Another two player Evercade game. I’ve played Joe & Mac (Caveman Ninja) before, and the sequel, but hadn’t even heard of this. In fact, I thought it was the sequel when I started it up. As it turns out, it’s a completely different sort of platformer.

Whereas the other two Joe & Mac games were sideways scrolling platformers where you club baddies, Returns is a two player Bubble Bobble/Snowbros/Rodland type single screen “clear the baddies” type game. You still club the baddies, but they now need multiple hits before they get stuffed into a snowball bag and you push the snowball bag into other baddies to knock them out too. Defeat enough baddies with the same snowball bag and you get larger fruit meat and more points. Yes, it’s very much like those other games.

With the exception that each between-level animation has the pervy cavemen spying on, or “accidentally” undressing one of the cave women. You’d never catch Bub or Bob doing that.

We completed it, which was surprisingly easy for an arcade game, and found it enjoyable although it isn’t surprising it never hit the big time like those games it apes as it lacks the cute factor and isn’t quite as much fun. Snowballs and bubbles are more satisfying than bags, obviously.

I broke out the Evercade VS for some games with my daughter, and this was one of those we played. It’s a Final Fight clone by Toaplan, and is very silly and badly translated. You’re wrestlers, I think, one of whom is Elvis Presley, and you have to fight your way through the streets and buildings to take down the bad guys, some of whom join your cause.

It’s hilarious. But not (always) intentionally so. It’s just so ridiculous. Like the hotel level where the bellboys join in the fight and you smash through a Manneken Pis to get to the next section. Some “levels” are pretty much a single screen, like the wrestling ring, and others are longer. None of them make a lot of sense, but it’s playable (“just punch everyone” is an easy enough concept to understand) and just the right amount of button-mashy.

Although it wasn’t often I came across Wardner in the arcades, it was a game I played whenever I got the chance. I don’t know why though, because it’s so hard my ten pee would last mere seconds. Now, with the advent of Press Select to Insert Coin, I can just slot unlimited magic money into the machine! The future!

Playing it now, I realise that it’s actually quite a lot like Alex Kidd. No janken, of course, and you can shoot, but similar. It’s also not really all that good. It’s clearly designed to extract all your money with the difficulty and the jumping precision needed for many of the gaps. The final level is also really hard as it’s effectively a maze, and the already paltry time limit really doesn’t help. Plus there are trap floors to send you round in a circle. Again. And rocks you can’t see that fall on your head if you go up the wrong ladders.

Then, the final boss himself is an absolute swearword. He chucks flames at you, which you can dodge but you’ve got to be both very quick and pixel perfect to pull it off. Not fun at all and certainly a trillion pounds worth of coins needed.

I’m pretty sure I’ve only ever played the NES version of this before, and my understanding is that it’s very different. Perhaps you can even jump in that? You can’t in this, the original arcade version, in any case. (EDIT: You can’t jump in the NES version either. Curious.)

So, as I’m finding with these Capcom arcade games on the Evercade EXP, Bionic Commando is another money-eater. There’s no way in hell you’re supposed to be able to finish this without dying more times than numbers exist for – you just have to keep feeding it (virtual) coins. Well, after the first level or so anyway, as until then it’s probably possible.

The gameplay is a bit hit and miss. You can’t jump, so can only traverse by shooting out your bionic arm to grapple platforms and then pull yourself up or over. Problem is, baddies keep getting in the way. And some of the gaps are almost impossible to get into the right place for. And the responsiveness and collision detection appear to be all over the place. But just keep those e-10p pieces coming and eventually you’ll get to the end, like I did.

Not a great game, it has to be said. Was it ever?