As a vintage gamer that grew up in the golden age of the arcades, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the number of retro collections, remakes, and assorted love shown in this last generation. Pretty well no matter the genre or style of play, great games from that era have a tendency to stand up pretty well, even by modern standards, and I’ve played plenty of modern releases that have failed to capture the brilliance many of those classics brought to the table. While the Irem Collections have perhaps been a bit inconsistent overall, I have to say that this one in particular feels like an incredibly strong mix, despite featuring only one title I can recall having played back in the day.

Starting with the one title I do recall playing, I actually think that Mystic Riders may be the weakest of the collection overall. It’s certainly colorful, has some great animations, and features some enhanced play that makes it distinctive, but it can also feel fiddly at times. In particular, your ability to spin and fire shots in multiple directions is novel, but I also found that triggering it was inconsistent, so that kind of made it hard to really rely on, undermining the experience. Dragon Breed is possibly the most daring of the bunch, featuring your ability to ride on a powerful dragon which you’re then able to power up in a variety of ways. The fact that the dragon’s body is able to shield you from harm in most cases really changes up the dynamics for play, and was a great hook that encouraged me to continue playing, just to see more.

What I believe to be the strongest in the collection, Mr. Heli, was the real surprise. It took me a few runs to wrap my head around how it works, but once I caught on it was both challenging and delightful. By blowing up various rocks you’re able to uncover crystals, which you’ll then use to upgrade your craft in a variety of ways. There are certainly a number of options available, so you won’t simply want to grab everything, but that variety and uncertainty as you’d try to get everything created some great tension. It’s also the only game to feature the PC engine version, which may not be as visually impressive, but was a little easier so I found that to be a lot of fun regardless.

This was actually a very pleasant surprise of a compilation, not merely featuring multiple variations on the same age-old classic shooters everyone knows, but instead going with games that dared to break away and do their own thing. While I do wish how they worked in terms of the controls and play was better explained, requiring some trial and error experimentation to understand what buttons to use and in what contexts you could do some things, it didn’t take long to grasp their concepts and dig right into unique and memorable gameplay. If you’re a true retro fan, even if you may not be familiar with these specific titles, they’re well worth giving a look.