In honor of Father’s Day, in the month of June on my blogs I’m going to be talking about some of my dad’s favorite video games! One of the games he’s been known to play and enjoy is the Breakout clone Arkanoid. So, because of that AND the fact that Arkanoid Live was recently released on Xbox 360, here’s a blog featuring everything I know about the Arkanoid series!

Arkanoid
The first was an arcade game released in the mid-80’s. It’s a Breakout clone through and through, meaning you move a paddle on the bottom of the screen to bounce a ball up to break all the blocks. Normally I prefer to play the original classic game instead of a remake or clone of it, but in this case, I much prefer Arkanoid to Breakout. The added features make Arkanoid much more interesting, playable, and just plain more fun!

Arkanoid featured updated graphics, ‘enemies’ (more like moving debris) that would float around and mess with your ball’s trajectory if you bounced into them, but most importantly: power-ups. By hitting blocks, sometimes a random pill would fall, and if you caught it, you’d get a power-up. Some would make your ball split into three, slow down ball speed, make your paddle longer, give you an extra life, or even warp to the next level. My favorite was the laser. It let you shoot from your paddle so you can blast blocks with it as well as the ball. Made levels a whole lot easier! Of course, you had to be careful to continue to bounce your ball while catching these power-ups. But that’s what really made Arkanoid superior to Breakout for me.

Due to the popularity of other story-based games like Mario and Zelda, it seemed like EVERY game back then had to have a backstory, even if they didn’t really need one. Arkanoid was no exception. When you plopped a quarter in, you learned your paddle was actually a spaceship named “Vaus” trapped in another dimension. Man, I feel sorry for the people in that spaceship, having to go back and forth all the time! To escape, you must guide them through the levels and defeat “Doh” (great name) which was a wire frame Easter Island head. Of course I was never that good to get all the way to the boss. At least the game intro music was catchy.

Anyway, Arkanoid was one of the arcade games at the Pizza Inn near my house, and my dad and I would play it there all the time when I was a kid. And when I got my NES, one of the first games I bought for it was Arkanoid because I knew that me and my dad would enjoy playing it like we did in the arcade. Plus I thought the paddle controller it came with was really cool (hey, I was a kid). I know Arkanoid was ported to many PCs as well.

Tournament Arkanoid
This is really less of a sequel and more of an expansion pack. It’s just like the first game but with new levels. I think one of the levels had the blocks arranged to look like the American flag. I haven’t seen it in too many places either. I’ve spotted it at a couple of arcade auctions, but the only place I saw it as a kid was at a hotel lobby where we were staying one time. My memory’s a bit fuzzy and I’m probably wrong, but I could’ve sworn it was also in one of those Vs. cabinets that had two arcade machines ‘stuck’ together and usually had a couple of Nintendo titles on them.

Arkanoid 2: Revenge of Doh
The TRUE sequel to Arkanoid still was pretty much like the first game, but with some new things here and there. Some of the blocks would move back and forth, new ‘debris’ enemies with different movements and behaviors, some new power-ups, branching pathways, and a couple of new bosses, I think. Yeah, new story, too, but not like that matters.

The first time I saw Arkanoid 2 in an arcade was at a Wet N Wild water park when I was a kid. Yup, arcades were so popular back then, they even had them in water slide amusement parks. Which seems like a strange place to put an arcade, what with all the wet people and all. I nearly freaked when I first saw it there since I loved playing the first one so much. After that, I really wanted a NES version of Arkanoid 2 to come out, but it never did. Not in the US at least, anyway. I’m sure I saw Arkanoid 2 in other arcades after that, but I don’t remember them as well.

Arkanoid: Doh it Again
The next game in the series didn’t appear until nearly ten years later, and it wasn’t in arcades, but on the 16-bit Super Nintendo. It came out in the US at the tail end of the SNES lifecycle. My guess is that it had already been out in Japan for a while, but Nintendo finally brought it out to the US when the SNES was in its final days so they could cash in on it before it was swallowed up by N64 sales. Even though Taito made it, it was published in the US by Nintendo, and they also brought over a SNES version of Space Invaders at the same time (Taito made Space Invaders as well, in case you didn’t know already).

Again, improvements were only minimal. The graphics were slightly updated. Some levels used a transparency effect so you can see what was going on in the background ‘behind’ the stage. It was usually a spaceship war and was kind of distracting, really. New power-ups, new levels, new bosses, new debris enemies, all the standard stuff. Again, they still called the paddle a “Vaus” spaceship.

I was a poor college student when Arkanoid: Doh it Again came out, so I didn’t get it right away. Luckily, later on I found it for 20 bucks so I snagged it then. My favorite part of Doh it Again was the two player modes. You could play competitively with separate screens or co-op and share the same screen. Player One’s paddle was slightly higher than Player Two’s paddle at first, so it was kind of a bummer for the second player. But I think they alternated it so Player Two was on top in the next stage. At the time, little brother Jeff was very young, but still a surprisingly good Breakout player, and we enjoyed playing two player modes together on Doh it Again. Plus it made completing the stages easier!

Arkanoid R
I can’t say much about R because I don’t know hardly anything about it. I know it was on the Japanese PlayStation in the mid to late 90’s. And aside from having some mid-90’s looking generic abstract background graphics, I couldn’t tell you much more than that. I’m assuming it had new powers, bosses, and levels as well. I was pretty mad that it never came to the US PlayStation, I really wanted to play it!

Apparently, Arkanoid R had an arcade release, because I DID play it in an arcade once. And fairly recently, too! Last year when I went to PAX in Seattle, the GameWorks there had it. I only put one quarter in to try it, and I didn’t last very long (I love playing Arkanoid games, but I’m not particularly GOOD at them). Thusly, I don’t really have much to add to the description of my playing experience with R because I didn’t get very far in the game! But I am glad I finally got to play it at least, and when I go back to PAX this year (hopefully), I may try to play it again if it’s still there. I’ll try to visit the GameWorks there again anyway because also last time I was there, they had a Taiko no Tatsujin machine!

Arkanoid DS

I LOVE THIS GAME!!! It came out about, oh, around this time last year. It kind of got ignored as it was released at the same time as Space Invaders Extreme on the DS. And reviewers gave more attention to Space Invaders rather than this. A lot of the reviewers pooh-poohed Arkanoid DS and panned the gap in the two screens, narrow playfield, and lack of any significant changes to gameplay. But I didn’t mind those flaws. I even liked it BETTER than Space Invaders Extreme (but don’t get me wrong, Extreme is still awesome). I didn’t even mind that my Japanese import DS paddle controller didn’t work on the US version of Arkanoid. In Japan, they released a paddle controller that plugged into the GBA slot. Thinking that it would work on the US version, I imported it (it was hard to find, so I had to get the pink one). Turns out it doesn’t work on it, but the touch screen controls were so good that I didn’t mind after all. Plus, the paddle controller still works on the US version of Extreme, and it MIGHT work on the upcoming Space Puzzle Bobble when it comes to the US. Maybe.

My favorite part of Arkanoid DS is that, more than any other game in the series, the DS version just OOZES with style! You can customize how the playfield looks in every level, if you wish. You can change the music in every stage, change the background graphics, blocks, borders, sound effects, and more! Many of the background graphics are from other Taito games, such as Darius, Bubble Bobble, Cleopatra Fortune, and Legend of Kage 2. You can change the blocks to look like bubbles, gems, or even Space Invader aliens! And one of the paddle designs is the winged one from Puchi Carat, another Taito Breakout clone! The storyline is different here, as you are an alien trying to save your friends, who look like Katamari cousins. But the story is so far removed from the gameplay that it doesn’t matter.

The best part of Arkanoid DS is the music. It’s an eclectic mix of techno, fusion jazz, and even heavy metal! I liked the soundtrack so much that I imported the CD (plus it was cheap). Below is a link to one of the tracks you can listen to (the other songs are better than this generic techno, but it’s still pretty good for a ball and paddle game!)

Follow the YouTube link to hear some Arkanoid DS music.

Anyway, Arkanoid DS is only 20 bucks, so if you see it somewhere, GET IT!

Arkanoid Live
This recently came out on Xbox Live. I haven’t downloaded it yet, but I will eventually, as I am a pretty big Arkanoid fan (obviously). I did try the demo, and while it didn’t feel like a new game, they seemed to take elements from past Arkanoid titles and mash them all up here. You have the generic abstract backgrounds from R, the two player support from the SNES game, the option to play with a breakable barrier from the DS, and levels from all the titles in the series. It doesn’t look like it plays as good as the Live version of Space Invaders Extreme, though. And the generic techno tunes are nowhere near as good as the DS songs. When I eventually download the full game, I’m hoping I can play online with people, or at least with my little brothers. It’s hard to get them to play classic games with me anymore, unfortunately.

Arkanoid Plus
This is an upcoming WiiWare game. From looking at screens, though, it looks identical to the Live version. I don’t know if it’ll have any exclusive Wii features, though. I think it would be neat if you could move the Wii remote horizontally back and forth like the paddle on screen, but I doubt that’ll happen. Because it looks so identical, I may skip out on Plus and just get Live instead. Bubble Bobble Plus on the Wii was really good, though.

Other Taito Breakout Clones
Arkanoid maker Taito is no stranger to Breakout clones, as they made a few more than just Arkanoid. One was called Plump Pop, and I think it was made even before Arkanoid. You moved two cute animals on the bottom of the screen (pigs, dogs, or cats I think), and a third was jumping on a trampoline the other two were holding. You would move back and forth popping balloons. Don’t get Plump Pop confused with Taito’s other balloon popping game: Pop N Pop, though. Pop N Pop played more like a cross between Puzzle Bobble and Space Invaders.

Another Taito Breakout clone came out in the mid-90’s. It was called Puchi Carat and played more like a competitive two player puzzle game. You bounced a ball with a paddle to break blocks, but you could make chains of clusters of them fall which not only cleared your screen faster, it sent blocks to the opponents screen. Like other popular puzzle games such as Puyo Pop and Magical Drop, Puchi Carat had a playable cast of generic anime characters. My favorite was the ditzy pink haired lady. Just the qualities I look for in my anime women (just joking!). Anyway, you can play both Plump Pop and Puchi Carat on the Taito Legends collections on PS2.

Arkanoid made cameos in other Taito games as well. There was a whole world in Rainbow Islands featuring Arkanoid. You could walk on blocks and the boss was the wire framed Easter Island head Doh. Of course, I’ve never made it that far because I really suck at Rainbow Islands!

Taito made a couple of mini-game collections on the DS and Wii featuring Arkanoid. In Turn it Around on the DS, you moved the touch screen like a dial to control the paddle. And on the Wii Furu Furu Park, you twisted the Wii remote to move. Neither controlled very well, though.

Non-Taito Breakout Clones:
There are TONS of other Breakout/Arkanoid style games. But I’m only going to mention the more memorable and notable ones.

Of course there is the original Breakout, but I never got into it as it was pretty hard. When Hasbro owned the Atari license, they made a Breakout update on the PSOne. It was actually pretty good, and had a lot of creative ideas for stages. And like their Pong update, they tried to give the paddles some personality, which was pretty humorous. The PSOne Breakout update was actually one of the first games little brother Jeff completed, so I was pretty proud of him for that.

When the original green Game Boy first came out, one of the launch titles was the Breakout clone Alleyway. It looked just like Arkanoid except NO POWER UPS! I never understood why they couldn’t put power ups in the game, because without them, it’s pretty boring. The only notable thing about Alleyway is Mario jumps into the paddle before you start. Speaking of Mario, the bonus stage in the NES Pinball game has Mario holding a paddle and bouncing a ball back and forth to rescue Pauline.

There are a few other Breakout games on the DS. Nervous Brickdown had some pretty creative levels and gameplay concepts in each stage. But it was also really difficult and inconsistent, and I prefer Arkanoid DS more. Another one was called Break ‘Em All, but it’s so boring and generic I don’t even feel like talking about it.

And that’s all I have to say about Arkanoid! Do you like Arkanoid-style games? Which ones are YOUR favorite? –Cary

Tags: Game Reviews