‘TOAPLAN Arcade Collection Vol 1 & 2’ Switch Review: Shmup Excellence

Classics like ‘Zero Wing’ have lost none of their charm.

Clear River Games

Back in the 80s and 90s, TOAPLAN was one of the top arcade shmup developers in Japan, and these two game collections certainly do justice to that.

These two collections are split across 8 games apiece, with Volume 1 containing Flying Shark, Fire Shark, Tiger Heli, Twin Cobra, Out Zone, Fix Eight, Batsugun, and Dogyuun, and Volume 2 including Zero Wing, Hell Fire, Slap Fight, Grind Stormer, Truxton, Truxton 2, Vimana, and Twin Hawk.

In addition to local co-op play on some of these games, you also get the different arcade variants released around the world, as well as the Japanese originals. The follow-on console ports of these arcade games are sadly not included, as this is meant as a purely arcade game collection.

That aside, TOAPLAN’s history was a bumpy one, but it birthed multiple game studios after its closure, most notably that of Cave.

This is noteworthy, as much of the “bullet hell” debauchery Cave became known for is seen in many of these earlier games, which makes this collection fascinating in a historical sense.

The other two major additions here are Hellfire and Zero Wing. While the latter is known for its legendarily terrible English localization, both of these were highly innovative horizontal scrolling shmups for their time.

Hellfire afforded various ways for your ship to fire its ordinance, something that later games like Radiant Silvergun utilized. However, for its time, it was quite a shocking evolution.

Zero Wing also had some fascinating elements, namely the tractor beam you could use to grapple enemies to the front of your ship and use as a shield. Again, this was later adopted as a major feature in games like G-Darius.

The other great thing about these classic TOAPLAN shmups was that they just looked gorgeous and paved the way for some of the prettiest 2D pixel art games ever created.

So this collection has a lot to offer to people, not only those new to shmups, but also veterans who miss playing some of the classics of the genre.

As for various quality of life features, you have a rewind option and save states as well as a lot of other customization options, and all the games run very smoothly on the Switch.

Overall, TOAPLAN Arcade Collection Vol 1 & 2 covers the heyday of TOAPLAN’s arcade shmup output. It’s also a comprehensive collection, including the international variants for each of these classic arcade games. Although I suspect Zero Wing’s appalling localization will still be a draw for some of the old school fans.

TOAPLAN Arcade Collection Vol 1 & Vol 2

Platform: Switch (Reviewed), PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S

Developer: Bitwave Games

Publisher: Clear River Games

Released: 14th August 2025

Price: $34.99 (Each)

Score: 8/10

Disclosure: Clear River Games sent me copies of these games for the purposes of this review.

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