ACA NEOGEO Nam-1975

Genre: Arcade / Shooting Gallery

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Nam-1975 is a Shooting Gallery-style Arcade game released in 1990 in Japanese arcades as a launch title for the NEOGEO MVS arcade platform, and on the NEOGEO home console in 1991, also as a launch title… and to complete the trifecta, it was ported to NEOGEO CD in 1996 after its Japanese release was a launch title for that platform, making it only one of two games to launch with all three of the original NEOGEO platforms (the other being a Mahjong game that I do not believe was ever brought to the West). Meanwhile, this modern release sees the game coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2017.

Nam-1975’s gameplay is set in a fictionalized version of the Vietnam war where players take the role of a war veteran grudgingly heading on a rescue mission. It has players aiming a reticule while dodging enemy fire down at the bottom of the screen in a manner similar to games like Cabal and Wild Arms. Players can fire their machine gun, toss one of your limited supply of grenades, walk left or right, or dodge in either direction to briefly avoid enemy fire.

You will be doing a lot of dodging in this game, and even then you will be doing a lot of dying. While I don’t exactly think this game puts players into outright impossible situations to sap up their quarters (you know, like Magician Lord does), it definitely feels like there are situations that crop up in the game where avoiding death is extraordinarily difficult. Thankfully the ACA NEOGEO release of the game does allow the player to use unlimited continues, but it’s definitely one of the major frustrations here.

Aside from that, I think this is a pretty well-made game in this genre. There’s a good amount of variety in enemy types, situations, and even some surprising power-ups, all with a solid presentation. I can definitely see why SNK opted to highlight this game in not one, but three of its product launches.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to score as much as they can in one run before seeing a game over screen. 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 includes both English and Japanese versions, and gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

In the end, the extremely high challenge level keeps Nam-1975 from being a truly great game by today’s standards, but with unlimited continues I do think I can at least say it is a good one. As long as you can grit your teeth and cringe through all the deaths, this is a game that may be worth a look.

tl;dr – Nam-1975 is an Arcade-style Shooting Gallery game set in a fictionalized Vietnam War, where players aim a reticule while having their character at the bottom of the screen dodge incoming enemy fire. This game is absurdly difficult and will force players to use the unlimited continues the ACA NEOGEO release offers, but if you can stomach that I think you’ll fid this to be a solid Action game.

Grade: B-

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