Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh (1987)

I remember playing this in the arakades, It has a distinct slick look and feel. I just found out what game this was having forgotten (I'd played the original and always wondered about that arcade machine) Reason I never knew about it: Mostly JAPAN only releases! (In any case the NESrom is in english and even the sharp x68000 is as well!)

This is a really interesting game and while it's similar to the original arkanoid, it has some more interesting arcade elements... A similar release on NES is actually Thunder and Lightning While it looks like boring old pong this is a bit similiar to action puzzle games like bubble bobble, super buster bros, or tetris. These are challenging puzzles but what I think is neat about this game is that it almost feels like it's going to evolve into a vertical shoot em up (This game is made by Taito after all). Another similar (but watered down) is Nintendo's Alleyway for the gameboy. But this game is as far as i know the real deal and I've not quite seen anything like it.
OK, I was a bit dissapointed with the Nes release in hoping to relive the arcade nostalgia. I blame the port's fault. This would make for a good candidate for hardest game on NES. It's hard in all kinds of ways, and it doesnt play NEARLY as well as the arcade machine. First, unless you have that ROB device or paddle emulation you are stuck with the gamepad, and it's a bit odd playing this with the lack of a momentum controller like a paddle or trackball... I tried to figure out a way to emulate my mouse as a trackball but eventually gave up. Lack of a proper input device makes the controls a bit jerky, and adds to the difficulty. In addition, regardless of platform... This is a port of a awfully blood thirsty quarterstealer, so you are stuck with a SINGLE credit and the game gives you no quarter! Furthermore, either being through an emulator or on the NES, there is some sprite lag and frameskipped when extra enemies appear on screen or you collect the powerup that spawns multiball. This can result in a quick death. It is also very very hard to cheat in this game. I could not find any game genie codes, and save states do not help at all in this game really because it is so fast paced. (I dont think i've played a game where save states dont help quite a bit but it's true in Arkanoid II) It took me quite some time to figure out a solution to give me enough of an edge to make this game playable.. and winnable! And even then I was practically dancing in victory at the end of each round... a few i got stuck in for about 30 minutes, wondering if I'd ever knick that last block. If you like hard games give this a shot. If you like shmups and a challenge you'll appreciate the idea. Even though the Nes rom is hardly up to snuff I still found it worth playing. It would however be nice to see a contemporary remake of this or a spin off or spiritual successor. There are several directions a game dev could take the basic idea here and work into a full fledge scrolling shooter. But as far as i know I've not seen anything like this one.

I did manage to get it sorta working in an X68000 emulator (WinX68KHighSpeed) and with mouse support it indeed has the buttery smooth feel, unfortunately the emulator came with some nasty frameskipping making the ordeal considerably worse, thus unplayable. Still, it looks right!

I'll have to drop into a local arcade sometime and reccomend this cabinet to whoever is curator. a unique game at least imo... Would be nice to play it again on freeplay mode.