Ranking: Namco Museum’s Games

A solid, somewhat obscure assortment of Namco Bandai’s past.

11. Rolling Thunder

Rolling Thunder is a series I had no clue existed — and apparently I am not missing much. I’d still recommend giving it a shot because the mechanics of the game are so laughably bad it’s almost enjoyable because it’s ridiculous.

I have not tried the multi-player yet but I could see that adding a few laughs throughout your hopefully short stint.

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10. Rolling Thunder 2

Rolling Thunder 2 is a slight improvement over Rolling Thunder but still relies on the same mechanics and structure through the campaign that it did for the first. Same recommendation above, give it a shot with a friend if not for a few good laughs.

Thankfully, all games past this moment within Namco Museum are games I’d consider passable to good.

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9. Dig Dug

Full disclosure, I am no the hugest Dig Dug fan, and playing this in 2017 definitely didn’t give me a come-to-Jesus moment either. The gameplay loops still holds up in 2017 — and I did find a smidgen of enjoyment, but still Dig Dug remains to get it’s hooks into me.

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8. PAC-MAN VS.

I never played this in the GameCube era, but was intrigued based on it’s (apparent) rabid fan-base. Unfortunately due to time restrictions I was unable to get the “true” experience of Pac-Man Vs. aka the multi-player, but if you’re playing this solo — it’s just not that good.

After I get hands on I will update this list because I could see how this game could really hit if you’re playing with a full set of 4 friends.

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7. The Tower of Druaga

I’ve never heard of this game (or I’d assume series), but somewhere within The Tower of Druaga I found it scratching this rogue like itch I couldn’t have imagined.

I will absolutely spend more time within the corridors of The Tower of Druaga in the future, and hopefully a little co-op.

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6. Tank Force

Originally I thought that Tank Force was going to be a tank battle game like Tank! Tank! Tank! but to my surprise it plays much more like a modern take on a horde game mode. I really enjoyed my time with it and look forward to playing Tank Force in co-op.

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5. SkyKid

I originally thought SkyKid was going to be a typical horizontal scrolling shmup. I was very, very wrong.

I’ve never heard of the game prior to this collection, but was delightfully surprised by it’s loop mechanic and 3 positional shooting that is also possible during the loop. This game is a real treat and I’ve really never played anything like it before.

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4. Pac-Man

There’s nothing more I can contribute to Pac-Man. You know what this game is or at least heard what this game is. This is exactly that and what you would expect. I’m not the biggest Pac-Man fan but I still find it fun and a worthwhile game to at least play via it’s challenge mode.

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3. Galaga

Galaga is pure nostalgia for me but I love it dearly. It reminds me of being a child and going to a supper club almost every weekend with my parents and dropping countless quarters into this cabinet.

If you haven’t played it’s like a vertical scrolling shooter except you never scroll forward, while enemies dance around and fall into place and you try to pick them off one by one with your weapon. Galaga still holds up today and an added bonus of being one of the best challenge mode variants in all of Namco Museum.

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2. Splatterhouse

Splatterhouse is awesome. It feels like a throwback to the ‘80’s slasher genre but alas, it’s from that era — making me confident in saying it holds up. Kind of. This game is hard. Thankfully this is “new” enough to have a continue system to allow you to complete the campaign without going broke one quarter at a time.

I look forward to completing this and is one of the titles in here that absolutely validate my Namco Museum purchase.

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1. Galaga ‘88

This. Game. Rules. I had no idea of it’s existence. It starts off as a graphically improved (aka has graphics) version of Galaga but then transitions into these bonus missions that have insane 8-bit covers of The Nutcracker and oh so much more.

Not even mentioning it’s transition from a direct remake of Galaga but then out of nowhere turns into a vertically scrolling shmup. This alone validated my purchase via it’s mixture of nostalgia and freshness from adjusting to (at that time) industry standard.

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So there you have it my personal rankings of Namco Museum! Let me know how you feel in the comments below or what games you specifically enjoyed.

You can find Jordan Thompson via Twitter, listen to him weekly on the Have At You! podcast and follow him and the rest of Drop Rate on their YouTube channel.