Back story
More System 22 goodness comes our way and even some System 11, courtesy of Japanese publisher Hamster Corporation and their ACA Arcade Archives ports!
Previously, we've been treated to titles from Namco's 3D arcade catalogue with the likes of Ridge Racer, Ace Combat 22, Aqua Jet, Tokyo Wars and, my much awaited, Rave Racer! You can check them all out here.
If you want a rundown on the actual System 22 hardware, Namco's powerful 3D textured motherboard, then check out the back story section in my Ridge Racer/Ace Combat 22 review, found here.
This time around on the ACA Arcade Archives we're treated to a Formula One racer and one of the most famous fighting series of all time; Tekken. Both highlight the 3D graphics style of the mid-90s and showcase how well the hardware handled the demanding games.
However, Tekken ran on a lower cost hardware called System 11, more on that in the Tekken review below, which means these ports now span more than one type of Namco 3D arcade board!
Happy once again to see even more titles from Namco's arcade catalogue released, but like the earlier ports I'd like to see some options for higher resolution and better scanline quality. These ports are true to their originals in every way and so be aware they run in their original low resolution.
Let's take a closer look at them!
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Review
Played on: Xbox Series X
Released: 2026
Original release: 1994 (Arcade)
There have been tons of Formula One racers through the years, and Ace Driver is just one in many you've probably forgotten about. With some of the developers behind Namco's older racers like Pole Position, Ace Driver aimed to pull Formula One games in a new era of graphics.
Although Namco's own Winning Run was one of the earliest polygon F1 titles, with Sega's Virtua Racing following shortly after, Ace Driver moves a few years forward and leans on more powerful arcade hardware.
It was slated for a PlayStation port in 1995, just like how System 22 titles like Ridge Racer and Time Crisis, but it was ultimately dropped and thus it remained forever an arcade exclusive. Until this year, when it was added to the ACA Arcade Archives collection!
With an even slimmer selection than Ridge Racer's infamous 1,5 racetracks, Ace Driver offers one. Yes, one single racetrack. There are three difficulties to choose from on this racetrack; Beginner, Expert and Expert Pro. The difficulties increase speed and add realism in form of less grip, thus requiring better skills when it comes to braking and taking turns in a way that doesn’t spin out your car.
Difficulty is in general quite brutal; luckily, it's not the harsh time limits for checkpoints like Rave Racer, but rather the aggressive CPU cars. Especially, the first place car is obnoxiously fast, requiring perfect driving to even stand a chance on getting first place in even Beginner mode. Unfairly, CPU opponents knock into you and can send you flying sideways into a wall as they are almost oblivious to your car.
It's typical of its era, but it's such extreme amounts of catch up in favour of a linear CPU opponent which Ridge Racer has. I get that they're closer replicating a proper race here, while Ridge Racer always felt like trying to catch up with a line of cars spread across the racetrack, but man is it brutal even to hold onto a good placement in the race in Ace Driver. Winning seems almost impossible unless you spend hours perfecting your driving, not a fun task on a single racetrack.
I can imagine Ace Driver being a visually strong title back in 1994, even though both Sega and Namco were pushing out tons of similar titles as the 3D revolution continued. Compared to what state 3D was in for home use this will have looked genuinely impressive in an arcade. However, I do feel Ridge Racer just has a more appealing and impressive visual impact overall. I think it's down to the fact that Ridge Racer feels more original.
The single racetrack on offer has at least some variation; a stadium start, a yellow tinted tunnel, a big coastal bridge and a small city centre to pass through. One can wonder why they didn't just split these three themes into three separate racetracks?! Cool design, nonetheless.
There's some nice detail with the actual F1 car too; like a cockpit view, working side mirrors set on each side of the map on screen, some smoke and spark effects and animated wheel suspension. It helps build some visual realism for its day and offers more effects than Ridge Racer had.
When it comes to gameplay, there are issues when it comes to the sensitivity of the controller. As experienced in other releases from ACA Arcade Archives, the turning of the car which derives from an arcade cabinet with a steering wheel is too simplistically translated to controller inputs. While Ridge Racer was more suited for this, maybe explaining why it made such a success on console, Ace Driver has a noticeable issue as the default setup is too nervous and twitchy. The analogue stick overreacts when turning, while the d-pad is sluggish.
The solution, which helped me greatly, was to set up my Logitech steering wheel. This makes it much more playable and dare I say it; surprisingly realistic for an arcade racer of its day? Getting into the cockpit view and carefully feeling where your grip loosens and tightens again is so much better with a wheel and force feedback. It felt like playing a new game. I drove better and faster, although never good enough to beat first place other than on the beginner!
While the arcade machines could be connected in an 8-player setup, this port caps at four players. Offering splitscreen where each screen is a simultaneous arcade setup, allowing you to locally experience how massive competitive arcade setups in arcades worked back in the 90s. But with one single racetrack to play, how many times are going to play it with friends?
Overall, this one is for people like me seeking out to try missed titles from the height of 3D gaming in arcades. Unavailable elsewhere, it's a chance to play something that time has forgotten. It's a statement of the technical advancements Namco was making at the time, through all genres, even F1 titles.
However, with this kind of controller mapping and extremely nervous handling on the cars, unfair difficulty curve and a single racetrack this one ends up as completely average release outside of the historical view of it. Probably not worth it for most players outside of those having a nostalgia from playing it back in the day.
It's borderline brutal with a controller and I'd go as far as to say a steering wheel is a must-have. With that in mind, you'll be surprised to notice a fairly realistic F1 racer of its day. While it's no simulator, it depicts speed well, the intensity of mastering corners and the small margins of grip before spinning out.
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Review
Played on: Xbox Series X
Released: 2026
Original release: 1994 (Arcade)
Going up against Virtua Fighter, both in the arcades and on home consoles, Tekken is one of the most famous Namco titles of the 90's. It would spawn multiple sequels and continue to present day as a franchise.
Although Tekken was slated for a System 22 release, it was changed for a cheaper arcade board called System 11, which basically is a PlayStation 1 prototype with some extra video memory. This in turn, made porting it to the PS1 far easier, resulting in an almost identical release for home use, bar some extremely subtle differences.
In fact, Tekken was one of the few PS1 games that also ran at 60fps, compared to the heavier System 22 ports like Ridge Racer which opted for 30fps on console. In comparison, Sega had a much tougher job of porting Virtua Fighter 1 & 2 from the powerful arcade machines Model 1 & 2.
With Virtua Fighter 2 stealing the show when it released in the arcades, Namco aimed for a fully textured, 60 fps fighter to compete against it. Tekken was the answer and with a release only three months apart in the arcade and on the PS1, it would become a massive success. Tekken in the arcades offered a cheaper hardware solution through the System 11 compared to Sega's Model 2, thus it aimed at selling itself into smaller arcade locations.
While Virtua Fighter 2 became a massive success in the arcades, and on the Saturn a year later, Tekken smartly swooped in on the launch of the PS1 and offered something Sega couldn't match for the first year. With a rather average port of the first Virtua Fighter, which already looked dated as it doesn't feature textures, Tekken impressively became the first fully textured 3D fighter for home consoles.
It's another reminder of how partnering up with Namco, Sony managed to outperform Sega on the home consoles with both Ridge Racer and Tekken. While in the arcades it was vice versa with Sega dominating with Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter 1 & 2.
I have a bit of personal experience with Tekken back in the 90's, I borrowed back in the day from a friend and played it quite extensively on the PS1. Although I always found it rough around the edges and a little slow, especially as I played it after Tekken 2 was out, it was at least playable and addictive.
To be fair, the PS1 version is the preferred one as it contains difficulty options available to the player and individual CGI endings for each character. Combined with an arcade stick in your home, you had probably the most faithful arcade port of a 3D title at the time of release.
While I can alter the difficulty in this ACA Arcade Archives port, these options were never available for player on the actual arcade machines. The arcade version benefits from a couple of small nuances with its larger video memory; the character selection screen shows a CGI animation of their face when choosing a character and some of the backgrounds on the stages have some extra animations. Barely any difference to be honest, but the loading is a quicker on the arcade version as it isn't relying on an optical disc read to get data.
Music is the most noticeable difference; this arcade version has a punchier and energetic electronic vibe with shorter music loops, while the PS1 version has arranged versions of the same songs leaning into a melodic vibe with longer tracks as it benefitted from being on a CD. I know that most people prefer the PS1 soundtrack, personally I'm more torn. Perhaps Tekken's original intended title, Rave War, was intended in combination with the harsher and more energetic soundtrack of the arcade version?!
If you're used to Tekken 3, or any iteration from thereon, you'll be surprised by the weirdly high, moon gravity like, jumps Tekken 1 & 2 have. It's to the point of being useless and doing aerial attack requires a lot of experience as they leave you vulnerable. It's a deliberate design as early 3D fighters hadn't settled in to features, we take for granted nowadays. Same goes for sidestepping, which incidentally Toshinden was the first to introduce, is absent and a feature not added to the franchise until Tekken 3.
In general, the speed of the first Tekken is noticeably slow, something that was tuned in Tekken 2 to become more responsive and faster. With this low speed and thus delayed inputs it's not exactly a desirable fighter to return to. Even the first Virtua Fighter feels quicker.
That said, you get used to it, allowing yourself more time to plan ahead and move accordingly. There's a pacing and timing here to be learnt in order to win. With the lack of speed though, the flow of the fight can look a little awkward until you learn how to line up multiple attacks in longer combos.
When it comes to visuals the first Tekken has dated heavily both in detail and awkwardly proportioned characters. The way the characters are designed they clearly haven't found their recognisable styles from the franchise yet, but we have a suitable selection of fan favourites here. Tekken at least sports textures to make the characters stand out more compared to the texture-less first Virtua Fighter, but I can see how people at the time still felt the 2D fighters looked better.
Interestingly, the 3D in character models in Tekken 1 look more rounded than the ones in Tekken 2. However, Tekken 2 had more polygons and is deliberately designed to look closer to Virtua Fighter 2. That said, the Tekken 2 models have more detailed animation, faces and proper proportions as the Tekken 1 models do have some odd body shapes.
I quite like the minimal approach of a pre-rendered 2D backdrop, combined with a completely flat, rotating floor which correlates visually to the setting of the background. It's a smart way of saving resources using 2D backgrounds and somehow Tekken smartly places them far away from where you're fighting, making it less obvious that the 3D ground is not connected but simply rotates around it.
Stage settings include ancient Greek monuments, a cityscape, a canyon, traditional Japanese temples, a snowy ice stage and even a baseball stadium to name a few. A nice variety although I feel a lot of them are quite bland to look at.
As always with these Aka Arcade Archives releases, there's not much in terms of tuning the visuals. Resulting in a raw, but locked 60 fps, 3D running at its original low resolution. It looks rough on a big modern TV and, yes, I get that it's true to its arcade release but perhaps some resolution toggles would've been nice? Some more advanced and better scanlines are needed. It's one of those games where you kind of had to be there back in the day to fully appreciate it visually.
There's no denying the impact Tekken had, while it remained in the shadow of Virtua Fighter 2 in the arcades, it shined as a strong home release. Serving well. as a launch and showcase title for the PS1. It cemented the franchise as a major contender in the fighting genre and laid the foundation for Tekken 2 to excel. Before the VF2 port arrived on Saturn, Tekken built a popular reputation for the home market and deservedly so.
Even more admirable is the dedication to keep Tekken running at 60 fps on the first PlayStation; having parity between the System 11 releases, later System 12 for Tekken 3, and their home ports are extremely impressive work indeed. Even though, we know that System 11 basically was a arcade board based on the specs of a PS1 prototype. A smart collaboration between Sony and Namco!
For modern times, the first Tekken looks dated and moves slow, but it does at least feel controllable and precise. This is a fighter from the early days of the 3D genre that still holds up fine as an enjoyable time-passer for short play sessions, it's legacy and importance to the first PlayStation's success is not to be forgotten.
