Energize Your Gameplay With the ‘Space Ace’ x RepliCade From New Wave Toys

Unveiled just 4 months after the 1983 release of Dragon’s Lair into arcades, Space Ace was the second game from the Bluth Group and Cinematronics. Like its predecessor, Space Ace featured film-quality animation that was played back from a LaserDisc during gameplay.

Also like its predecessor, the game is hard as hell. You have to make immaculately-timed button presses at key moments of the animations, otherwise, you end up dying a horrible, yet lovingly-animated, cartoon-style death.

While Space Ace isn’t quite as well known as Dragon’s Lair, it was still a commercial success in the arcades, and it was later ported to various home systems.

When Space Ace was originally released to distributors, it came in two different versions: a dedicated cabinet and a conversion kit where the game was housed in a Dragon’s Lair-style cabinet. New Wave Toys replicated both versions in 1/6-scale form and sent me their dedicated cabinet for review.

The Space Ace x RepliCade

Like the previous Dragon’s Lair x RepliCade, the Space Ace x RepliCade cabinet was initially offered as a pre-order. New Wave Toys has just opened up orders for the remaining stock. As I mentioned, there are two different versions of the cabinet, a dedicated version and a conversion kit. Both are priced identically at $169.99, and both are available to order until supplies sell out at the New Wave Toys website. Other than the difference in cabinet design and product box, the game and accessories are identical.

The Space Ace x RepliCade shipping box. Image by Paul Benson.
Like all of their 1/6-scale arcade replicas, the Space Ace machine arrives with plenty of protection for its journey to your door. There’s a heavy-duty corrugated cardboard shipping box, inside of which you’ll find another box.

The box within the box. Image by Paul Benson.
And inside that box, you’ll find, Russian doll-like, yet another box.

The box, within the box, within that other box. Image by Paul Benson.
That’s the last box, however. This final one is the one you’d see on a shelf if New Wave Toys sold their products in retail stores.

Opening that final box, you’ll find your cabinet and accessories nestled securely in foam. Here’s what you’ll get with your Space Ace x RepliCade:

— Prop replica mini LDV1000 Mini LaserDisc Player

— Prop replica mini Space Ace LaserDisc & Sleeve

— Micro USB Charge Cable

— Replica Operator’s Manual

— Space Ace Mini Poster

— 4x Mini Tokens

— 4x Color replacement knobs

What you’ll find after emptying out the box. Image by Paul Benson.
You may have read the contents list and looked at the picture, and then wondered about the missing LaserDisc player. Well, much as it would have been in an arcade, the player is found in a compartment in the back of the cabinet.

Discovering the LaserDisc player. Image by Paul Benson.
You can remove the LaserDisc from its sleeve, lift the lid on the LaserDisc player, and place it inside. And before you ask, no, it doesn’t actually work! But it looks just like its full-sized counterpart.

There are also the requisite 1/6-scale arcade tokens that come with every RepliCade, 4 different-colored knobs to change the look of your joystick, and a canvas paper mini-poster.

The lovely mini poster, along with its envelope. Image by Paul Benson.
Unlike the recently-released Missile Command x RepliCade, New Wave Toys made no attempt to create an illusion that there’s an old-style CRT monitor in the Space Ace cabinet.

The 4:3 aspect, 4.2" screen, and digital scoreboard. Image by Paul Benson.
Like most of the x RepliCade cabinets, there’s a coin door that opens to reveal a small storage area. There’s just enough room inside to keep the included USB charging cable.

A closer look at the controls and coin door. Image by Paul Benson.
At the back of the cabinet are several practical controls and inputs. Here, you can power the Space Ace x RepliCade on and off and control the volume. You can even run an HDMI cord from the cabinet to your television and play Space Ace on a big screen, outputting the sound either through the TV or through the speakers built into the back of the cabinet. You can even plug in a couple of USB game controllers, rather than use the fully-functional but tiny PlayScale joystick and buttons on the cabinet.

Power, sound, charging, and other features are found at the back of the cabinet. Image by Paul Benson.
It’s definitely nice to have the option of outputting the video to an HDTV. The animation from Don Bluth on both Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair is gorgeous and well-deserving of being viewed on a larger screen.

Playing the Space Ace x RepliCade

As I said earlier, this is one tough game to play. But that just means it plays identically to how the original played in the arcades, albeit on a smaller screen. Thankfully, the joystick and buttons are responsive, so when you mess up and die (a frequent occurrence), it will be your fault, not the x RepliCade cabinet’s.

Spoiler alert: you probably won’t see this screen unless you have immaculate timing. Image by Paul Benson.
Thankfully, there are ways to get through the game with a minimum of hair-pulling. For one, there are three difficulty levels to choose from. And more importantly, you can go into the game’s menu and select unlimited lives. This will allow you to actually make your way to the end if you have meager skills like myself. While there will still be moments that you have to repeat several times until you get the timing just right, dying will often advance you to the next scene of the game.

Of course, that’s at least on the “cadet” difficulty level. I haven’t been brave enough to try either of the two higher difficulties yet!

Space Ace for Your Shelf

When he’s not guarding the galaxy, Peter Quill is reliving the arcades of his youth. Image by Paul Benson.
What’s to say? New Wave Toys has done another stellar job in recreating a classic arcade cabinet, but in a size that’s small enough for pretty much anyone to play and display, no matter how much room you have. And even better, all of their cabinets are 1/6-scale, so they match up with popular collectible figures from companies like Hot Toys and Sideshow Collectibles.

A comparison with the Space Ace x Replicade and an Arcade1Up cabinet. Image by Paul Benson.
If you have any Arcade1Up or even full-sized arcade machines in your home, the Space Ace x RepliCade will look fantastic on a shelf above or next to those larger cabinets. You’ll definitely run out of room for those bigger arcade games before you will with any of the New Wave Toys RepliCades.

The Space Ace x RepliCade would be a great start to a small-scale arcade collection. It plays great, looks great, and has the option to output to your television and add full-sized controllers. And if you already have some of New Wave Toys’ previous RepliCade releases, then you’re definitely going to want to grab this one as well. The hard part will be deciding which of the two versions of the cabinet to pick up!

But be sure to head to the website right away… the remaining stock will likely sell very fast, as the release is strictly limited. New Wave Toys does still have their Missile Command x RepliCade available, and they’ll have cabinets for Ghosts ‘n Goblins and its sequel Ghouls ‘n Ghosts coming out later this year, as well as a scaled replica of a Coke vending machine, and a 1/6-scale Zoltar Speaks Fortune Telling Machine.

For more information on the Space Ace x RepliCade, head to the New Wave Toys website.

New Wave Toys sent a unit for evaluation but had no input into this review.

Hooked on a Space Ace feeling. Image by Paul Benson.