Play Arcade Classic No. 4 : Defender & Joust Online

I picked up Arcade Classic No. 4: Defender & Joust for the Game Boy back in 1995, a release from Williams Entertainment. It was a solid little cartridge for its time, bundling two very different arcade hits into one portable format. You didn't see a lot of these classic conversions on the handheld, so it felt like having a piece of the arcade in your pocket, even if the screen was small and the sound was tinny.

In Defender, you pilot a small ship across a horizontally scrolling landscape, shooting down waves of alien ships. Your main job is to protect the little humanoid figures wandering the ground from being abducted; if they get grabbed, you have to shoot the alien carrying them before it reaches the top of the screen. The controls are tight but demanding, requiring quick reflexes to manage your ship's speed, reverse direction, and deploy smart bombs. Joust is a complete change of pace; you control a knight riding a flying ostrich, flapping to gain height. The goal is to collide with enemy knights who are also on birds, but you must be slightly higher than your opponent during impact to dismount them. It creates this strange, bouncy rhythm of careful positioning and sudden, frantic clashes. Both games are brutally difficult, demanding precise timing and constant attention. Playing them feels like a genuine test of skill, a direct and unfiltered challenge from the arcade era.