Arcade Archives Armed F

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1-2 Alternating (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Formation Armed F is a Shmup released in Arcades in 1988, ported to the Japanese PC-Engine (TurboGrafx-16 to us in the West) in 1990, and then ported without “Formation” in the title to PlayStation 4 in 2016 and then to Nintendo Switch in 2019. This game features a central mechanic where players must change their “Option” helper ships from upward-facing to downward-facing formations to contend with new threats as they appear.

This mechanic is actually a pretty clever one that works quite well, challenging the player to be extra-aware of their surroundings, and particularly making good judgment calls when you’re getting attacked from both above and below. In addition, this game featured some pretty good 2D pixel art visuals for the era that are still eye-catching today.

As for downsides, by default this game forces you to press a button for each shot fired, a frustrating limitation you often saw in older Shmups. You can change this to auto-fire in this release’s option menus, but be aware that this reduces the game’s difficulty drastically. Also, I wasn’t fond of this game’s claustrophobic vertical layout, and I’m disappointed that the 2-player mode is alternating only.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to get as far as they can in one run. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

At $8, the Arcade Archives release of Armed F seems a bit pricey, but I think Shmup fans may just find this one to be worth it. I don’t think it’s quite good enough to be considered a true hidden classic, but it is nevertheless a gem of an older game that may not have received the attention it deserved.

tl;dr – Armed F is a Shmup built around the mechanic of changing the formation of your “Option” helper ships to take on threats from above and below. As older Shmups go, this one is actually pretty good, and while it does have a few issues, fans of the genre may want to give this a look.

Grade: B-

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