Baraduke

Overview

Baraduke is a 2D side-scrolling shooter developed by Namco and first released in Arcades in Japan and Europe in 1985. It was later released for the PlayStation in 1997 in Namco Museum Vol. 5. It was released for the Xbox 360 in 2008 in Namco Museum: Virtual Arcade and finally in 2009 for the Virtual Console. The game follows Toby Masuyo (nicknamed Kissy), as she investigates the once-peaceful Planet Paccet, which has been taken over by aliens known as 'Octy'. In order to eliminate the alien force, she must travel deeper and deeper underground.

Toby Masuyo would later appear in the game Namco x Capcom with Hiromi Tengenji, the main character from Burning Force.

Gameplay

Baraduke is a 2D shooter, where the player moves around in a low-gravity environment with the help of a jetpack. Each Stage is split up into 6 floors for a total of 48 floors in the game. In the first four floors in each stage, the player must clear the floor of 'Oktys', which will spawn squid-like creatures called 'Baranura' and 'Scyphula'. Buranuras will chase the player, and can only damage the player by contacting with them, however, Scyphulas are able to fire projectles at the player. Once the player has cleared the floor, the can exit the level through a chute located at the outside walls of the level. The player will also receive a 'Shield Bonus', depending on how much shield they had left at the completion of the level. In the second last floor, there are no Octys but rather a decent amount of capsules which grants the player higher chances in the next level. The final floor is the boss-stage. There are three bosses in the game, Blue Worm, which appears in Stage 1, 3, 5 and 7. It is screen-filling boss which shares a similarity to Kraid, firing projectiles from its four eyes, which must be destroyed in order to defeat it. The second is 'Turning Eye', appearing in Stage 2, 4 and 6. It moves around the stage firing projectiles at the player. The final boss, Octy King, appears at the end the of the game.

When defeating one of the Octy, they drop a capsule. When interacting with the capsule, they will aqquire one of three things: A yellow coin object which gives the player 100 points, a Paccet, which moves about and can be killed by enemies or they can meet the Bagan, which is a Pac-Man-like creature that will attack the player. They can also obtain a ray gun, a more powerful weapon for the duration of the level, but this is far less common. The appearance of each certain item is random. At the end of the level, there is a roulette style minigame with icons representing the amount of Paccet the player collected, an Octy or sometimes a blank 'N'. If the player lands on a Paccet, they gain an extra shield capacity. However, if they land on an Octy, they lose a shield capacity. If they land on an 'N', there is no change. This is quite an evil tactic on part of the game, since the player can sometimes complete a level without collecting a Paccet, then be faced with a full rotation of Octy's, thus having no choice but to lose a shield. The player can have up to eight shields. Naturally, if the player loses all their shield during the game they will lose a life. Also, If a player loses a life, they lose a shield but are able to continue the level from where they last died. On the default settings, the player will receieve a 1UP for gaining 10000 points, then another for every 20000 they gain.