The Neo Geo had so many great games that sadly have fallen away from public awareness. Some of these have seen a resurgence lately thanks to Arcade Archives, including the subject of this piece, Spinmaster. Spinmaster was a side-scrolling action game that merged platforming and shoot ’em up elements to create a unique experience. You started out with a Yo-Yo but could gain other weapons like fireballs, ice shards, bombs and ninja stars. It had beautiful cartoon-like visuals that have aged well and look great on a big screen TV today.
Spinmaster was surprisingly innovative for its time. There had been platformers with shooting before, like Mega Man, but not that many combined the Mario approach of jumping on the enemy, with run and gun elements. Those that did, usually had you jumping after running out of ammo, but Spinmaster gave you a choice of how to go about things. It even had a neat story, limited as it was, and multiple endings. There is so much here that would work in gaming today. Especially since the visual style would not need to be changed that much.
I cannot understand why this game has fallen out of sight as it is amazing. I feel this would be a great game to revive for modern systems. It would not be a major AAA game but rather a smaller digital game. Get a team like Yacht Club Games, WayForward or Inti Creates to work on it and it will be amazing as those developers know how to handle these style of games. With online play for co-op, the experience would be incredible.
I think that Spinmaster is a game that deserves more attention. it recently came to Arcade Archives, so you can try it out now on a system like the Nintendo Switch. Give it just a few minutes and you will see why it is amazing.
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