Following the not-so-exciting release of Kitten Kaboodle last week, this week's Arcade Archives reissue isn't all that more interesting, with Hamster revealing it will be bringing the 1984 Success title Othello to PS4 and Nintendo Switch on February 20th.
Truth to be told, there's not really a whole lot we can say about the game without really stretching things out and wasting everyone's time, but we will quickly go over the premise and rules just in case you've somehow never heard of Othello before and need a quick explanation.
The game basically pits two players against each other, with each person taking turns to place light and dark discs onto empty squares in an 8x8 grid. Whenever you place a piece, the goal is to outflank the opponent's piece and flip it over, switching it over to your own colour of choice and potentially causing chain reactions across the board.
Here's an official description of the game, from Hamster:
"Othello" is a game of Reversi released by SUCCESS in 1984. The rules are extremely simple while still requiring widely varied strategies, for fun and depth independent of luck. This title includes features to help players practice and learn strategies, such as to evaluate your moves or to undo moves once made."
Looking at the English video uploaded to the Hamster YouTube channel, it seems like the game has mostly been left untouched, with the footage still showing Japanese text.
This shouldn't be much of a problem though, if you do decide to pick it up, with the text on the right of the screen being pretty easy to understand if you have a basic understanding of katakana and hiragana. The text reading "ใณใณใใฅใผใฟใผ" simply means "computer" and appears next to a count of the number of white pieces on the board, while the row below it translates to "You" and logs how many black pieces are on the board.
Unless you're a really big fan of the company Success or a huge strategy fan, we imagine this is probably one you will want to skip out on.
Luckily, next week's release is a bit more action-packed, with Hamster having previously revealed last week that it is planning to release Taito's Dead Connection across PS4 & Switch on February 27th.
[source famitsu.com, via x.com]
Comments 14
No one said every game in hamsterโs catalogue had to be heavy hitters
"Unless you're a really big fan of the [sic] Success or a huge strategy fan, we imagine this is probably one you will want to skip out on."
Is this a review or a news article? What does this writer have against Othello?
"unless you like Driving Sims, you'll probably want to skip Gran Turismo"
"unless you are a fan of 1 on 1 fighters, Street Fighter 2 probably isnt for you."
๐
There are people that like different games than you. ๐โ๏ธ
@-wc- I'm not really sure where you're getting the hostility from. I'm just saying the audience for this one is probably a lot smaller, considering it's an extremely old, unlocalized game and will likely cost the same as the regular Arcade Archives releases by default.
The reason we covered it is we acknowledge there are people who like other games to us, and might want to pick it up. It's just pretty obvious that the market for this is likely incredibly niche, given the countless other ways you can play this game.
I don't think anybody, including the writer, has anything against Othello. It's just... there are like a billion ways to play Othello. It's as close to commoditized as a game can possibly be. It's hard to imagine anybody choosing a very old (and unlocalized!) arcade version of it rather than, say, Nintendo Clubhouse Games or something.
That said, I think this does illustrate the challenge of preserving games that don't have much of an audience. Kudos to Hamster for including this despite knowing they probably aren't going to be making any money by putting it out there.
I think the most notable thing about this release is probably the licensing involved.
Othello is a trademarked brand and not something you can just use freely like with Reversi. Capcom had run into trouble with this as the original release of Breath of Fire II makes specific references to Othello, and subsequent releases had to remove the reference entirely.
Would like to see Mr Do! please
I've been waiting for Mr Do! as well as hoping for the Arkanoid games, Cabal, Kung Fu Master, Phoenix, and Roc'n Rope.
@JackGYarwood
"I'm not really sure where you're getting the hostility from."
not so much hostility, as negativity.
and you need only look at your headline. the news is,
"Hamster is doing Othello next"
but you chose to write
"This Week's Arcade Archives Game May Be Worth Skipping"
๐ see my point?
"It's just pretty obvious that the market for this is likely incredibly niche,"
yes, that is obvious ๐ good reporting I guess?
thanks for replying, and being game for the chat. no harm done obv and i mean nothing personal, to you. โ๏ธ
Razieluigi wrote:
There is another Othello game on Switch, and it is cheaper than the Arcade Archives release.
And if you're mad about classic board games and card games, then you probably already own Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, which has a version of Othello called Renegade.
Someone should make a video game out of the Shakespeare play with the same title
A game so nice it fits on a single side of a Famicom disk.
What amazes me is that Othello โ a game I like a lot, by the way โ was made into an arcade game. Not exactly what anyone went to the arcades for, was it? This, or a space shooter? Weird.
I think I might buy it just to prove Jack Yarwood wrong.
btw Hamster has overhauled its Arcade Archives website, but unfortunately the links have completely changed and they aren't any redirections. So all of the past links are basically broken... -_-
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