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When I first got my hands on a copy of Capcom Generation Volume 3 for my Saturn, I can't say I was very impressed by it. Why on earth would they put the games that they did on this disc instead of games I would much rather have had, like Forgotten Worlds or Strider? After playing the games for quite some time, though, I grew to like all of them. They're definitely classic early-'80s arcade titles. Son Son is quite fun, as is Pirate Ship Higemaru. However, it was the two shooters on the disc, Vulgus and Exed Exes, that I played the most. They're both very reminiscent of other overhead shooters from that era, namely Namco's Xevious and Capcom's own 1942.

Something kept nagging at the back of my head, though... I could swear I'd seen Exed Exes before, althought I was positive I'd never heard of it. It was a fun game, and I'd have to say it's my favorite on the disc. Still, even though I was positive I'd never heard of it, something kept telling me that I had seen it somewhere before... I just didn't know where, or when.

One day while browsing through the Video Game Museum, I found the answer. I clicked on a link to show pictures of the arcade game Savage Bees which I had seen once in an arcade many, many years earlier (and for the life of me, I couldn't remember what the game was like) - and what should come up on the screen but Exed Exes! It all clicked into place from there.

As it turns out, a company called Memetron licensed Exed Exes from Capcom in 1985 and rereleased it as Savage Bees outside of Japan. Whether or not it was Memetron that released it in the U.S., that I'm still not sure of, although it seems likely that they did. Still, another puzzling question from the sometimes cloudy memories of my childhood had been cleared up.

Exed Exes and Savage Bees are both available for download online, although you may have to do some searching to find them. If you've never played either of them, why not take a shot at one or the other? Since they are the same game, it doesn't matter which one, of course. ^_^

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