Juno First is this week’s Arcade Archives release from Hamster Corporation, and as an old-school arcade shoot ‘em up, it’s quite a change of pace from last week’s release, which was the action puzzler Mystery Tower, on which we previously reported.


But “d’you know” when Juno First was “first” released? The answer to that is that Juno First hit arcades back in 1983, when it was released by Konami.

Hamster Corporation describe Juno First as follows: “Operate your own aircraft to defeat countless approaching enemy UFOs and conquer the WAVE.
In an emergency, you can use warp to evade enemy attacks,” which may sound like standard shoot ‘em up fare to us jaded old gamers, but we suspect it would’ve seemed thrillingly new way back in 1983!

There aren’t too many Arcade Archives titles that are over 40 years old, so this week, Arcade Archives really are offering us the chance to experience the earlier days of arcade gaming!

Prior to this Arcade Archives release, Juno First has also been ported to a number of home formats, starting with the Commodore 64, not long after it hit arcades, in 1983, with the most recent home release of Juno First prior to this Arcade Archives version being  on Xbox One’s Game Room service in 2010.

The Arcade Archives release of Juno First is out now on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.