Arkanoid DS

Few games have this kind of history. Even fewer have been cloned and rehashed across multiple generations of consoles and handhelds. But it’s only because we love the game that much that publishers are able to toy with our emotions and cash in on a title that looks and sounds like Arkanoid but is not Arkanoid. Don’t get me wrong, there have been a few “inspired” games that did justice to this classic franchise. But when you want the best, you know where to turn.

This Nintendo DS update, however, isn’t it.

Spread across both the top and bottom screens, Arkanoid DS was designed with old arcade cabinets in mind. The elongated view matches that of the rectangular screens that once housed this game and other hits. Nearly half of the DS’ playing field is devoted to a border – it serves no real purpose but is there nonetheless. This means that your actual playing area is very narrow, offering very little space to move around.

The bottom screen is where the magic happens; the top screen is where the magic fails. Using the D-pad or stylus control setting, you’ll move the small platform left and right. By grabbing power-ups you’ll be able to expand or shrink the size of the platform, add a sticky element to the ball (making it freeze whenever it lands on the platform), or obtain a super ball that can blast through almost any kind of block.

This is all familiar territory. But while you interact with the bottom screen, there aren’t any blocks to interfere. The ball has to bounce all the way from the bottom to the top – which can take a full second or two when the game is at its slowest pace – just to interact. Once it hits a block, it’ll either bounce up or down. If it bounces up, cross your fingers and hope it takes out a few more blocks. If it bounces down, hold onto your stopwatch: another wait is coming.

In any other world, a one or two-second wait is meaningless. But in a video game – especially one where you’re bouncing a ball back and forth – that wait is fairly painful. You can increase the default speed by upping the level difficulty, which leads to another set of problems. Before starting the main campaign, you’ll have the option to add bars to the bottom of the screen. These bars act as a cushion to your mistakes. If the ball slips past your platform, it’ll hit the bar and bounce back up. Without a bar in place, you have no cushion: one life is all you get. This leaves you with two options: either make the game too easy (and reduce your point earnings) by adding bars, or make it too frustrating by taking them away.

That, however, is not as troubling as the level designs. With half (sometimes more) of the DS’ viewing space taken up by a colored border, players have very little room to move around. Worse yet, there wasn’t much room to apply multiple block patterns on the top screen. Instead of getting a wide variety of shapes and formations, you’re generally stuck with a similar group of clusters – none of which are unique or inviting.

Moreover, the confined feel of the game is not on par with the original Arkanoid, which was slower and less precise (the stylus controls are the one thing that Arkanoid DS excelled at producing) but had better level designs and was several times more entertaining.

When compared with some of the recent Arkanoid-inspired games (like the stellar and highly original Nervous Brickdown), Arkanoid DS doesn’t make much sense. There are dozens of stages to finish and a new multiplayer component. But none of these features, old or new, is on par with the classic you remember.