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アトミックロボキッド スペシャル
©UPL CO.,LTD.1989
Release : 1990-01-19 (¥6700)
HuCard (4 Mbits) UP01001
Shooter / Platform
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Atomic Robo-Kid Special is a side scrolling action/platform
game by UPL and conversion of the arcade game of the same name
originally released in 1988. It stars a cuttle little flying robot called
Robo-kid, and his main mission is to save the world. Deep within
enemy lines lurk all kind of threats and secrets our hero will need to face.
Atomic Robo-Kid Special starts out as a standard horizontal shooter,
but as Robo-kid begins his descent into enemy defended territory,
things become a lot more complicated. The world to explore becomes larger
and larger, and the little robot is soon able to hover in any direction,
through corridors and intricate passageways. But this comes at a price and
can cause the player to completely lose his sense of direction, often
becoming hopelessly lost inside the massive levels. Each stage also gives
the player a task to fulfill - either find the exit, defeat small robots
(also called 'kids') in one-on-one duels or to battle huge
multi-screen bosses. Of course, although Robo-kid starts his
journey with a traditional Vulcan gun, four more weapons are
available throughout the game (Beam Laser, 3-way shots,
Spead Laser and missiles) and can be activated at anytime
during the game (as long as they've been previously collected).
Atomic Robo-Kid Special consists of twenty five stages and
is single-player only.
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The original arcade game was released by UPL in 1988 (picture on the left), and was ported to
several home systems at the time, such as Sega's Megadrive (1990),
Commodore C64 (1990), Atari ST (1990), Commodore Amiga (1990)
and Sharp X68000 (1990). The PC Engine conversion tested here, entitled
"special", is more a "remixed" version and features many differences with the
original arcade game - no time limit, the annoying ”I freeze when I'm hit” and
"death in one hit" are
gone and have been replaced by an energy bar. Additionally, the way how stages are
layout is different and the game introduces various "mini-missions" where the
player has to either find the exit or defeat a boss.
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Game Staff (Copied from the end credits) :
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<< STAFF >>
Character Design
Tsutomu Fuzisawa
Tokuhisa Tajima
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Background Design
Noriko Fuzisawa
Sound Effect
Mechano Associates
Yujiro Tanaka
Yoshio Nahashima
Akemi Tsunoda
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Special Thanks
Jun Sato
Itsam Matarca
Kohji Abe
Miho Shigekusa
Nobuyuki Narita
Ryuichi Iwatani
Takahiro Ohta
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Click on picture to enlarge |
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
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The original arcade game wasn't the greatest shooter, but it had its
moments of fun despite a brutal difficulty level.
However, this conversion is very disappointing - graphics
don't look as good (they are still correct though) and parts of the game
are very different (that's where the "special" suffix from the title comes
in I guess). Stages are also put together in such a way that they don't
feel connected - some are long and painful whereas others are just quick
fights against other small flying robots. The large bosses are still
really impressive though, and some are literally breathtaking. But all
of this adds a lot of confusion to a title already blurred by an
unstructured action, and controls that take a little time to get
used to. That being said, I really appreciate the fact that UPL
removed the time limit and the annoying "death in one hit"
from the arcade game. All in all, Atomic Robot Kid could have
been an excellent game but it just ends up being an average experience...
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