Evercade gets 16 Visco arcade games across two new cartridges

Blaze Entertainment is bringing 16 Visco Corporation arcade games to the Evercade ecosystem across two new physical cartridges launching on August 26. The release splits the Japanese developer's back catalog into two separate eight-game collections.

Yes, I pre-ordered this bundle.

Visco Corporation might not have the household name recognition of Capcom or SNK, but they were a constant presence in 1990s arcades. They developed extensively for SNK's Neo Geo MVS hardware. These two Evercade cartridges gather 16 of those arcade titles. The games pull from both their Neo Geo output and their earlier custom arcade boards.

Visco Arcade 1 (cartridge number 23 in the arcade line) leans heavily into the shoot 'em up genre. The standout here is Andro Dunos, a 1992 horizontal shooter that lets players swap between four different weapon types on the fly. The game actually received a modern sequel in 2022, but this cartridge provides the original arcade ROM.

The rest of the first cartridge includes the vertical shooters Ashura Blaster and Asuka & Asuka, alongside the sci-fi titles U.N. Defense Force: Earth Joker and Galmedes. It also has the original top-down racer Drift Out, the soccer title Goal! Goal! Goal!, and a maze action game called Maze of Flott.

Maze of Flott is a particularly obscure inclusion. It is an overhead maze game where you drive a car around open maps, occasionally driving inside buildings to find treasure. Goal! Goal! Goal! offers a straightforward arcade take on international soccer with 28 playable teams. It strips away simulation elements in favor of pure speed.

Visco Arcade 2 (cartridge number 24) shifts focus almost entirely to the developer's Neo Geo era. This cart includes the fighting game Breakers. That game received a dedicated console collection a few years ago, but its inclusion here adds a highly competent 2D fighter to the Evercade library. You also get the side-scrolling action platformer Ganryu and the single-screen platformer Bang Bang Busters.

Racing fans get both Drift Out '94 and Neo Drift Out on the second cartridge. This makes it entirely possible to spend a whole weekend just comparing top-down rally car physics.

Tomatoes and combat ping-pong

The second cartridge also holds some of Visco's weirder experiments. Battle Flip Shot and its sequel Bang Bead are essentially competitive combat Pong with fighting game mechanics. You pick a character, guard a back wall, and try to smash a ball past your opponent using special moves and dash attacks.

Then there is Captain Tomaday. This is a vertical shoot 'em up where you control a mutant tomato with giant fists. The plot involves fighting evil eggplants. It is exactly as strange as it sounds, but the sprite work holds up surprisingly well. Visco built it on the Neo Geo hardware late in the system's life, and the animation quality reflects that maturity.

The physical format

Both collections ship on physical cartridges with full-color printed manuals. They work across the entire current Evercade hardware lineup. This includes the EXP handhelds, the VS home consoles, and the upcoming Alpha bartop arcades.

The Evercade ecosystem relies entirely on physical media. There is no digital storefront for the console. You buy the cartridge, plug it in, and the games appear on the menu. Each release includes a plastic clamshell case and a printed manual that explains the controls for every included game.

Pre-orders are open now through the official Evercade site and standard retail partners. Between these two carts and the recent Toaplan collections, the system is rapidly becoming a highly specific museum for 1990s Japanese arcade B-sides.