Callback to Blizzard Classic "Arcade"

Blizzard Classic Arcade logo. Taken from Warcraft Wiki.

It's been a couple of days since this blog reached its first anniversary. Back then I started everything by talking about Blizzard's pre-Warcraft titles that suddenly disappeared from their "Download" page. As it later turned out, this is a result of some type of error that's yet to be fixed. For now, you need to either have a direct link to download DOS versions The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne or simply be a resident of the United States: works fine for them. Not to mention that Blizzard Arcade Collection was announced and released a few days after that, which I find hilarious after guessing that they would move those games to GOG.

That's when I decided that it would be great to kick off Hall's second year by talking about the earlier iteration of Blizzard's Classic Games initiative. I've done that before in "A Tale of Warcraft Remasters that Almost Happened", but I missed out on important part in that story of them bringing their older titles to modern platform at the time. Because Blizzard started to inappropriately use the term Arcade for their console titles from the 90s before aforementioned re-releases. Okay, I get the idea of calling them "arcade games", but I don't know why they didn't go for "retro" or something else instead.

Real Blast from the Past.

It all started on October 7, 2002. That's when, almost 20 years ago, Blizzard announced their new "Blizzard Classic Arcade" and it's first re-release of The Lost Vikings on Game Boy Advance for spring 2003. It ended up hitting the store shelves on March 25, 2003. Rock n' Roll Racing and Blackthorne followed suite at June 23 and September 19 of the same year. All three of them are ports of Super Nintendo version, as it often happened for Game Boy Advance, and these titles seem pretty solid for the iconic console.

This was made possible thanks to Blizzard's collaboration with Mass Media Games, the same studio that was responsible for StarCraft 64. They also ported some Namco Museum & Pac-Man Collection to Game Boy Advance, so this choice makes even more sense. I was happy to notice that Mass Media Games still exists with primary focus on ports. Although I've also noticed how some boxes for these releases don't really mention company's involvement, which is a pity. At least you can see Mass Media Games' logo everytime you boot up those games.

Blackthorne (GBA) Game Over Screenshot. Taken from MobyGames.

Besides screen resolution and color palette adjustments, Game Boy Advance versions of Blizzard's "Arcade" games seem to be pretty faithful to their Super Nintendo counterparts. The most notable change in all of them comes in a form of save system: there's no passwords this time around. This time, you just pick one of six save slots that the game will use to auto-safe your progress as you complete each level.

Sadly, we didn't get to see The Lost Vikings 2 and RPM Racing on Game Boy Advance. While the absence of the latter can be explained by its simplicity, there wasn't really a good reason to not bring back Eric the Swift with old and new buddies yet again. Although I have some theories, but more on that latter. Still, I don't think it would've been really that bad since they could've used original The Lost Vikings port as a foundation for the sequel's.

Effort & Potential.

That might seem like a surprise to you nowadays, but Blizzard did actually put some effort into those initial "Blizzard Classic Arcade" releases. Not only did they had a dedicated page for them on their website with a link to online store for ordering the games, but they've also provided some additional material for each title. Besides some screenshots and press release, The Lost Vikings & Blackthorne got a walkthrough for the first world/act while Rock n' Roll Racing some tips and tricks, like how to unlock Olaf in this version.

Thrall Statue for "Viking Pride" Contest.

It's fair to say that by the time of Blackthorne's release, Blizzard got distracted from this "Classic Arcade" idea as this platform didn't receive any additional content on their website. While both vikings and racers alike got to receive something truly special: a playable demo version of Game Boy Advance ports playable through Adobe Flash (for The Lost Vikings) and Shockwave (for Rock n' Roll Racing). It's worth mentioning that both these platforms were still named "Macromedia" at the time, but that's still awesome! I haven't played them though. Hopefully, they were archived by someone.

You know, The Lost Vikings were definitely their favorites here as that game got even more going for it. Besides all of the things mentioned above, Blizzard provided some Buddy Icons for now defunct AOL Instant Messenger that you actually get download from Internet Archive! Damn, that's nice... Anyway, company also held the "Show Us Your Viking Pride" contest where Blizzard fans sent them their dorky photos of themselves in Viking-themed costumes of prices like copies of The Lost Vikings port, new Game Boy Advance and ~1,8 meter (six foot tall) Thrall statue. The fact that it is silly doesn't make it bad.

Conclusion.

As it often happens here, this topic left me with some questions that I'll try to answer now. Why there was such a decline in bonus content and no port of The Lost Vikings 2? At first I thought that could be due to upcoming Nintendo DS, but there's more fitting answer. These re-releases happened in 2003 when World of Warcraft was still in development. Blizzard probably just shifted all their attention to upcoming MMORPG instead of spreading themselves too thin across multiple projects. It's not the first time I come with this kind of explanation, but it is the one that makes the most sense. Although they could've revitalized the brand for re-releasing all of those games on Xbox Live Arcade. Blizzard really missed such a great opportunity.

Well, I guess it's apparent that Blizzard could've done so much more with their recent Arcade Collection. Instead of just throwing it out there without much advertisement and further acknowledgement, they could've done something on top of it. Like, make a dedicate page for it on their website instead of directing everyone to the announcement article and/or recycle "Classic Arcade" material that was mentioned here.

To be fair, it's a surprised that they collaborated with Digital Eclipse for this compilation re-release in the first place. Not to mention adding both RPM Racing and The Lost Vikings 2 into BAC post-launch or leaving PC (and SNES-based demo) version of other titles available from their website. While it would've been nice to see an inclusion of GBA ports, sequel's Definitive Edition or even freeware re-release of PC version, I just that's not something we can expect for Blizzard Arcade Collection anytime soon... if ever.