Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 17 hours ago
What happened to the arcade sports game? Well, I've been thinking about that on and off for a while, as I was a big fan of games like NFL Blitz, NBA Hangtime (part of the NBA Jam series), as well as NHL Hitz 2003 growing up just to name a few. I still love these games to this day. So in this video, I'll break down what I think happened to the genre and why we probably won't see a high profile arcade sports game anytime soon.
Note: Near the end of the video, when comparing arcade sports games to arcade racing games, I forgot to mention the Forza Horizon series as one of the few arcade racing franchises remaining. However, it's also open world so it's certainly not a traditional arcade racer. I still stand by my overall point about both genres not being all that prominent anymore.
Games shown:
Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey
NFL Blitz
Arch Rivals
NBA Hangtime
NHL Hitz 2003
Madden NFL 2005
00:00 Intro
00:39 EA Sports Isn't The Main Culprit
01:49 League Executives Hate These Games
03:47 The Death Of Midway Games
05:51 The AAA Gaming Industry
Article About The NFL Almost Stopping NFL Blitz From Being Released:
vice.com/en/article/how-in-the-hell-did-nfl-blitz-ever-get-made
The NFL Told EA Sports To Keep Late Hits Out Of NFL Blitz Revival In Early 2010s:
kotaku.com/nfl-told-ea-sports-to-keep-late-hits-out-of-blitz-5861115
Videos About The Demise Of Midway Games:
youtube.com/watch?v=s1WPUwAs08Y&pp=ygUMbWlkd2F5IGdhbWVz
youtube.com/watch?v=53qZHD2lR6k
Games Published And/Or Developed By EA in 2001 vs 2024:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games:_2000%E2%80%932009
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games:_2020%E2%80%93present
Music used:
Tim Six - Winter Solstice Drone
What happened to the arcade sports game? Well, I've been thinking about that on and off for a while, as I was a big fan of games like NFL Blitz, NBA Hangtime (part of the NBA Jam series), as well as NHL Hitz 2003 growing up just to name a few. I still love these games to this day. So in this video, I'll break down what I think happened to the genre and why we probably won't see a high profile arcade sports game anytime soon.
Note: Near the end of the video, when comparing arcade sports games to arcade racing games, I forgot to mention the Forza Horizon series as one of the few arcade racing franchises remaining. However, it's also open world so it's certainly not a traditional arcade racer. I still stand by my overall point about both genres not being all that prominent anymore.
Games shown:
Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey
NFL Blitz
Arch Rivals
NBA Hangtime
NHL Hitz 2003
Madden NFL 2005
00:00 Intro
00:39 EA Sports Isn't The Main Culprit
01:49 League Executives Hate These Games
03:47 The Death Of Midway Games
05:51 The AAA Gaming Industry
Article About The NFL Almost Stopping NFL Blitz From Being Released:
vice.com/en/article/how-in-the-hell-did-nfl-blitz-ever-get-made
The NFL Told EA Sports To Keep Late Hits Out Of NFL Blitz Revival In Early 2010s:
kotaku.com/nfl-told-ea-sports-to-keep-late-hits-out-of-blitz-5861115
Videos About The Demise Of Midway Games:
youtube.com/watch?v=s1WPUwAs08Y&pp=ygUMbWlkd2F5IGdhbWVz
youtube.com/watch?v=53qZHD2lR6k
Games Published And/Or Developed By EA in 2001 vs 2024:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games:_2000%E2%80%932009
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games:_2020%E2%80%93present
Music used:
Tim Six - Winter Solstice Drone
![Salamander 2 [Playstation 1] - First Loop 1CC 584,100 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SlW6YBpe8ZI/mqdefault.jpg "Salamander 2 [Playstation 1] - First Loop 1CC 584,100 pts
Salamander 2 is a shmup from Konami that was originally released in Japanese arcades in 1996 and received a port as part of the Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus compilation for Saturn and Playstation exclusively in Japan in 1997. It is a sequel to the original Salamander that was released back in 1986. Most American gamers know the original better as Life Force, particularly from the NES port. Both games are considered to be spinoffs of the Gradius series.
The Salamander games are known for mixing horizontal and vertical shmup gameplay into the same game. They also lack checkpoints, which differentiates these games from mainline Gradius. Power ups are obtained by grabbing a specific item for whatever power up you want, unlike in Gradius where you have to grab enough powerups to get to the item you really want.
Salamander 2 does add some new wrinkles to the gameplay. Particularly, you can shoot your options toward enemies as an attack. It adds twin lasers from Gradius III as an extra weapon option along with the regular laser and ripple laser. The biggest addition to the gameplay is one that you dont see, and its a complex rank system almost as wild as something youd see in Zanac or Battle Garegga. This game adopts the same rank system as the Parodius games. Basically, the more powerups you grab, the higher the rank increases, increasing the bullet speeds and aggressiveness of enemies. Speed ups are especially problematic for keeping rank low.
What does bring the rank down is dying, whether you die on accident or intentionally. Suiciding becomes a legitimate strategy in a game like this, especially since recovery is easier here than in most Gradius games as you get a chance to reclaim your options right after dying and do not have checkpoints to deal with. In fact, I found it was best to suicide at the beginning of Stage 5 and right before the last boss, though the latter was more of an accidental death in my case but worked out in the end. In both cases, I had chances to get powered up again right after. Another side note is that the Player 2 ship, Super Cobra, has lower initial rank than the Vic Viper, which is why I played on the P2 side.
As far as the level design goes, its brilliant stuff. The set pieces are awesome and each stage feels super memorable, with excellent 2D graphics and music. It also pays homage at times to Gradius and the original Salamander, while still feeling like its own game. The difficulty curve is pretty reasonable, as the only real spikes in the first loop outside of the rank system are in Stage 6, the last stage of the first loop. Even the second loop seemed pretty reasonable compared to second loops in other games from the little Ive played of it.
The scoring is mostly straightforward, but there are some interesting hidden scoring opportunity. One is that its possible to kill that larger enemy halfway into Stage 1 if you can somehow get powered up enough. That gives you 100,000 points but I missed it on this run. The second way is to take the first two big ships in Stage 4 without damaging the rear engines in order to reveal a golden ship and if you take out the engine first and then the rest of it, you get another 100,000 points.
Overall, this is definitely the best Konami shmup Ive played. I still have some mixed feelings about the rank system because it can get really nasty if youre not trying to manage it, but it does make the game even more interesting than it already is.
0:00 Intro
0:26 Stage 1-1
3:10 Stage 1-2
5:31 Stage 1-3
8:00 Stage 1-4
10:11 Stage 1-5
12:59 Stage 1-6
16:16 Final Boss of Loop 1
18:12 Stage 2-1
#konami #shmups #1cc #shootemups #playstation #salamander #gradius")
![Crossgunr Infinite [PICO-8] - 559,921 pts (to Level 12)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ssk5_NAmNec/mqdefault.jpg "Crossgunr Infinite [PICO-8] - 559,921 pts (to Level 12)
This is another run of Crossgunr Infinite, which ended in a significantly higher score than the previous one I uploaded last week. In this run, I got all the way to the Level 12 boss.
Enjoy!")
![Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast [PC] - Goal C Run 43029 (O2 Course)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TMzCfeONX7g/mqdefault.jpg "Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast [PC] - Goal C Run 43029 (O2 Course)
Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast is a port of one of the last classic Sega racers, Outrun 2. Ive had the PC version on disc for several years, but the game had issues running on modern operating systems, particularly crashes and the game randomly running too fast. However, Outrun 2006 Tweaks came out recently, and that solved all of my problems running this game on PC. Even on Linux through WINE, it runs great as long as you tweak the ini file that comes with Outrun 2006 Tweaks appropriately.
For this run, I decided to focus on Goal C in the Outrun2SP mode, playing on the original Outrun 2 course instead of Outrun2SP course. My goal was to get my time as fast as possible while getting my score as high as possible. After a little bit of practice, I pulled off this run which Im proud of. There were a few small mistakes but nothing fatal.
This game has an amazing scoring system for a racer due to the slipstream mechanic. The longer you stay in slipstream, the more points you get. Plus, if you use slipstream to pass up cars, you get double the usual amount for passing them up as long as you pass cleanly. It is especially important to do this to the rival cars that appear throughout the courses.
00:00 Intro
00:52 Race Starts
05:28 Ending/Credits and High Scores")
![Sensible Soccer [Sega Mega Drive] - Munich vs Luxembourg 5-0 Shutout (Expert Mode, No Cheats)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Tixd5DGi4-M/mqdefault.jpg "Sensible Soccer [Sega Mega Drive] - Munich vs Luxembourg 5-0 Shutout (Expert Mode, No Cheats)
00:48. Match begins
03:28. Second half
The Sensible Soccer series is one of the greatest franchises in arcade sports game history, especially if you were a PAL gamer back in the day. However, unlike a lot of the more famous arcade sports franchises from the 90s, it was not in arcades as it originated on the Commodore Amiga. The first couple of games in the series found its way on to home consoles at the time, including this Mega Drive port of the first game in the series. However, starting with Sensible World Of Soccer, the games pretty much stayed on PC and Amiga for the most part.
There are a couple of things that make the Sensi games stand out. One, it is the simplicity of these games. On the Amiga and DOS versions, you only get one button to do everything on the field, such as shooting, checking, and passing the ball. This Mega Drive version however takes advantage of the Mega Drive controllers three buttons and uses A to shoot or lob the ball far, B to do a mid pass, and C to do short range passes. I typically find myself using just A and C when playing this version. However, it is still pretty simple to play even with this change.
The second feature of these games is the after-touch mechanic. This allows you to curve your shot and long passes after the ball is kicked by the player. In this version of the game, the input timing is fairly strict but the mechanic is super satisfying when you nail it and score a goal with a curved shot. Because of the input timing being pretty strict to utilize this mechanic, I use my arcade stick when playing this game, which has my customized ASI Golden Lever installed in it. However, my thumbs are pretty slow to be fair and cramp up quickly, so your mileage may vary on controllers. I dont have this issue doing curved shots when playing SWOS 96/97 in DOSBox on controller, as the timing is less strict on that one. Thats the only only game I have played in this series besides this one.
One more thing that stands out is the fact that the ball does not stick to the player typically in these games. Even with a high-stat team, you will eventually lose control of the ball if you try too hard and change directions too much. The Mega Drive version unfortunately forces you to turn up the difficulty to get the true Sensible Soccer experience in this regard, but its still there on Expert, which is how I play. The game is too easy on the default Beginner mode.
There are other things that make these games great as well, like the fast pacing and being able to do custom teams. However, theyre not necessarily as unique.
As far as the match goes, I managed to score a lot of goals and in various different ways, including a rare free kick goal and a corner kick goal. Now it is true that I played as a pretty good club versus a not so good one. However, I still had to put forth a little bit of effort because the opponent AI even in these matchups is not a complete pushover. The ball always stays with them as theyre moving, though their movement stays mostly realistic to be fair. The goalies has lousy AI on both sides even on Expert, but you tend to experience their incompetence a bit more than your opponent does especially when you play a strong team.
I would like to do superplay matches of some other arcade sports games, but I will need to do some practice to shake off some rust before attempting that.
#megadrive #sensiblesoccer #sega #soccer #futbol #sportsvideogames #segagenesis #palgaming")
![Rambo [Sega Master System] - 1CC Playthrough 1,350,220 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TnCZIluvE_c/mqdefault.jpg "Rambo [Sega Master System] - 1CC Playthrough 1,350,220 pts
Rambo on the Sega Master System is known for being tough as nails, but it was honestly better than I expected. Its not a perfect game, but its much better than the NES version of Ikari Warrior for example. By 1986 standards, its pretty solid. This game is also known as Ashura in Japan and Secret Command in PAL regions.
I had a much longer description written for this one, but Youtube decided that it couldnt process this video when I first uploaded it, and I couldnt even go back and get the original description. Second go around, my upload stalled on me. This is my third time uploading. Not sure if the issue was on my end or Youtube.
00:00 Intro
00:15 Stage 1
04:00 Stage 2
09:04 Stage 3
13:51 Stage 4
19:54 Stage 5
24:30 Stage 6
29:23 Ending
#rambo #sega #segamastersystem #retrogaming")
![Exed Exes [Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 5,211,600 pts (To Round 18)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/U6fuUlJKe24/mqdefault.jpg "Exed Exes [Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 5,211,600 pts (To Round 18)
I finally beat Exed Exes aka Savage Bees, one of the hardest games Capcom ever made if not the hardest. I have more to say about this one later, but this is surprisingly one of the only recorded runs of this game by a Westerner to get the ending at the end of Round 16.
00:00 Intro
00:09 Round 1
03:12 Round 2
06:15 Round 3
09:34 Round 4
13:43 Round 5
17:10 Round 6
20:41 Round 7
24:24 Round 8
29:02 Round 9
33:17 Round 10
37:28 Round 11
42:20 Round 12
47:45 Round 13
52:12 Round 14
56:42 Round 15
01:01:03 Round 16
01:11:38 Final Boss
01:12:48 Ending (Congratulations!)
01:13:10 Round 17
01:17:32 Round 18
Recorded in standalone MAME 0.284 using OBS Studio at 59.637 FPS to match the refresh rate of the original game. There was some minor stuttering early on here and there, with the worst of it being in Round 7, but it seemed to cleared itself up after that round. Not sure what happened there. If you dont have a VRR monitor, there will be plenty of micro stutter. Oh, and I did have my mic plugged in by accident and unmuted, but I didnt hear any talking when I went back and checked the recording unlike with Higemaru lol. Heard some small noise at the beginning of Round 7 but thats it and Im not sure where it came from. I muted the mic in OBS after the run to prevent this going forward lol.")
![Raiden [Playstation 1] - Stage 7 No-Miss Practice Run on General mode (The Raiden Project)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UL6uUpYnwhE/mqdefault.jpg "Raiden [Playstation 1] - Stage 7 No-Miss Practice Run on General mode (The Raiden Project)
This is some footage of me practicing Stage 7 of Raiden on the PS1 port on the highest difficulty, which is slightly harder than the original arcade game. I used a few planned bombs, but my goal was to do a route that makes survival consistently doable, especially in the first half where the zakos are pretty wild.
Also, the Stage 7 boss is trivial if youre willing to speedkill it.")
![Ghost Blade HD [PC] - First Normal 1CC (Ghost)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Un4Z-HKuvoU/mqdefault.jpg "Ghost Blade HD [PC] - First Normal 1CC (Ghost)
I was not originally planning to do this video. However, after getting to the last boss on one credit a few days ago out of nowhere, I figured I could get this 1CC with a little bit more effort.
As far as the game itself goes, its a bit of a mixed bag. The scoring is pretty fun despite being pretty derivative of CAVE. The graphics are great with high resolution backgrounds and enemy design, and the music and sound design are fine. Its got your standard arcade mode as well as a training mode for practicing stages and even a score attack mode, calling back to the days of the caravan shooter which is uncommon for bullet hell games.
Unfortunately, the bullet designs dont have much rhyme or reason at times IMO, and bullet visibility sucks compared to most bullet hell games. Its too easy to lose track of bullets with everything so cluttered especially in later stages. Half the time, I couldnt even tell why I died. I think part of the problem is the tech orbs not being transparent enough, because theyre green like some of the bullets are albeit darker.
These issues are less noticeable on Easy mode, where you can focus more on scoring because the bullets patterns are less difficult and slower to begin with.
It wasnt the smoothest run by any means, especially in stages 4 and 5, but I got the job done even if the scoring wasnt that great. In less than 9 hours on Steam, Ive gotten 1CCs on both Easy and Normal modes, so thats not too bad.")
![Graze Counter GM [PC] - First 1CC 1,364,737,200 pts (Standard Original -Type 3 ship)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VCBjMR3km4U/mqdefault.jpg "Graze Counter GM [PC] - First 1CC 1,364,737,200 pts (Standard Original -Type 3 ship)
00:46. Stage 1
3:27. Stage 2-A
6:32. Stage 3
9:51. Stage 4-A
13:26. Final Stage
17:50. Final Boss
Graze Counter GM is a bullet hell doujin shmup developed by Bikkuri Software and published by Henteko Doujin/Sanuk Inc. at the beginning of 2023 on Steam, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. This is an expanded version of the original Graze Counter that was released on Steam several years ago, with new ships and modes included.
The gameplay is a cross between the grazing gameplay of Psyvariar and the Castle Shikigami series with bullet hell shmups like Crimzon Clover. You can graze bullets to build up your Graze Counter, which allows you to activate a laser shot that cancels bullets and builds up your Break meter, which functions similarly to Crimzon Clovers break system when filled up and activated.
As far as the runs goes, this game is mostly really easy outside of the Stage 3 Boss and the last boss battles on Stage 5. This run was mostly a cakewalk until the end of Stage 5 despite it being my second full run playing it. The last two boss battles almost killed my run, as I lost several lives and was down to my last one once I finished. I still need to learn those patterns better, though I have started to get better after this run. Also, I didnt realize until after filming this that you can go in between the power-up pickups to grab all three like in Cho Ren Sha.
The Type 3 ship feels like a homage to the classic Raiden ship, as it has slow movement, wide spread, and even a similar sprite. It is very good for grazing but not so good for certain boss battles that require some quick reaction times to dodge certain attacks.")
![Gun Frontier [Arcade] - 1CC Full Game Playthrough (Good Ending)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Vl7eh-W7bIE/mqdefault.jpg "Gun Frontier [Arcade] - 1CC Full Game Playthrough (Good Ending)
Gun Frontier was an arcade shmup created by Taito and originally released in 1990. This was the first of two shmups produced by Takatsuna Senba, the other being Metal Black in 1991. This is one game that has haunted me for many years. Whenever I first played Taito Legends 2, this was the game that beat me down the most. Even worse, I had no turbo fire back then. But after getting a lot of 1CCs under my belt and learning more about the games rank system, I decided to come back to this one for the 1CC and Im glad I did.
One of my biggest shmup achievements so far, if not the biggest. Extremely proud of how this run went. I only had two deaths on this run, one on the Stage 2 Boss and one in the canyon section of Stage 5.
I may create a discussion video talking about this game in the future. Not only is this a hard shmup, but it is ahead of its time in many ways.
Autofire was used, 30HZ (technically 29HZ due to a GP2040CE bug) and 10HZ in particular. Tapping of a non-turbo fire button was used extensively as well.
00:00 Intro
00:17 Stage 1
02:16 Stage 2
05:59 Stage 3
09:30 Stage 4
12:46 Stage 5
20:19 Final Stage
21:54 Ending")
![Vulgus [PSP/Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 186,600 pts (Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WZ9swkEfSnI/mqdefault.jpg "Vulgus [PSP/Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 186,600 pts (Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded)
0:07. Stage 1-1
2:33. Stage 1-2
5:59. Stage 1-3
9:15. Stage 2-1 (2nd Loop)
Vulgus came out in 1984 and was the debut video game for one of the biggest developers in video game history: Capcom. Before that, they had only made a single medal game for Japanese arcades called Little League. This game predated 1942 by about several months, with the latter being more well-known today because it did better in arcades, got home ports, and spawned several sequels.
If someone were to see a single screenshot of this game in action, it would be easy to assume that this is a Xevious clone. The ship looks kind of similar to Solvalou and parts of the second area look similar on initial glance. The levels even blur together like that game in terms of its transitions. However, this game does not use a second plane of play and lacks the ground bomb as a result. In its place is a secondary missile shot which can pierce through enemies but is in limited supply. You can gain more of them by grabbing the POW pickups. Gameplay-wise, it feels like a cross between a fixed shooter like Galaga in terms of enemy movement and scoring and a more traditional vertical shmup from around this time like Star Force or Xevious. Its not hard by arcade standards and may even be a decent introduction to classic shmups due to its fair difficulty and briefness.
The biggest way to score is killing as many enemies as you can in a row with the missile shot that I mentioned earlier. You get bonus points for each extra enemy in a row that you kill with it. Also, some enemy formations give you a nice bonus for killing them all even without the missile. Bigger enemies are also worth more points than the smaller ones. Its simple but works.
I did this run using the Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded compilation on PSP, played on PPSSPP. This version does included remixed sound, which I enabled in the settings. The alternate soundtrack is a remix of the original song but is pretty solid and preferable to me over the original. Autofire was enabled via in-game settings.")
