Games galore #30: Final Fight Enhanced, Akumajou Dracula AGA, Amidar500, Scramble500, CyberPunk Alien City

Three arcade conversions, an AGA conversion of a classic Konami platformer, and a new cyberpunk themed shoot-em-up.

Final Fight Enhanced

1989 Capcom coin-op brawler "Final Fight" in it's 1991 Amiga version is one of the games that couldn't live up to it's full potential because of limited resources put into it's creation - especially from today's perspective, with highly experienced developers around, and new tools for game creation available, it's a bit of a disappointment regarding graphics, speed, and playability.

Final Fight 1989 original arcade graphics

Final Fight 1991 U.S. Gold Amiga version graphics

Developer Brick Nash aka Prototron has decided to change that situation, and is working on an enhanced conversion of "Final Fight". It's work-in-progress, and no definitive hardware requirements have been set, but an early demo runs on 68020-equipped Amigas. 

Final Fight 2021 Prototron Amiga early demo graphics

There's obviously still a lot of work to do, but it already has a couple of new features: parallax scrolling, an updated title screen, 2-button joystick support, and music plays while you're fighting.

Here's a video of the demo from Prototron's YouTube channel (2022-01-12):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfuAvYCAXss

There's no public playable demo yet - but if you like, you can download the assembler source code and contribute to the development:
https://github.com/Prototron77/Final-Fight-Enhanced

Additional sources:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=109488
http://www.indieretronews.com/2022/01/final-fight-enhanced-enhanced-amiga.html
https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=409 (original 1991 Amiga port)

Akumajou Dracula AGA (Castlevania AGA)

The game known as "Castlevania" in most places ("Akumajou Dracula" in Japan) gets a remake for AGA Amigas.

This fantasy themed platform adventure game is probably best known from it's initial versions running of Nintendo console hardware, and it's one the defining games of the genre.

An official Amiga version has been available since 1990, but now (finally!) it looks as if we could get a new, polished version for AGA Amigas which makes proper use of graphics hardware, and provides smooth gameplay. A "prototype" is available, and although unfinished it's already and quite obviously a huge improvement over the previous version.

Here's a video from Saberman's YouTube channel (2022-02-12):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf08o0VFugo

Go to the game's website for more information and download:
https://danteretrodev.itch.io/akumajou-dracula-aga

Additional sources:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/04/akumajou-dracula-aga-upcoming.html
http://hol.abime.net/2953 (1990 Amiga version)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania_(1986_video_game)

Amidar500

After "Pacman 500" and "Ms PacMan 500", Jean-Francois Fabre continues to create great conversions of great arcade games with "Amidar500".

If you've never played "Amidar" you certainly should do so now. Originally released in 1981, it's one of the classic arcade games, just like Space Invaders, Pac Man, Centipede, and a couple of others. With it's grid-capture gameplay it sits somewhere between Pac Man, and Qix, another huge classic. So basically you get arcade history galore and tons of fun with this addictive game! 

 "Amidar500" runs on any Amiga with 1MB of RAM.

Here's a video from Jean-Francois Fabre's YouTube channel (2021-12-30):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuQbFbTu6yQ

Go to Amidar500's website for more information:
https://jotd666.itch.io/amidar500

Additional sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amidar

Scramble500

"Scramble" is yet another Konami arcade classic that got ported to the Amiga by Jean-Francois Fabre.

"Scramble" is pretty much the mother of all side scrolling space shooters, but there was never a proper port of the original arcade game for the Amiga. Well, now there is! "Scramble500" aims to recreate the original experience as close as possible, with faithful graphics, sound and gameplay, including all levels of the arcade version. Two- and three-button joysticks are supported, as is the CD32 joypad.

Here's the latest video from the author's YouTube channel (2022-02-23): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f5ZNwWzgsU

It's a preview video, but a final version of the game, with added 2-player mode, improved graphics, and a lot of bugfixes, has already been released.

Go to Scramble500's website for more information and download:
https://jotd666.itch.io/scramble-500

Additional sources:
https://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2022-02-00073-EN.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_(video_game)

CyberPunk Alien City

Amiten Games has released a great looking work-in-progress shoot-em-up that goes by the name of "CyberPunk Alien City". 

Neon lights, green aliens, a hero with a big gun, and a groovy soundtrack - the game is still in early development stage, but a playable demo is available, and it totally feels "Blade Runner meets Mars Attacks!" - very promising!

The game requires an Amiga with 1MB ChipRAM, some acceleration / A1200 is recommended.

Here's a video from Amiten TV's YouTube channel (2021-12-08):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpKaNw_gtRA

Go to the game's itch.io pages for more information and download:
https://amiten.itch.io/cyberpunk-alien-city

Additional sources:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/02/cyberpunk-alien-city-cyber-sci-fi.html

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Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #31"!

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