Hat Trick Hero
Image: Taito

During today's Arcade Archives livestream, Hamster announced it will be bringing Taito's '90s football title Hat Trick Hero to PS4 and Nintendo Switch on July 18th in Japan.

Hat Trick Hero was released in arcades in 1992 and is a slightly altered version of the 1990 Taito arcade game Football Champ that swaps out the Spanish and French teams for Japan and the USA.

The game features 8 teams to choose from in total (with the other teams being Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Netherlands, and Italy) and tasks the player with winning every match in the hopes of being crowned footballing heroes and the best in the world.

This may sound like your typical footballing fare, but there are a few things that make the game stand out from other similar titles from the era.

The first is its enthusiastic announcer, who will chime in every so often to deliver energetic voice lines, while another is its violent tackling system that lets players beat the snot out of their opponents whenever the referee is offscreen.

In addition to the above, it also contains a rather unconventional "star player mechanic" that allows players to pick a person on the pitch to benefit from special moves and skills like a hilarious super shot that can blast the opponent's goalkeeper into the stands.

We'll try and keep you posted when Hamster releases the English trailer for the game, but for now, you can watch some old footage of the arcade title in action below, just to get an idea of what it looks like:

[source x.com]