Arcade Archives: Roc'n Rope

[tepidsnake]

This week's Arcade Archives release is...Roc'n Rope (Konami, 1983)

Arcade Archives (previous-gen consoles)

PSN

EU

US

 

Switch

EU

US

 

 

Arcade Archives 2 (current-gen consoles)

PSN

EU

US

 

Switch 2

EU

US

 

Xbox

EU

US

Just the one ROM this time, and while there's no specific Preference Settings, Original Mode keeps the behaviour where scoring around 1.000,000 points will glitch the game out and continually award you extra lives, while Hi Score Mode fixes this bug. I kinda wish there was a way to toggle it on and off for Original Mode as you see fit, but that's fine.

 

The Roc... A gigantic bird of myth and legend. Marco Polo may have claimed to see the bird, but as a brave explorer, you're about to catch a ride with one, you've found the mountain it lives on! However, the path to the top is treacherous. Not only are there cliffs and platforms to navigate, but hostile creatures ready to stop your ascent. Brave explorers such as yourself are never without the right tools though, so you've got a flashlight to temporarily stun enemies and, more importantly, a rope you can shoot at an upwards angle. Get a solid shot that hits the bottom of a cliff or platform and you can shimmy your way across, but watch out- monsters can shake the rope to throw you off (stop moving to stay on the line) and even start climbing towards you with it! There can only be one rope on-screen at once, so if a monster's using one, shoot out another to get rid of 'em! Once you reach the Roc and take it for a ride, you'll move on to another mountain with new hazards. Waterfalls, moving platforms, rock-dropping birds... Only the hardiest of mountaineers will make it through all four mountains!

Designed by Tokuro Fujiwara before he'd leave Konami to join Capcom and, eventually, help create the Ghosts 'n Goblins series as well as Bionic Commando (the parallels between this and that game's bionic arm mechanics are pretty obvious) and, much later on, Tomba!, this is a great Donkey Kong-style single screen platformer with really interesting movement mechanics. Relying on the angled rope is tricky at first, but satisfying once you get a feel for it, especially once you learn how to avoid being shaken off the rope and using the flashlight to distract enemies mid-rope-climbing. The stages also have a nice bit of variety with some neat little setpieces like the waterfall and the giant rotating ferris wheel platforms. It's a tough game but an excellent example of this type of game, so it's highly recommended, and it's nice to see it show up here as it's been a while since it's been reissued! While not worked on by Fujiwara, Konami would use a similar rope mechanic in their Famicom Disk System release, Arumana no Kiseki, so it's not just Bionic Commando that took notes from this one.