Xevious 3D/G and Karate Champ arrive on Switch 2

Hamster has dated two more retro reissues for 24 September, and between them they cover both halves of its catalogue. Xevious 3D/G arrives as an Arcade Archives 2 title on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Karate Champ joins the Console Archives line on Switch 2 and PlayStation 5.

What is actually being reissued

Xevious 3D/G is the 1996 arcade shooter, released by Namco Limited while the company still carried that name, and it rebuilds the 1982 original in polygons. Hamster's release note promises everything rendered in 3D with varied camera angles, new weapons and new enemy characters, and seven areas to clear, including the desert with the geoglyph and the space fortress. It carries an ESRB rating of Everyone and supports two players.

Karate Champ comes from the other end of the shelf. Data East published the original in 1986 for an eight-bit home console, and the conversion keeps the simple control combinations that made the big moves worth chasing. Hamster lists it at $7.99, again with two-player support.

Two lines, two eras

The split is the interesting part. Arcade Archives 2 is where Hamster files games that lived in cabinets, which is why Xevious 3D/G reaches Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft machines on the same day. Console Archives covers the home conversions, so Karate Champ stays on Switch 2 and PlayStation 5. Hamster adds one caveat worth reading before you spend anything: not every title is listed in every region's digital store.

Separately, the company opened a Taito sale on 23 September, taking 30 per cent off ten Arcade Archives titles, among them Darius and Darius II, on Switch and PlayStation 4 until 7 October at 23:59 JST.

Our opinion

Xevious 3D/G is a reissue of a remake. Namco took its own 1982 shooter and rebuilt it in three dimensions in 1996, when that was still a novelty rather than a default, so what lands on 24 September is a clean copy of the second attempt rather than the cabinet game. That is exactly the layer of arcade history nobody kept. The 1982 Xevious is famous; the 1996 rethink is a curiosity even among people who own an arcade stick, and Hamster is one of very few publishers still willing to ship it. The platform split tells you something too, since Data East's back catalogue arrives through G-MODE and stops at two machines while the Namco licence travels to three. If you have room for one, take the one you have never played. A polygon rebuild of a shooting game you already know is a better use of the money than a third copy of something you can recite.