Super Pang (Japan 901023)

Arcade Video game published 34 years ago:

Super Pang (c) 1990 Mitchell Corp.

Super Bang is a sequel to the 1989 original in which one or two players control characters armed with harpoon guns who must destroy the numerous different-sized balloons that bounce around each single-screen stage. When hit by a harpoon, the balloons break down into smaller fragments, in a similar fashion to Atari's 1979 classic, "Asteroids".

Players can only fire the harpoon guns virtually upwards but can move left and right and climb the ladders that appear on many of the stages. The game has two different modes of play:

* PANIC MODE
In this mode, players face an endless rain of bubbles and must simply last as long as possible. The default weapon is the bubble shot and cannot be changed at any time. Each time a bubble is popped, a rainbow bar at the bottom is slowly filled. Filling the bar all the way raises the level number and the bar depletes back to zero. As more bubbles are popped, both remaining and incoming bubbles move faster. A 'Panic' music plays when there's a very large amount of bubbles on the screen, but the normal music returns once enough bubbles are popped.

There is also one special type of bubble that appears rarely. The bubble has a clock image engraved. Whenever the bubble bounces, the engraving changes to a star, and when the bubble bounces again, the engraving changes back to a clock. Popping the bubble when the clock engraving is present causes all bubbles to stop movement completely for 9 seconds, while popping the bubble when the star engraving is present causes all bubbles to be popped and the game screen gets cleared.

* TOUR MODE
In this mode players move from stage to stage, travelling around the world. The introductory stage is set in Japan and is the only stage set in this location. After Japan, players travel to parts of Asia, Europe and the Americas. Each location has three stages, with each set at a different time of day: daytime, evening and night. The few exceptions to the three-stage rule are Venice (evening and night stages only), The Mayan Ruins and the Caribbean Sea (both having only day and evening stages).

Each stage has a set layout, consisting of walls, destructible glass walls, invisible walls, ladders and ice. There are forty different stages in the Tour mode.

- TECHNICAL -

Main CPU: Zilog Z80 (@ 8 Mhz)
Sound Chips: OKI6295 (@ 7.5 Khz), YM2413 (@ 4 Mhz)

Players: 2
Control: 8-way joystick
Buttons: 1 (FIRE)

- TRIVIA -

Super Pang was released in September 1990.

This game was also released by Capcom for North America as "Super Buster Bros.".

The game forbids the initials 'SEX' on the high score table. If you try, it gets changed it to '???'.

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* Stage Select on Tour Mode: Select Tour mode. Hold down the joystick and press fire button.

* Win 500 Points in Panic Mode: Hold down the joystick and 500 points will be added to your score every few seconds by forcing the bubbles spawns. When the bubbles quota is reached on the screen, this trick don't work.

* Win 100,000 Points in Panic Mode: If you go without shooting anything for the amount of time it takes for the background song to repeat, you will automatically get 100,000 points, but the speed of the balls will suddenly become extremely fast.

- SERIES -

1. Pang (1989)
2. Super Pang (1990)
3. Pang! 3 [B-Board 94916-10] (1995)
4. Mighty! Pang [Green Board] (2000)
5. Pang - Magical Michael (2010, Nintendo DS)

- STAFF -

Planners: Uda, Futoshi Kuwahara
Designers: Kurihara, Furukawa
Programmers: Shinohara, Nakai
Composer: Takaoka

- PORTS -

* CONSOLES:
[EU] Nintendo SNES (1992) "Super Pang [Model SNSP-SN]"
[JP] Nintendo Super Famicom (aug.7, 1992) "Super Pang [Model SHVC-SN]"
[JP] Sony PlayStation (mar.14, 1997) "Super Pang Collection [Model SLPS-00360]"
[EU] Sony PlayStation (june.1998) "Super Pang Collection [Model SLES-00043]"

* HANDHELDS:
[AU] Sony PSP (jul.11, 2007) "Capcom Puzzle World"