Arkanoid - Eternal Battle

Its nice to have the original game. It's simple, but appealing to play, especially for a couple of minutes between things or if you are tired and are looking for something relatively mindless to play for a bit. I'm not an Arkanoid expert (played here and there as a teenager), but the port of the original game seems faithful enough to me. There is also a remake (Neo) with graphics overhaul and different levels (plus I think a new powerup or two like the bigger ball which I don't remember seeing in the original game) which is cool. There is also a local vs mode if you have friends over who are interested which is nice. The Eternal battle mode is unfortunately Galaxy-only so people who only play the drm-free version of the game (including yours truly) won't experience that. Also, whenever you stop a game, you still lose all your progress (ie, you need to restart the game from scratch, both in terms of levels and score) which is a shame. It seems to me like they missed an opportunity there to improve on the original by allowing you to continue from game session to game session (which imho would have been a natural fit for a simple game like Arkanoid where you just want to pick it up a few minutes at a time). Overall, if you thought the original Arkanoid was neat and would like to revisit it (either in its original incarnation or with a slightly updated take on it), it is worth a go. As others mentioned, I don't think it is worth the 35$ they are asking, but the ~3.5$ price I paid when the game was ~90% off was about right and I'm not disappointed I picked it.

I got this at a discount, so I think the price was almost right. But... - I wish there was an option to play Retro without the curved screen and no background noise. It's fun for a short time but later you'd want to play without distractions. - No Revenge of DOH. I expected it to be included, and I mostly bought this game to play Arkanoid II. A shame it's not there. - Eternal Battle is dead. Nobody is online to play. Bummer. - Neo is nice but not as good as Revenge of DOH. Meh. - No Revenge of DOH. Oh, I already said that. I can't get this out of my mind. I really wanted to like this. I'm only keeping it for the nostalgia.

...weeeell, why on earth did they include scanlines to the mix? We who were there then can remember that this was a mayor annoyance to the extent that we bought double-scan multisync CRT monitors to avoid it. There is no nostalgia (in my mind) re-experiencing scan-lines in the mix and so the retro mode which does not include this is what I choose to play. Sadly, I can and have already experienced this version in my Commodore Amiga emulator and so what you really can expect to experience here is a below mediocre experience with a follow-me-mouse-trail-effect to the ball, blurred scanlines and a way too steep acceleration of the ball compared to the original. This is one of my favorite genres and I have a few favorites, among them Michael P Welch's Super DX-Ball which is fair in all respects, but this one's going into oblivion at current state of affairs. Not too often I give a bad review, but I have to when I feel opposed to the very idea.

The keyboard is only used in the initial selection screen but not during gameplay, and it lacks support for Xbox One wireless controller. In this state, the game is completely useless.

It's a basic rehash of Arkanoid with virtually no bells or whistles, which is pretty pathetic given the extreme simplicity of the game. The original arcade version of Arkanoid is also included, but without any display options whatever, and you're stuck viewing it through a virtual arcade cabinet complete with scanlines. *facepalm* For loose change, it might be worth the simplistic fun that it may provide, but the overall experience is sorely, sorely lacking.