Arcade Archives: Mr. Do!

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Mr. Do! (Universal, 1982)

Arcade Archives (previous-gen consoles)

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Arcade Archives 2 (current-gen consoles)

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Three ROM versions are included- Oldest is an early version that has a snowman instead of the traditional clown with some gameplay changes (the blue monsters that appear when you grab the bonus target aren't implemented yet, for instance); Old is a version with the familiar clown but a famous lives rollover glitch; and New is a bugfixed version. You can see a list of the changes over on The Cutting Room Floor if you want more info. The Old version is also slightly edited as it removes the Taito copyright string on the title screen (as spotted by Eonstro on the Lord BBH Discord, they missed the Taito string on the 1-Up screen!) but everything else is kept, even the 1-Up jingle taken from the Astro Boy anime.

Here comes a new licensor! Universal, a company who's still around but primarily in the gambling and pachinko business these days, joins the Arcade Archives lineup with their most famous game, Mr. Do!, and it won't be a one-off either, so hopefully we'll soon see more of their games via Arcade Archives, like the rest of the Mr. Do! games, Devil Zone and my personal favourite, Lady Bug. As for Mr. Do! itself, in the past I was never a big fan of this one- entirely a personal thing, I don't like clowns- but after studyig it a bit more and trying to learn how to play it, I've warmed up to it. The comparisons ot Dig Dug are pretty obvious, of course- not a coincidence, the designer Kazutoshi Ueda was specifically told "our next game really should be made with Dig Dug in mind"- but there's more to it than that. There's a lot of meaningful additions to the formula, like being able to push apples (the equivalent of Dig Dug's rocks) to move them to strategically-useful positions, the bonus item freezing enemies in place for a brief moment of time (but also adding extra monsters to chase you) and the EXTRA monsters that can earn you an extra life. I think the main thing I struggle with in this game is that your defensive options are much more limited than in Dig Dug, as you only have the POWER BALL that takes time to recharge (gradually getting longer the more you use it) and the apples which the enemies can also push around. I also find myself tempted to grab the cherries to clear each board, but this becomes less of an option over time as the enemies will completely overwhelm you if you try to ignore them. It's a tricky game! It's one of those 'golden age' arcade games I'd definitely like to get better at, so I'm glad there's an official modern option more widely available now (before this, it was on one of the Taito Egret II Mini expansion packs and, uh, the Wii Virtual Console in Japan?) and maybe I'll finally get good at it!