Insanely Underrated Arcade Game!

RetroRalph·video·6m 28s·analyzed·May 21, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

RetroRalph champions War Final Assault as underrated late-90s arcade shooter with unique controls.

Summary

RetroRalph showcases War Final Assault, a first/third-person shooter arcade game from the late 1990s that he considers severely underrated. He explains why these experimental arcade shooters were overlooked (console FPS popularity, arcade decline, unusual controls), demonstrates gameplay mechanics, and highlights the game's story mode and networked multiplayer capabilities. He emphasizes discovering the game at Galloping Ghost arcade and recommends experiencing it in person rather than emulation.

Key Claims

War Final Assault is a first/third-person shooter arcade game from around 1999-2000
high confidence · Direct discussion of game release timeframe and genre classification
War Final Assault uses button-based movement (front/back/left/right) and joystick-based aiming, opposite of The Grid's trackball control scheme
high confidence · Jon demonstrates and explicitly compares control schemes between the two games
The game supports networked multiplayer including deathmatch and co-op story modes
high confidence · Jon states 'They're networked. You can play death matches against each other, or you can play co-op'
War Final Assault has a story mode with multiple stages and increasingly difficult bosses
high confidence · Jon progresses through story mode, defeats first stage boss, describes difficulty scaling
Jon brought War Final Assault to Zapcon 2022 and it attracted significant visitor interest
high confidence · Direct statement: 'I brought this game Tee'd Off Zapcon 2022 and believe it or not everyone was like what is this'
The game does not emulate well and is best experienced in original arcade cabinet form
high confidence · Jon explicitly states 'It really doesn't work very well under emulation'

Notable Quotes

“Feel like there's a set of games in my collection that are just underrated in general, and it's this War Final Assault.”
Jon (RetroRalph)@ 0:08 — Sets up the video's central thesis about the game's underappreciation
“Maybe the reason why these aren't as appreciated is because first-person shooters were all over the place when it comes to console gaming. So maybe they just kind of flew under the radar.”
Jon (RetroRalph)@ 0:36 — Provides historical context for why arcade shooters were overlooked
“This game is so cool, I've never seen it in the arcade before.”
Zapcon 2022 attendees (paraphrased)@ 4:39 — Demonstrates the game's rarity and lack of familiarity among arcade enthusiasts
“It has this really post-apocalyptic vibe to it. The cabinets actually look beat up. And it just, I don't know, it attracts people.”
Jon (RetroRalph)@ 4:29 — Explains the aesthetic appeal and visual draw of the cabinet
“I think the difference between this and The Grid, they're both equally really neat games, trust me. A lot of people love The Grid, but a lot of people just don't even know this exists.”
Jon (RetroRalph)@ 5:27 — Core argument: War Final Assault deserves recognition comparable to The Grid

Entities

War Final AssaultgameJon (RetroRalph)personThe GridgameQuake Arcade TournamentgameGalloping GhostorganizationZapcon 2022eventAtaricompany

Signals

?
community_signal: War Final Assault demonstrated strong appeal to arcade enthusiasts at Zapcon 2022 despite minimal prior awareness, suggesting hidden market demand for forgotten arcade shooters
high · Jon states attendees were impressed and had never encountered the game before; many approached him asking about it
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market_signal: Late-1990s experimental arcade shooter games (War Final Assault, The Grid, Quake Arcade Tournament) represent underappreciated niche category that deserves renewed collector/enthusiast attention
medium · Jon positions these games as overlooked due to console FPS saturation and arcade industry decline, arguing they merit discovery and play
?
technology_signal: War Final Assault does not emulate well, limiting accessibility for collectors without original hardware and driving need for authentic arcade venue experiences
high · Jon explicitly states 'It really doesn't work very well under emulation' and recommends visiting arcades like Galloping Ghost instead

Topics

Underrated arcade games from the late 1990sprimaryFirst-person and third-person shooter arcade cabinetsprimaryArcade control schemes and mechanicsprimaryNetworked multiplayer arcade experiencessecondaryArcade game preservation and cabinet conditionsecondaryArcade discovery through venue attendancesecondaryArcade vs emulation fidelitymentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Jon expresses strong enthusiasm and appreciation for War Final Assault, defending it against obscurity. Tone is celebratory and advocacy-focused. No criticism of the game itself; criticism is directed at the industry/community for overlooking it.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.019

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. So I have a lot of arcade games in my collection, and it took, you know, a couple years to build it up, and I'm constantly buying new games. But I feel like there's a set of games in my collection that are just underrated in general, and it's this War of Final Assault. So this was like a category of games, they're like third-person and first-person shooter games that ended up in the arcades that were a little experimental at the time. Like, The Grid is a third-person game. This is actually a first or third-person game because you can change the view. And then there's Quake Arcade Tournament, which a lot of people don't even know existed, which was a version of Quake specifically made for the arcade. Maybe the reason why these aren't as appreciated is because first-person shooters were all over the place when it comes to console gaming. So maybe they just kind of flew under the radar. And also the time they came out. They kind of came out around the 2000, 99, 2000 time period. And because of that, arcades were kind of falling out of favor that time. So it's no surprise maybe that that's why they're underappreciated. But I love these. I have two of them. They're networked. You can play death matches against each other, or you can play co-op and play through the story mode together. Unlike the grid, this probably has more of a story to it. So I think if you only had one grid or one of these, you might like this a little bit better because it has a story mode where grid by far beats it out. If you're talking about multiplayer, the grid is just amazing. But one thing I've never even covered on the channel is I bought this awesome topper. So someone had a new old stock topper. So unfortunately, it was in the box for a long time. It had moved around. It has a couple cracks on the side, but it's really neat. It's got like four fluorescent light bulbs in there. It really cool and I think it just complements this whole thing And you know maybe some of the reasons why also these games weren as popular is they had weird controls Like to move front right left and back you had to use buttons versus a controller And this is actually just moving your character, like, around the environment to aim and stuff like that. So it's pretty interesting, but I feel like these are completely underrated. And they're some of my favorites in my collection, although a lot of people don't have nostalgia for them. So I'm going to play a little bit of the story mode, since I don't have someone else to play the deathmatch with me. So you can kind of see what this game is all about. It asks me, do I want to play just by myself or not? So it's just me, so I don't have another machine. And there's four characters to choose from. This big dude, this skinny dude, and this other big dude. And then there's a woman as well. And she has a very interesting bra on, let's just say that. Alright, it's going to auto-pick her, so you'll see her. She has like, very pointy, you know. So it'll run you through the story real quick. We can just let this sit for a second because it's kind of cool. This is General Yuri Alenov, the ruthless leader of the new Siberian Republic. The general has declared war on the entire free world and has vowed he would stop at nothing short of complete world domination. You must stop the general before he has a chance to strike again. Our forces will create a diversion by attacking the general's force. So basically, we've got to destroy the general who's trying to kill everybody, right? It drops you right into the environment. From the beginning, it's all action. So to jump, like I said, you hit the button to jump. Front and back are buttons, and left and right are buttons. There's a guy right around this corner. And then to aim it this joystick right here So it kind of the opposite of the grid because the grid uses a trackball So see I can There I killed that first guy And she tell you periodically what you supposed to do but it's pretty self-explanatory since there's these red arrows everywhere. And there's all sorts of weapon power-ups and stuff throughout the game. Right now, I got a flamethrower. Yeah! Oh, I ran out. And then this button on the top is actually to change weapons once I get different weapons. It... Shit. It behooves you to actually move around a little bit, because you'll get wasted pretty quick by these dudes. They don't mess around. But there's health, like I said, and power-ups all over the place. I'll show you around the corner, you'll see there's like a new gun upgrade. This gun's kind of not the best, but there's some really cool guns, especially when you play deathmatch mode. Alright, so here, I got a new gun. So now I got a machine gun. Or this is more of a Gatling gun, actually. But these guys are relentless. like you die pretty quick so you got to be on top of it I tend to be kind of bad at games like this because I like to run and gun versus like actually being strategic but I got that gun back now if I had a secondary weapon see I dropped the weapon so I'll pick this back up again if I press this button it drops the weapon so if you have multiple weapons you can like drop one to pick one up so I brought this game to zapcon 2022 and believe it or not everyone was like what is this because it It has this really post-apocalyptic vibe to it. The cabinets actually look beat up. And it just, I don't know, it attracts people. And a lot of people came up to me and they were like, man, this game is so cool, I've never seen it in the arcade before. And like I said, I don't know how many of these were made, it was a game by Atari but it super cool I at the boss for this first stage He not very difficult but they get really hard after a while And you gotta Nah shoot You gotta really move around a lot because they totally blast you if you don And right now I only have the default gun, so it's not very exciting. And it's gonna take me a lot longer to kill this guy with this gun, but he's almost dead. Oh no! He's got me in the corner. Alright, I got him. So then it gives you a little bit of details of how many kills you have, how many career kills you have, and then it lets you know you cleared the level. Now, if you're playing up against someone else, it gives you your stats versus theirs and stuff like that. And then, of course, it continues through the story mode. And the story mode is really cool. It's a really cool game. I think the difference between this and The Grid, they're both equally really neat games, trust me. A lot of people love The Grid, but a lot of people just don't even know this exists. And the first time I played this was at Galloping Ghost. So there's kind of a common theme with a lot of my videos. A lot of how you discover games is go to a place like Galloping Ghost. They have everything. You may not even realize there's a game out there that you love like this one. That's kind of it for this video. This is definitely the most underrated game in my collection, and if you get a chance to experience this, it really doesn't work very well under emulation, but if you get a chance to experience it, go to Gallop and Ghost, or if there's an arcade near you that has it, definitely play it. It's well worth your time. Alright guys, that about wraps up this video. If you have any comments, leave them below. And that's it for now. We will see you on the next one! Thanks for watching!