Ah, but I've left out one key element, the meat and potatoes of Arkanoid. For inside some of the normal blocks are wonderful little pills that slowly drop and give you all kinds of strange and wonderful abilities, provided you're able to catch them with Vaus without losing your ball. So without further ado, let's MEET THE CAPSULES.

	"B" CAPSULE: WARP - Most of the letters on the capsules stand for things, but as far as I can tell, not this one. A "B" pill means that a little hatch will open in the lower right wall, and as long as you get in there before dying, you skip a round. Pretty rare.
	"C" CAPSULE: CATCH - This one is very good, although it may not seem that way. When the ball strikes your Vaus, it will stick there until you hit the fire button instead of bouncing off. May not sound like much, but it's integral in lining up and aiming shots.
	"D" CAPSULE: 3X BALL - On the contrary, this one seems good, but sometimes is quite the opposite. Gives you 3 balls instead of 1, you sick freak. But did I mention that every time a ball strikes a wall, it starts to speed up? And that 3 balls = 3x the speed increase? Well, yeah.
	"E" CAPSULE: EXTEND - Everyone's personal favorite, and solid proof that "enhancement" pills were pioneered by Taito, not Viagra. Gives your rod that much-needed length extension when you need that extra inch to give your ball ... yeah, probably best to stop there.
	"L" CAPSULE: LASER - This one's the king. Turns Vaus into a super laser shooter thing that can destroy blocks with bullets, as the game turns into a frantic race to fire at blocks while still trying to move Vaus under the ball. Destructive impulse or intense concentration: which will win?
	"P" CAPSULE: 1-UP - Ugh, it's really tough to come up with something to say about a 1-Up when they all do the same damn thing in every damn game ever. Hey, P Capsule? P Wing? Connection? Coincidence? Have you moved onto the next Capsule yet? Well, go. These are also rare.
	"S" CAPSULE: RESTORE - This negates the effect of any of the other capsules, but also slows the ball down significantly. Very helpful if your laser doesn't look so hot against the Gold blocks barring your way and your ball is bouncing every which way like a speed freak.

I won't lie, this game is hard. They didn't really perfect the physics until future games (yes, there were future games). The key to winning is reflexes, obviously, but also to mix and match your pills effectively, just like in real life. To get a better idea of what I mean, take a look at some of these sample rounds I pulled from the game.

Our first screen shows us that enemies can indeed be our pals. When almost all of the blocks are gone, and no more capsules can be had, sometimes lining up a rebound shot off several enemies is the quickest way to move on, rather than careening the ball uselessly off the walls for several minutes trying to find the right angle.

The second screen was pretty much only selected because it looks like a Space Invader from the game of the same name minus one "s". However, a few things can still be learned. This is exactly where you DON'T want the pill that gives you 3 balls (heh heh), because they'll careen off the Hard blocks endlessly until your ball speed is through the roof and one incorrectly-judged angle means SO LONG. Better off with a Laser, so you can work on the blocks after sending the ball through the side and on top. Although in that level, only about 10 of the blocks have a chance of giving you a Capsule anyway, so eh.

Number 3 is a good example of when having 3 balls (heh, last one, I swear) can pay off. Once you time it so that you ease into the tiny space and penetrate (what?) the Invincible gold blocks, it's pretty unlikely that they'll all escape out again before you're able to wreck the normal blocks inside. Obviously, the Laser is useless in this one, so it all depends on the stage dynamic.

The bottom two are just nasty. You're on your own.

The rounds vary in difficulty, sometimes you'll face one that seems impossible, and then the next one will be cake. I should make you get through it all your damn self, but this game is so tough that I'll give you the Stage Skip code: hold Start while the round is starting, and immediately after the "Round #" text disappears, hit A while still holding Start, and you'll skip a level. But this only works for half the game. Snicker. Luckily, if you get a Game Over (and you will), when you go back to the title screen, hold down A & B, press Select 5 times, release and hit Start, and that'll let you continue. That's right, we had to EARN our continues back in the day, with ludicrous button codes and such. I lost my Arkanoid controller years ago, so damned if I know if these codes work with that.

Eventually, you'll reach the only level with music (or close to it), which means you must have reached the mighty DOH. I'm not kidding, you're just gonna have to face facts and accept that Homer stole his renowned annoyed grunt from Arkanoid.

As you may have guessed, your goal is to hit Doh with the ball over and over until he throws in the towel, all while avoiding the annoying floor tiles he spits at you. Andross, eat your heart out. Wait, why is it that I can't escape from evil Easter Island heads lately? First eggplants, now this. Oh well. Once you knead Doh (SMELL THE CLEVER), the day is saved, Vaus escapes from whatever the hell space thing it was trapped in, and that's about it. Not to spoil anything, but there's no way I'm not sharing this quote from the ending:

Shut up. It'll be a word in the future.

What, you thought we were done?

Arkanoid II: Revenge of Doh came out a little over a year later, although I don't believe it ever made it to American shores. 'Tis a shame, as this is my favorite game in the series. It features much better/more forgiving play control, new and exciting pills, minigames, and oh so much more. If the first game was too difficult and/or dull for you, this is a better place to start. And lucky you, I've decided to take a fun look at this one too. BEGIN.

You even get a cutscene for this one. For some reason, the Vaus II paddle flying around space as if it were trying to prove it was a real spaceship is funnier than it has any right to be. Anyway, the sprawling and intense story involves time passing, Doh coming back, and, uh, seeking revenge. He's found some way to traverse dimensions, so you have to plow through a bunch of them in order to launch an attack on Doh. Any guesses on what these dimensions are filled with? If you said anything other than "space walls", go stand in the corner.

Before we get to the main game, you may have noticed the "Vs." and "Edit" options on the Title screen if you squinted hard enough. It's no joke, as Arkanoid II lets you design your own levels and play in them. First this, then that 64DD thing that let you edit F-Zero tracks, lousy edit-hogging Japanese. Anyway, you can set any kind of wall that appears in the game, which ones will drop capsules, which type of enemy you want, etc. Then you can knock the crap out of it.

Le Masterpiece.

Oui oui. But even the Edit Mode doesn't hold up to Vs.

Whoo ha, Arkanoid goes back to its roots by delivering Best-of-5 Arkapong. Play against a friend, or in your case, the computer, in a souped-up version of the game that swept the nation before many of us were born. Arkapong is very similar to regular Pong, except that 1) you have to navigate through and around the center blocks in your path, and 2) you have to break through at least one of your opponent's defensive blocks before you can score a point. And that's just spiffy.

If you're still reading at this point, you probably want to know what differences and improvements you get in the main game. Probably most important of all is that the Vaus II is now flamboyantly purple, and not afraid to show it. As far as things that actually matter, there are new "pain in the ass" blocks in addition to the Hard and Gold ones - MOVING walls. In most cases, the Gold walls will move back and forth and try to block you from entering beneficial small spaces. Even more annoying are the timed walls, which like the Gold ones, don't have to be destroyed to win - but also like the Gold ones, you can't destroy them. Well, you can, but they just regenerate after a few seconds, so you'd best get your ass past them before then. To illustrate how bothersome this is, observe Round L18.

3 levels of them is not fun. Wait, Round L18? What the hell? Another good thing about Arkanoid is that you can't see it all on your first playthrough. Remember that "dimension" thing from the story? Now when you beat a level, a door on the left opens in addition to the one on the right. Depending on which one you enter, you'll get a weird message such as "Saterinoid", "Baltnoid", "Xeufnoid", or "Vavanoid", and then thrust into the L or R level, depending which way you went. It's all very Section Z-ish. Choose wisely, because it could be the difference between intertwining Gold & Hard Walls and a googly-eyed thing made up mostly of normal blocks.

Luckily, you'll have a few advantages on your side. The thing that was most needed in these games was added, and that's a turbo button. Hold "B", and Vaus II speeds up considerably. While that means you'll sometimes overshoot, it also means you'll no longer die due to Vaus moving slower than Karnov without his blue pants. Then there's the pause glitch. If Vaus II is all the way at the left of the screen, and the ball is careening at high speed towards the far right, you can pause, hold right, then unpause and Vaus II will magically appear at the far right. Steamy.

The best part of the game, the Capsules, were also affected. There are more, some of the old ones have been improved, and the new powers kick ass. Mostly. Let's take a look.

The old pills are back in full force, as for the most part, they have the same powers as last time. "E" still gives you an extend, another one extends you even further, into Bob Dole territory, but again, just like in real life, the longer your paddle, the harder it is to control. Many lessons can be learned from Arkanoid. Look out for "E"s evil twin in a moment. "D" gives you a lot more than 3 balls this time, which I'm sure you can figure out the pros and cons of. And the new Laser I feel is pretty sharp.

The new Capsules. "I" is kinda funky, gives you a Vaus trail behind Vaus II that will hit the ball just as well as the real one, but movement is a little odd. "T" gives you two Vaus II's side-by-side. Seems advantageous, but see that little space in between them? Yeah, you guessed it. "N", not shown in action, is sort of like "D", but better. You get three balls, but if you lose one, on of the remaining balls will split into two, so as long as you don't totally screw up, they'll keep coming as fast as they go. This brings us to �M� and �R�, the best and worst of the game, respectively. The "R" makes the level extremely cold, shrinking your Vaus II to almost nothing. Good for a challenge, I suppose. "M" is the best, it turns your ball red. :Ahem: With this new flaming ball of power, the ball no longer bounces off of the blocks - it plows through them - including the previously indestructible Gold blocks. That's one fine pill.

One other thing about the Capsules is that they no longer drop as soon as you hit the block they were in. Rather, the pill will stay in place, cycling between all (or most) of the letters. It will eventually drop, giving you a random power, but if you can strike it while it's on a letter you want, that's the one you'll get. That covers the new Capsules, what about the new enemies? Well, some revamped versions of old ones, some new ones, all of them do the same thing. Except for those swirly kickballs on the right, instead of floating around inconveniently, they actually fall straight down and bounce off of Vaus II, except they don't break any blocks. Something different, at least.

To compensate for the lack of good enemies, they threw in an extra boss about midway through the game. Face the PETRANOID.

I recently played an excellent PSX game known as Alundra. Not only was the game great, but so was the manual. Now, Alundra couldn't possibly be any farther removed from this game, but a blurb from the manual really hit the mark: they mentioned that when they did the English version, they made the bosses do a lot more damage, but also made them die in fewer hits, 'cause the Japanese in general like boss battles that are easy and take forever as opposed to tough ones that end fairly quickly. Not only is this pretty true, in my experience, but also painfully true here. I mentioned that this was Japanese-only, and man does Petranoid take FOREVER to defeat. It's just you against him and the aforementioned shitty enemies he releases, but damned if you won't be tempted to just let the ball "accidentally" fall into the pit after awhile.

After you finally beat him, a weird thing pops out of him and escapes. More on that later. For now, enjoy the scenery of Arkanoid II:

Yeah, they really thought they were cute this time. You won't get a "fun" level all the time though, not even close, and after some of the other levels in this game, you'll be begging for them. Although any block puzzle involving a beer mug has to be fun. A real beer mug, anyway. But not even a frosty beverage will prepare you for the rematch with the mighty DOH.

Actually, you get to face him right before the first level too, but he wasn't really trying that time. Upping his arsenal from floor tiles to evil marbles (which actually makes a lot more sense. Seriously. You know, in context), Doh doesn't take quite as long to take down as that stupid blobbish Petranoid did. It's a pretty similar fight to the first game, aside from the new objects that are harder to avoid, since they home in on you and come out in greater number. But then, Doh has a surprise up his sleeve. Or in this case, up his eye sockets.

Yes, it was the evil brain parasite all along that revived Doh and caused whatever trouble is happening in this game, or something. After Doh is shattered, you'll get to fight it, and it's no picnic. You can dismember its tentacles by slamming the ball into them, but the individual sections will fall off, and if they hit the Vaus II, you're done for. Unfortunately, the only part of the thing that takes actual damage is the brain oval, so it's pretty much inevitable. Try to focus on one small area rather than spread the attack around, because it WILL regenerate.

After all that, you get the requisite crappy cutscene, as well as some final story text that uses the words "Mixtec" and "Xorg", may or may not be close to grammatically accurate, and then goes into how these events are a small speck in a large universe, and we're not having none of that fancy philosophical crap on this here site, so just rest assured that Vaus escaped and will continue to search for its place in the universe.

Hey! Where're ya goin'? Park it, we haven't finished yet.

That's right, for Arkanoid's 10-year anniversary, Taito celebrated by gracing the SNES with a game that featured one of the greatest titles in gaming history: Arkanoid: Doh it Again. By now you know I'm certainly not kidding. This one featured the best graphics ever seen in a Breakout clone (yep, er, all of 'em...), a few gameplay tweaks and a lot more story, and would be the final chapter in the console trilogy, and also one of the final SNES games, since the N64 (eventually) hit in 1996. So with a preemptive apology for the following statement, let's doh it.

Instead of the same "Story" graphic again, choke on Doh's impressive wireframe takeover of the Arkanoidians prospective new home planet. You know, it's never really explained why Doh is such an asshole, and keeps putting up space walls so these idiots can't find a new planet. :shrug: "Commander Therle" is apparently the leader of the wayward space vagabonds in the paddle-shaped ship, which took us until the third game and the 9th Stardawn to figure out, or at least that's what the intro told me. There's actually a cool remix of the Arkanoid theme playing during the opening, so that's a plus. I love them remixes. Also of note is that since it was 1997, Japanese programmers couldn't get away with making up words for English versions anymore, so "Vaus" has been severely downplayed in favor of "the scout ship". Also gone are most words ending in "Noid", I'm sorry to report. At least the Noid himself is gone, stupid ass pizza-loving rabbit thing. I should do his game sometime.

As you can see, the Edit mode is back, mostly the same. There are also some new 2P options, including the "race" game shown above, as well as the ability to play the main game co-op style with two paddles on screen at once. Of course, I don't know who made the decision to eliminate the Pong game, but they need a ball whacked at their face at 100 MPH. You heard me. To make up for it, you get an options menu where you can adjust game speed, # of lives, etc. to make the game easier or harder, a plus for anyone just starting out. And for the first time, you can continue without the use of an annoying code. Yes, you get one of those annoying 12-character passwords instead. And you'll need 'em, through 99 levels of Arka-goodness (no "left/right" level exits though, back to one straight path), although this one is a lot easier than the first two. It also has very good control, especially if you use the SNES Mouse that came with Mario Paint. Remember MARIO PAINT?

No need for individual capsule profiles this time, since again, we're going back to old-school basics and eliminating many of the wackier ones from Arkanoid II. However, there is one new one, the force field (above), which lets you miss one time and bounces your ball back into the air, then disappears. You can still mix and match abilities, as evidenced by my enormous schlong ship (say THAT three times fast) obtained after 2 "E" capsules. The enemies are pretty much the standard fare as well, although some of them have explosive/electric new powers.

Here's a small sampling of the fun to be had in Doh it Again, taken from various points in the game. That last one's a bitch.

They went willy nilly on the bosses this time, three of them, fought three times each. Every round that's a multiple of 11 = boss time, all the way up to 99. First up is a boss who shares his name with an Atari game that was always right up there with Super Breakout in my collection, I'm talking about CENTIPEDE.

Yep, there he is. Made up entirely of those $1.99 shiny bounce balls you can find at any good outlet store, the Centipede thankfully doesn't take nearly as many hits as the Petranoid. He's also stolen Doh's strategy from the first game, which is to slowly drop floor tiles on you. He's a pushover, except for his kamikaze attack where he lunges straight at your ship before magically reappearing on the top of the screen. But let's take a look behind door #2...

Tired of people like me with too much time on their hands mocking him, Doh has totally revamped his techniques in this game. Now he sends out several smaller Doh heads, or "Play-Dohs" (fine, made that one up), which float around and generally get in your way. They can be taken out in one hit. But do it quick, because any that you don't kill will line up and shoot thin lasers at you, along with the big one Doh spits up. More heads -> more lasers -> less room to escape. The scary part? He isn't finished.

The last of our 3 bosses is SUPER DOH. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. The giant head has finally sprouted a body, or half of one at least, unless the legs are buried in the board. Regardless, Doh's new appendages provide him with a chance to go at you the old-fashioned way - no more lasers, tiles, or tiny heads, it's the tried and true extendo-punch. At first, his arms are the only parts of him that are vulnerable, so you have to hit them while avoiding the fists he lunges at your ship. When you piss him off enough, he'll actually grab the sides of the board and spin the entire thing upside-down, which is probably one of the most impressive boss moves of all time, right up there with the Top Spin and the classic "bring down the building after dying" move used by some of the best. While upside down, Doh won't be able to punch due to motion sickness, but your controls will be reversed. Doh will continue to flip the arena back and forth until you destroy both his arms. He still won't give up, spitting light lasers at you as you attack his body.

Beating Super Doh on Round 33 and 66 gives you the "bad" ending, a trick best utilized in Bubble Bobble and one that needs to be brought back more often just to piss people off. It turns out that the planet contained within wireframe Doh above was an evil hologram, because as mentioned, Doh really likes fucking with these poor people for no good reason. But after Round 99, Captain Tenille, or whatever his name was, says that Doh is gone for good, a new world has finally been found, then goes into some "we won't repeat the mistakes of the past" diatribe that contradicts the alien attack (first game) that destroyed their original planet and/or ship in the first place. Moron.

The only game left that's worth mentioning is one even more obscure than the past few, an arcade-only game released around the same time as this one, that was Japan-only as well. It wasn't much as far as advancing the series anywhere, but it was the pinnacle of presentation. Ahhh, what the hell, let's do that one too.

Arkanoid Returns was the final Arkanoid game as we know it, closing out a decade of the greatest, uh, "Breakout clone with lasers" series to ever grace video gamedom. Although it kept some of the additions of the sequels, it mainly went back to the bare bone basics of Arkanoid, but with souped up psychedelic arcade graphics, and MUSIC! Yeah, that lonely "ping" noise when you hit a block is the only music you get for most of these games, except for the catchy level intros. So no mini-games, no extras, and no bosses, despite a brief opening scene of Vaus being swallowed by Doh.

Learn motor skills AND the alphabet. Is there anything this game can't do?
Besides hold your attention for more than 4 minutes if you were born after 1987.

The biggest change, obviously, is that you no longer draw your amazing paddle powers from popping pills. No, it's been changed to the greatest subtle running theme of the series, floor tiles. Pretty much the basics here, except for that "G" one, which is like "M" on steroids.

Wasn't kidding about them trippy backgrounds. The green and red balls both appear here, and ... no, I'm taking the high road on this one. The green one is the traditional "plow through blocks instead of bouncing off" effect, while the red one emits an aura that takes out the blocks it touches, along with the ol' plowthrough.

Other than the Laser ship looking especially sleek and getting a little electric field to denote your "Catch" power, not too much has changed on the capsule/tile front. As far as the gameplay, well, suffice to say that trackball games weren't meant to be played on control pads, let alone keyboards. If you don't know what a trackball is, shame on you, it's that thing that makes your mouse go. In addition, it served as a controller for get this, video games, back in the day. But not many. You kind of get skimped on the levels, only 49, although that's more than the original. For every 9, you get a new background and theme song. Remember that "Japanese like to take longer" credo from before? Us "hard and fast" Americans (sorry, ladies) will have to deal with that in this game, as it applies to a lot of the levels moreso than in the console games that were ported here, unless you get the aforementioned "G" or "M" tiles. On the subject of tiles, new are the "clear" blocks - when you break them, you're guaranteed a tile, and you can tell which one (or two) you'll get by the color inside the clear block. Also, the silver/hard ones show damage, so you can tell how close you are to breaking them if you're on a later level where it takes 3-4 hits.

They're a bit dull to start, but then you start to get some good ones. Once you hit the last few, prepare for nightmares. Here's a look:

And here's your hard-earned ending. Out with a whimper.

The Arkanoid series is one requiring patience, reflexes, skill, dexterity, and luck. That's why they went ahead and added geometrically-correct enemies, laser beams, and a giant stone head named Doh. These games aren't for everybody, but if you're a twitch gamer with a penchant for old-school arcade action, you'll be right at home. Even if you aren't, the wacky crap I've just been talking about for Doh knows how long will probably keep you around for a few minutes.

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