Quester - Namco's Answer To Arkanoid

[GSZX1337]

I recently learned about this game while reading about the defining games in the Breakout style, or Brick Breakers as I like to call them. It was created by Toru Iwatani of Pac-Man. Thought I'd mention that factoid in case you didn't get it during the Pac-Man level. I think it's a good game, but not as good as Arkanoid. There aren't as many power-ups and the ones the game does have aren't that interesting. I found some pretty cool ideas in this game such as the vortex that creates multiple balls, the ball splitting into three when it reaches terminal velocity, and the blocks that increase or decrease the ball's speed when hit. The other big problem I have with it is that it's ridiculously hard. I understand it's an arcade game and that I'm not good at this genre, but at least I can play Arkanoid without bashing my head against the desk. I wonder if that's why this game seems to be so obscure with no console ports, and the only emulation available is on the now defunct Virtual Console. I can't find much in the way of gameplay footage for this game on YouTube. Hardcore Gaming 101 doesn't have anything on it (or on Arkanoid for that matter), either. This seems really strange considering this is a Namco game, and by the creator of Pac-Man at that. I did find a good walkthrough on StrategyWiki though.

I just thought I'd mention this to my fellow Racketeers. Hopefully, I'll start a good conversation for this curio of a game.

[Anapan]

I didn't know that it's Pac-Man's little brother. I gave it a few minutes on my MAME arcade test console when verifying roms and I removed it from from my 1400 short-game list back when I was revising and removing clones and making sure every game was the definitive one when all consoles are taken into account. When removing clones, it lost to Krypton Egg for DOS.

I tried it again just now, and MAME has its analog controls calibrated very low compared to more well-known vertical spinner games - it's unresponsive, and unimpressive graphically as well on first boot. I'm using analog trackballs for vertical and horizontal so my experience is not indicative of someone playing the original, or even someone with a real weighted spinner hooked into a PC properly.
After adjusting its controls, I did have some fun with it, tho it's kinda unforgiving still.