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?

Aside from a demo for the Spectrum version of this scrolling shoot ’em up, I don’t think I’ve ever properly played Forgotten Worlds before. I know Your Sinclair raved about it, but the controls (which are crying out to be twin-stick before that was a common thing) always seemed too fiddly to bother with, so I never really tried.

Turns out, that I was right.

OK, so in the arcade you have a stick to move, and a rotary dial to aim your shots. Without a dial or a twin-stick setup, that’s never going to work well when translated to other devices, and the Evercade doesn’t have either. Instead, it does what other versions of the game did, and rotated with buttons. Which is rubbish, and meant that I rarely bothered trying because it was too slow and inaccurate, especially when things got a bit hectic. Turns out, you don’t actually need to change your aim that often.

What you do need to do, often, however, is insert virtual coins, because Forgotten Worlds is REALLY BLOODY HARD. The first few levels are very easy, but by the time you’re over halfway through the game dying every 20 seconds is the norm. It’s also not even that good a game, so why I persevered, I don’t know. It has elements similar to Parodius and Fantasy Zone, with levels that have themes which seem to riff on Greek myths and Egyptian gods, as well as a mid-level upgrade shop, but it’s not as good as either of those. That said, I’m not a massive fan of shoot ’em ups but Parodius and Fantasy Zone are two of the few I enjoy, so who knows what the problem I have with it is.