to a friend's PSP system. Alongside the arcade games, four new "Arrangement" games have been included, which are new to this collection.[4] These games include 3D graphics and incorporate new features, such as power-ups, new stages, world maps and boss fights.[5] Despite their similar name, they share nothing in common with the "Arrangement" games found in both Namco Classic Collection Vol. 1 and Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2.[6]

Games included in Namco Museum Battle Collection
Arrangement games
Title Genre Release date Vol. (Japan)
Pac-Man Arrangement Maze 2005 1
Galaga Arrangement Fixed shooter 2005 1
Dig Dug Arrangement Maze 2005 1
New Rally-X Arrangement Maze 2005 1
Motos Arrangement[i] Platform 2006 2
Pac-Man Arrangement Plus[i] Maze 2006 2
Arcade games
Title Genre Original release Vol. (Japan)
Galaxian Fixed shooter 1979 1
Pac-Man Maze 1980 1
Rally-X Maze 1980 1
King & Balloon Fixed shooter 1980 2
Galaga Fixed shooter 1981 1
Bosconian Multi-directional shooter 1981 2
New Rally-X Maze 1981 1
Ms. Pac-Man Maze 1982 1
Dig Dug Maze 1982 1
Xevious Vertical-scrolling shooter 1983 2
Mappy Platform 1983 2
The Tower of Druaga Role-playing 1984 2
Grobda Multi-directional shooter 1984 2
Dragon Buster Action role-playing 1985 2
Dig Dug II Platform 1985 2
Motos Platform 1985 2
Rolling Thunder Run'n gun 1987 2
Dragon Spirit[i] Vertical-scrolling shooter 1987 2
  1. ^ a b c Only available in the Japanese release.

Ports

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The Pac-Man Arrangement, Galaga Arrangement, and Dig Dug Arrangement games were featured in the 2008 compilation title Namco Museum Virtual Arcade, and were also ported to iOS under the names Pac-Man Remix, Galaga Remix, and Dig Dug Remix in 2009. Galaga Remix and Dig Dug Remix include the original arcade versions of Galaga and Dig Dug. Pac-Man Arrangement was featured in the 2014 compilation title Pac-Man Museum. All ports lack the 2 player modes found in the original games.

As of 2018, Pac-Man Remix, Galaga Remix and Dig Dug Remix have been delisted from the App Store and are no longer available for download. Additionally, the games do not run on devices running iOS 11 and higher as the system has dropped support for 32-bit apps. Pac-Man Museum has been delisted from all digital storefronts as of 2020.

Pac-Man Arrangement (labelled as Pac-Man Arrangement CS Ver. to distinguish itself from the 1996 game) is included in Pac-Man Museum+ as an unlockable title, released in 2022.

Reception

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Namco Museum Battle Collection was met with a mostly positive critical reception. Many would praise the compilation's multiplayer features, emulation quality and large library of games. It has an average critic score of 74.02% on GameRankings and 73/100 on Metacritic.

IGN gave the game a 7.5 out of 10, praising the game for its multiplayer features, sound, and graphics. However, they criticized the Game Sharing feature for its limited usage and lack of Arrangement games.[10] GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann gave the game a 7.5, praising the game's 21 game titles, various display options, controls, and good emulation. However, he criticized the game sharing demo for its bare-bones presentation, and requiring the PSP to be at the latest firmware before use.[11]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Known in Japan as Namco Museum (ナムコミュージアム, lit. Namuko Myūjiamu)

References

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  1. ^ a b Namco Museum Battle Collection instruction booklet. Namco Ltd. Retrieved August 23, 2005.
  2. ^ "GID 416 - Namco Museum - PSP". Garaph. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  3. ^ Nix (25 August 2005). "Namco Museum Battle Collection (Page 1)". IGN. Archived from the original on 17 May 2019. Retrieved 25 August 2005.
  4. ^ Gibson, Ellie (2005-08-18). "Namco classics for PSP". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 2019-09-24. Retrieved 18 August 2005.
  5. ^ Nix (25 August 2005). "Namco Museum Battle Collection (Page 2)". IGN. Archived from the original on 16 July 2015. Retrieved 25 August 2005.
  6. ^ a b Theobald, Phil. "Namco Museum Battle Collection - Page 2". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 29 June 2007. Retrieved 29 August 2005.
  7. ^ "Namco Museum Battle Collection". GameRankings. Archived from the original on 17 May 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  8. ^ "Namco Museum Battle Collection". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 15 March 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  9. ^ Parish, Jeremy. "Namco Museum Battle Collection". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 30 August 2005.
  10. ^ a b "Namco Museum Battle Collection". IGN. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  11. ^ a b Gerstmann, Jeff (24 August 2005). "Namco Museum Battle Collection Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 25 October 2017. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
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