Played on:
DS
Like movie remakes of 80's TV shows, legwarmer-wearing teenage girls and synth-pop emo bands, games have jumped on the retro-trend bandwagon. It seems these days nothing's harder to come by than a good idea, so lots of companies are trotting out their old stuff, tarted up for the new millennium. Sometimes remakes are a bad idea (anyone see the Dukes of Hazzard movie?), but in the case of classic Taito arcade game Arkanoid, the idea couldn't be better.
For anyone who doesn't remember, Arkanoid was an 80's arcade game based on Atari's game Breakout. Wherein you use a horizontal paddle called a “vaus” to knock an energy ball into an arrangement of bricks with the aim of eliminating all of them.
The brain trust at Taito must have guessed how well this kind of gameplay would lend itself to the DS and they're not wrong. The DS's control pad moves the vaus, replacing the old school joystick controls. While some might complain that the control pad doesn't really emulate the feel of the joystick, it does what it's meant to do. Alternately, if players are dead-set against the control pad, they can use the stylus and touch screen but doing so is less effective and certainly less comfortable.
There's a fictional point to all this energy ball knockage and that point is to save seven cute little space moppets who've been kidnapped by a sinister alien being. Progressing through each of 28 zones of the Clear mode (story mode) rescues them, provides you with hints for finishing the game and unlocks Quest mode. The unintuitively-named Quest mode is not the story mode but instead is more of a challenge mode played on individual maps. Unfortunately, you can't access the zones in this mode until you've completed them in Clear mode.
One other unfortunate aspect of the DS version is the way the maps span both the upper and lower screens. With the vaus at the bottom and the bricks at the top, the energy ball vanishes briefly when traveling between the two and that brief disappearance can hinder your ability to hit the ball when it's moving quickly. It affects some maps more than others but when it does, it's a drag.
The good news is that you won't mind the screen gap handicap or completing the zones too much because the game is so much fun. Each map is unique; sometimes they're abstract, sometimes they're in recognizable shapes like musical notes or even characters from other Taito games. Gameplay constantly varies depending on the map formation and the resistance level of the bricks. When random power up drops are thrown into the mix, you have a game that's never the same thing twice.
More even than the extensive gameplay, the best thing about Arkanoid DS is its accessibility. Anyone can learn it quickly and with three difficulty levels, it's fun for gamers of all ages and skill levels. For those of us with the reflexes of a tree sloth, it even has on-the-fly difficulty adjustment. If you fail a certain map too many times, the game helps you by dropping helpful powerups or slowing the energy ball down.
Aside from the fun of honing your vaus skills and earning points, there's the fun of spending those points on graphic upgrades for your play screen. Arkanoid's shop has all kinds of cool things to buy: fancy bricks, neon frames, outrageous backgrounds and new music that allow you to go wild, customizing the heck out of your maps.
Speaking of music, the music in Arkanoid is fun and quirky in a Katamari-ish way. Taito's in-house sound team, who goes by the unexpectedly tribal name of Zuntata, has created an interesting mix of catchy guitar rock, bubbly pop and Vegas lounge jazz. To be honest, it's often a surreal accompaniment to whacking that little energy ball and not only is it surreal, it's absurdly catchy. I've had “Too Much Funky” stuck in my head for days.
The Good: Easy to learn, tons of gameplay, challenging without being discouraging.
The Bad: Two screen play field sometimes makes the game harder than it has to be; hardcore Arkanoid fans may never get over the loss of the joystick.
As a whole, Arkanoid is addictive and even though it's not the only retro title Taito has released lately, for my money it's the best one. It's the kind of thing you can play for a few minutes or obsess about for hours. With the extensive Clear and Quest modes, as well as a VS Computer mode, Wi-Fi mode and DS Wireless mode that allows you to go up against as many as three other players, the gameplay is just about endless. Once you pick it up, you might never put it down.
