this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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Joust is the perfect arcade game. Discuss.

p.s. can anyone point me to a Joust cabinet in the greater Delaware area?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Lots of friendships ended because of Joust. Worth it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Not remotely the same genre, but my vote for perfect arcade game is Time Crisis 2.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I played Glypha, a Joust clone on the Mac.

Apparently now one can emulate a classic Mac in one's Web browser and run it directly.

https://archive.org/details/GlyphaMacintosh

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I basically killed my wrist on Joust for the 2600. I spent a lot of quarters in the arcades as well. For its era, at least, Joust was top form. And very portable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Joust was an extreme form of frustration and victory for me as a kid

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Bastard of a game. Every loss is horrible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Still love Joust and play it with my kids on RetroPie

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

@enbee

It is a brilliant, well crafted, and unique game that is incredibly hard and makes me give up very quickly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I love Joust, it's great.

BUT it's not Robotron. THAT'S the perfect arcade game.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah I love Joust. I wasn’t around when it was popular, so I have never played it on actual hardware, but I have played it on emulator. I first heard about it from Ready Player One and tried it online (tip: you can play it on archive.org) but I haven’t played in a couple of years, so I think I’m going to try it again some time

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know people are split on this, but from my perspective, Joust is and will always be better than Balloon Fight.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Notably, the NES port of Joust was programmed by future Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. The game was developed in two months, for release in September 1983, but was ultimately shelved. With his Joust seemingly not happening, Iwata developed Balloon Fight instead, which saw release in 1985. Eventually, his Joust was also released, in 1987. For what it's worth, I love them both.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Man, loved Balloon Fight. I remember many Saturday nights where me and my sis were allowed on the Micro Genius (bootleg NES with lots of games) for an hour.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's so cool. It's crazy how many bootleg NES/Famicoms there were targeting all the markets Nintendo couldn't or wouldn't sell them. Did you know they were NES games as a kid, or were they just Micro Genius games to you?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wouldn't call Joust the perfect arcade game, because there are many categories of arcade games that Joust does not fit into. However, Joust is an exceptional game and one that certainly is one of my favorites.

If you want an arcade cabinet but dont have the space, I recommend cannibalizing a 3/4 cabinet from Arcade1Up. You can get a decal set for any cabinet or custom design and put any internals and controls you need. Its a bit smaller than the full size cabinet, but perfect for not taking up a large footprint in the home.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I been eyeing the A1Up Joust for a while. May settle for that, but I really want the real one. There's one in an arcade in Binghamton I visited recently and someone put 566000 points on for the high score, idk how that's even possible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Well once you unplug it the scores will most likely go away. Lots of early cabinets didn't permanently store scores, because they didn't need to for the cost of the components of that functionality.

I understand wanting a real one, but honestly its cheaper and less square footage if you go the A1U way. I personally modified a TMNT 4player cabinet into a Gauntlet Legends replica cabinet for like, $400 less than what a real one costs. Also its way smaller than a real one, but not so small that it is comical. It moves it from being the size of a tall bookshelf to the size of a tall locker. The only downside is because it is a 4 player version, the control deck sticks out on both sides.

I also considered building a Tapper replica cabinet as well.