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レプリカート
©1988 Taito Corporation
©1987 Sony Corporation/KLON
Release: 1988-02-26 (¥3500)
DiskCard TFD-REP-3500
Action/puzzle game
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Replicart is an action/puzzle game by Taito and based on
the popular Snake. In the 22nd century, Earth has been invaded by
snake looking aliens and humans have decided to create a robot,
the Replicart, to push back the invasion. The player controls
a long robotic articulated snake and maneuvers around a bordered
playing area. The snake always moves forward and the player can only
change its direction of movement. Small cells randomly appear on screen
and every single one of them must be collected to progress to the next
stage. But there is a catch and each time the robot-snake picks up a
cell it grows longer. This feature lies at the core of the gameplay
and the snake will be destroyed if it hits a wall or touches any part
of his own segmented body. Once all the cells are removed from the
play field, a tiny passageway appears on the side of the screen and
gives access to the next stage. Things become gradually more difficult
as the game progresses - every level introduces more cells to collect
at once, roaming enemies, deadly obstacles and a challenging boss every
ten stages. Power-ups can also be collected later in the game, some
destroy all the enemies on screen whereas others reset the length of
the snake or freeze time.
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Taito tried to distinguish themselves and made their games
stand out from the crowd of other Disk titles available for
the Famicom Disk system. Replicart didn't make
exception to the rule. The game was released in a large zippered plastic
pouch and included a large instruction manual and a boxed
Famicom Disk (picture on the left).
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Replicart was originally released by Sony Corporation for the MSX 2 in 1987 (picture on the right).
The box art for that version was designed by famed artist Kenichi Sonoda
(Gall Force, Bubblegum Crisis). It is anyone's guess why
Taito has chosen to design an entirely different (and rather cheap looking)
cover illustration for the Famicom Disk version - copyright
issues are probably to blame as the MSX 2 seems to be a
Hit Bit/Sony/KLON production.
However, Replicart was also ported to
the NEC PC-8801 Japanese computer in 1988 and had, once again,
a completely different cover art. This version was published by Taito
this time around though.
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Add your Pov here !
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Replicart is a really poor game. I mean, the concept is
quite interesting and the developers have cleverly reinterpreted
the classic ideas behind Snake. The boss fights are especially
fun and are one of the rare opportunities to use the snake's
laser-gun (I wish this feature was more present throughout the game).
Anyway, I'm afraid to say that most players won't be patient enough
to see what Replicart has to offer. The robot snake is tiny
on screen and the controls are tricky to master no matter how you
tackle them. You'll die often and will lose interest fast. Then the
game has to load and play the level's introduction sequence every
time you start! I must say that the game's packaging is one of
the oddest I have ever seen and the disk comes in a weird
plastic pouch with a sort of zipper-lock... it sadly seems to be the
only arguably compelling feature of Replicart.
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