This week's Arcade Archives release is Konami's "wire-action" title Roc 'N Rope, an early arcade game from the creator of the Ghosts 'n Goblins series and Bionic Commando and the co-creator of Resident Evil, Tokuro Fujiwara.
Released in 1983, Roc 'N Rope was one of two games developed by Fujiwara while he was still employed at Konami (the other being the 1982 archery-based shooter Pooyan), and is sometimes considered to be a spiritual predecessor to some of his later projects, including Bionic Commando and The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse, due to all of these games sharing the same core mechanic of placing ropes to climb to higher platforms.
In contrast to those other games, however, which were sidescrollers, Roc 'N Rope is a simple fixed platformer with no horizontal scrolling. Instead, it sees players take control of a mountain climber, whose job is to ascend four separate screens (a cliff-side, windmill, waterfall, and ice cave). This involves manoeuvring around dangerous dinosaurs and cavemen to collect a bunch of feathers and reach the golden bird positioned at the top of the screen.
To help them, players have two main abilities at their disposal — placing ropes and using the beam on their headlight to temporarily stun the enemies they encounter — but they can also occasionally pick up flashing orbs scattered through the level to grant them temporary invincibility and the power to attack enemies directly.
Here's the official description released with this new reissue:
"ROC'N ROPE" is an action game released by KONAMI in 1983. In pursuit of the lucky bird, the Roc, you must climb higher and higher through various locations, including cliffs and ice caves. Use the rope, which can be fired diagonally upwards, to create the optimal route for a safe ascent!"
Roc 'N Rope will be released tomorrow, on Thursday, December 11th, across PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, and Xbox Series X|S.
As always, the Arcade Archives version of the game (Nintendo Switch & PS4) will include an additional Hi Score Mode and Caravan Mode and will cost $7.99, while the Arcade Archives 2 edition also adds a bonus Time Attack Mode and will be priced slightly higher ($9.99).
Will you be picking this one up? Let us know in the comments!