By Todd Russell
There are a bunch of shmups out there and kudos to readers that recognize arcade game Nebulasray from 1994 as one of them. Bonus trivia points for the rare hardcore shmup player that can explain what makes this title worthy of being double the more common price of $7.99 for Arcade Archives titles.
“It was developed for the Namco NB-1 System — a machine incapable of displaying full 3D graphics — and notably ended up taking advantage of pre-rendered 3D sprites to give the player the illusion of depth, similar to titles like Donkey Kong Country and Seta’s Twin Eagle II: The Rescue Mission.” – Namco’s Unported Arcade Classic ‘NebulasRay’ Gets Its Console Debut And A Steep Price Point | Time Extension
The article linked above never really offers any kind of explanation for the price increase, nor does Hampster. Unless this author just missed the reasoning, it seems it’s just another case of overcharging for games (see: OPINION: Tax time is the worst time to raise prices and, yep, Microsoft isn’t reading the room).
You can watch some Nebulasray gameplay in Hampster’s teaser vid:
After watching this — and didn’t pay it in the archives — I’m not seeing anything that blows me away and says, “this game must be twice the price of other Arcade Archives games!” Some YouTube commenters are similarly puzzled, with one offering that it might be a licensing thing.
Maybe you, friendly reader, will see something we’re missing here? In time, perhaps, this will go on sale. The game does look fun to play. Will you be checking out Nebulasray?