"Super Arabian" - NES/Famicom

Arabian was a platforming arcade game developed by Sun Electronics (or as you may know them, SunSoft) in 1983. The Famicom port was titled Super Arabian-- why it's so super I don't know, but I do know it was super exclusive to Japan. And that's all the English Wikipedia has to say about that, so we turn our attention to the Japanese one.

... which, to be honest, doesn't really tell us much else. It just tells us that some things were changed from the arcade port (backgrounds are more colorful, there are more words in the game, etc), but other than that it's just a port. It also says it doesn't end and has 4 stages. Cool, that's a metric.

Let's Super play it, then:

That's a really fancy title screen. I hope the game is just as fancy (this will be funny when you see it).

----- Playthrough -----

Are you laughing, yet?

Super Arabian is pretty much a simple platformer where the goal is to collect a series of letters in order (if you want a bonus) or not in order (if you don't want a bonus) while avoiding getting touched by the various... enemies. The black things seem to be crows but I have no idea what the pink things are.

Something from my nightmares, I guess.

B jumps, A kicks. Kick an enemy and any enemy that it hits on its horizontal path offscreen will also die. That's pretty much the whole game described for you right there, so let me tell you about my experience.

Level 1 and 2 are fine, if somewhat unexciting. In level 1, you're on what appears to be a ship, as you may have noticed, and on level 2, you're inside some kind of cave.

Or I guess underground in a hole, because there's clearly a tree growing on top-- but the bird will still fly down here.

The third level is where everything falls apart and the game starts making you want to stab yourself. In this level you're in a castle with flying rugs that go left and right on the screen, scrolling through, kind of like vehicles in Frogger.

Flying rug trade sure is booming today.

Unfortunately these things are all but impossible to land on with any kind of accuracy, and the rain of enemies from above makes it dangerous the further you get up the screen. Prepare to be infuriated as you fall through the edge of rugs and platforms again and again, assuming you're still playing the game, only to finally get up to the first wide platform and be crushed against the edge of the screen by a rug.

Or just stuck inside a platform to the point where pressing the d-pad no longer does anything. And then crushed by a rug.

This happened to me about 10 times before I finally just gave up-- playing those first two lame levels just to get here and have this happen again wore my patience out really quick. The game meets too great of a bad combination between frustratingly broken and not fun in the first place on the corner of that platform, for me.

I only have so much time in the day, man.

As a last test I checked out level 8 (or one might say loop 8) by going to it on the menu with the A button and starting the game. It's the same deal, but the letters are now hidden behind question marks.

How excruciatingly novel.

----- Review -----

How long did I play?
15 minutes too long.

How much did I beat?
I almost beat the third level but I gave up.

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Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

It's pretty intuitive-- the game tells you in what order to pick up the letters and jumping and kicking seems like an easy enough control scheme to grasp.

Gameplay / Difficulty: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

It's really not hard at all until that third level, and I have no idea what the fourth one is like.

The gameplay really isn't satisfying to me, and I think that's because the controls feels so janky (for some reason when you jump, the main character seems to randomly stop for a second in mid air and lose momentum), and it's difficult to tell at what range you can kick enemies from. Everything just feels pretty much awful in this game to me.

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

It's only got four levels before it repeats, but I imagine by the time you've played it for a bit you'll just be thankful that's the case.

[Very external screaming]

Sound / Graphics: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

I guess the game looks alright-- they did put in somewhat of an effort to give environments something of a feel to them, and there's art besides just being platforms or blocks on a black ground like a lot of arcade ports have been on the Famicom. It's pretty hard to tell what the enemies are supposed to be or how they're made up, but at least you can see them... except on level 3 where everything just blurs together.

The sound consists of bleeps, bloops, and one continuous loop of music that will grate on your nerves after it's repeated 3 times, which takes about 30 seconds.

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

I like the way the crow enemies look, but really no I don't have any attachment to the aesthetic or presentation style of this game at all, to be honest. I really didn't enjoy myself with this one.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

No.

Not to be harsh, but there are plenty of good platformers on the Famicom, post Super Mario Bros., and we're getting there. Slowly. So just wait for those (or go play them now, you don't have to wait for me. What are you, crazy?)

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