Namco Museum Vol. 4 - Longplay

0:00:00 - Opening/Entering the Museum
0:03:36 - Ordyne exhibit
0:07:58 - Ordyne (1988)
0:13:21 - Pac-Land exhibit
0:20:31 - Pac-Land (1984)
0:35:32 - Genpei Toma Den/The Genji and the Heike Clans exhibit
0:41:01 - Genpei Toma Den/The Genji and the Heike Clans (1986)
0:46:09 - The Return of Ishtar exhibit
0:53:00 - The Return of Ishtar (1986)
0:56:59 - Unlocking "Hidden" The Return of Ishtar version
0:59:47 - "Hidden" The Return of Ishtar version
1:01:01 - Assault exhibit
1:10:12 - Assault (1988)
1:15:50 - The X-Room/unlocking Assault Plus
1:16:22 - Assault Plus exhibit
1:19:37 - Assault Plus (1988)
1:29:26 - Memory/Records
1:32:41 - Library
1:50:05 - Theater/Slide Shows
2:00:55 - Credits
2:03:28 - Bonus: Hidden Genpei Toma Den commercial

The first three installments to the PS1 Namco Museum saga were great. There was a healthy mixture of popular games, less popular games, and obscure titles that some would consider underrated. And it covered a good chunk of Namco's early history, too, some would say the best parts.

Then you get to Volume 4. All of a sudden, it becomes, "Um, am I supposed to know of these games at all?"

Namco was definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one, and with how little popularity this game got, it shows. Might explain why none of these games have been in any Namco Museums beyond this one (unless you want to count Pac-Land being in Pac-Man Museum and some Arcade1Up compilations). Don't get me wrong, the games aren't godawful... almost. They're just not too memorable and not the kind of games you'd understand on your first time playing them, ergo why I don't play them often, ergo why most of my gameplay sucks this time around.

From what I can tell, the emulation quality is fine minus some minor sound inaccuracies (and Ordyne's excessive loading screens, I swear they shouldn't be necessary). It's just that the games themselves aren't too great. Pac-Land is a very well-designed early 2-D platformer with horrible controls, Ordyne is a rather basic shmup, The Return of Ishtar requires co-op mode and is even more confusing than its predecessor, Assault is clunky and also feels basic, and I have no idea what the hell I'm doing with Genpei Toma Den, even after reading the guides.

As for the museum itself, that's where this game shines. There's even more interactive content and Easter Eggs than Vol. 3, and the Theater now has a (rather crappy) concert performance from a robot "band" known as the Pic-Pac. The Pac-Man icon has a few more animations you can view, and every game room has something to marvel at and explore. The exhibits themselves are fine if not a little bland due to the obscure game selection. Assault has two versions you can opt to play with (one with a timer glitch that allows for insane score boosts, and one that patches the glitch, I only played V1 to keep things simple), and its upgrade, Assault Plus, is unlockable. There's also an unlockable version of The Return of Ishtar that I've never seen or heard of anywhere else. There's even a hidden commercial you can play in place of the intro that I show at the end of the video. If you want to learn more about this bonus content and how to unlock it, these are the pages I used. I have a feeling there's more that I haven't found out about yet:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/1980...
http://www.cheatcodes.com/guide/codes...

This isn't a bad game for your collection, but you may want to look over the game list first. I'm open to the idea that if I give these games more playtime and research, I'll enjoy them more, but for now I'll just leave this where it is and call it good. At least I finally have this done. Until I get my hands on more Namco Museums or better capture equipment for my PSP and/or DS (when/if TBD), this'll probably be the last one of these longplays for a while. So, enjoy my shitty gameplay and drawn-out exploration of this somewhat underwhelming compilation.

Played and recorded on my Playstation 2.