Arkanoid - for NES

Arkanoid is Taito's 1986 arcade classic, brought to the Nintendo Entertainment System by Atlus. The Breakout concept had been sitting quietly for over a decade before Taito revived it here and gave it a frame: your bat becomes the Vaus, a spaceship, the ball becomes an energy bolt, and the bricks become a mysterious wall standing between the ship and safety. That change of framing, plus a wall that keeps rearranging itself into new patterns, is why Arkanoid is the version of this idea everyone remembers.

The play is simple to learn and very hard to put down: keep the bolt alive, steer it with the angle of the Vaus, and break every block in the pattern to move on. Arkanoid leans on power ups for its variety, dropped from the wall and caught by positioning the ship underneath them, which means weighing a useful upgrade against the risk of missing the bolt while you chase it. Lasers mount on the sides of the ship so you can shoot blocks out directly, a catching device lets you hold the bolt and fire it off at an angle of your choosing, and another slows the bolt to a manageable speed. Two players can take turns at the wall.

Arkanoid endures because it fits whatever amount of time you have. One round is a minute, one session can be an hour, and the pull of clearing just one more pattern has not weakened in nearly forty years. The NES release is well known for the paddle controller sold alongside it, though the game plays perfectly happily on a standard pad. Any NES collection benefits from having Arkanoid in it: a cornerstone of the block breaking genre, and the cartridge most likely to be picked up by someone who claims they do not play games.

• Genre: Block Breaker
• Players: 1-2
• Region: NTSC
• Release Year: 1986
• Developer: Atlus

Cartridge Only: No Box or Manual
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Condition & Authenticity
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