Joust

Lots of friendships ended because of Joust. Worth it.

I love Joust, it's great.

BUT it's not Robotron. THAT'S the perfect arcade game.

Bastard of a game. Every loss is horrible.

Agreed. It's one of the only competitive arcade games from the 1980s that remains very playable still today. Nearly perfect.

I wouldn't call Joust the perfect arcade game, because there are many categories of arcade games that Joust does not fit into. However, Joust is an exceptional game and one that certainly is one of my favorites.

If you want an arcade cabinet but dont have the space, I recommend cannibalizing a 3/4 cabinet from Arcade1Up. You can get a decal set for any cabinet or custom design and put any internals and controls you need. Its a bit smaller than the full size cabinet, but perfect for not taking up a large footprint in the home.

I been eyeing the A1Up Joust for a while. May settle for that, but I really want the real one. There's one in an arcade in Binghamton I visited recently and someone put 566000 points on for the high score, idk how that's even possible.
- Well once you unplug it the scores will most likely go away. Lots of early cabinets didn't permanently store scores, because they didn't need to for the cost of the components of that functionality.
  
  I understand wanting a real one, but honestly its cheaper and less square footage if you go the A1U way. I personally modified a TMNT 4player cabinet into a Gauntlet Legends replica cabinet for like, $400 less than what a real one costs. Also its way smaller than a real one, but not so small that it is comical. It moves it from being the size of a tall bookshelf to the size of a tall locker. The only downside is because it is a 4 player version, the control deck sticks out on both sides.
  
  I also considered building a Tapper replica cabinet as well.

@enbee

It is a brilliant, well crafted, and unique game that is incredibly hard and makes me give up very quickly.

Not remotely the same genre, but my vote for perfect arcade game is Time Crisis 2.

I basically killed my wrist on Joust for the 2600. I spent a lot of quarters in the arcades as well. For its era, at least, Joust was top form. And very portable due to its simplicity.

First video game to have a “Flap” button?

Itds basically 2x Flappy Bird in an open arena

Still love Joust and play it with my kids on RetroPie

I played Glypha, a Joust clone on the Mac.

Apparently now one can emulate a classic Mac in one's Web browser and run it directly.

https://archive.org/details/GlyphaMacintosh

Joust was an extreme form of frustration and victory for me as a kid

I know people are split on this, but from my perspective, Joust is and will always be better than Balloon Fight.

Notably, the NES port of Joust was programmed by future Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. The game was developed in two months, for release in September 1983, but was ultimately shelved. With his Joust seemingly not happening, Iwata developed Balloon Fight instead, which saw release in 1985. Eventually, his Joust was also released, in 1987. For what it's worth, I love them both.

Game Developer: A former mentor recalls the early career of Satoru Iwata
- Man, loved Balloon Fight. I remember many Saturday nights where me and my sis were allowed on the Micro Genius (bootleg NES with lots of games) for an hour.

I haven't played Joust to have an opinion, but Warlords is an absolute banger of an Atari game.

I used to play joust on my Atari as a kid. It was my favourite. I actually bought a retro gameboy raspberry pi type thing off of amazon with hundreds of games, just to play joust.

Hard as hell, super fun, and makes you work for it. Pretty great game all around!

You misspelled "Sinistar" there. It's an understandable error, though. Joust was pretty righteous as well.

Sinistar terrified me growing up, that screeching roar when he comes after you absolutely scared the shit out of preteen me 😂

However, two phrases will always live rent-free in my head:

"Beware, I live! I hunger!"
- You and me both. You and me both. That game TERRIFIED me. I first encountered it in its sit-in enclosure version with the speakers coming at you from every angle and very nearly had a nervous breakdown when "BEWARE! I LIVE!" hit me!
That being said: this is my power pack (10AH battery to keep my phone charged, etc.):

Yeah I love Joust. I wasn’t around when it was popular, so I have never played it on actual hardware, but I have played it on emulator. I first heard about it from Ready Player One and tried it online (tip: you can play it on archive.org) but I haven’t played in a couple of years, so I think I’m going to try it again some time