Crazy Balloon, an action game originally released into arcades by Taito way back in 1980, is this week’s Arcade Archives release.
The game follows other recent Arcade Archives releases on which we’ve reported, such as Spinal Breakers, Nebula Ray, and Punk Shot. Along with the Arcade Archives 2 release of Ridge Racer, all of which give you the chance to play emulated classics in your home exactly as they were in the arcades.
Hamster Corporation describes the gameplay of Crazy Balloon as follows: “guide a swaying balloon through a thorny maze and attempt to reach the goal while avoiding traps such as moving thorns, scrolling mazes and more.”
As usual, the latest Arcade Archives release is available for both PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. The Arcade Archives version of Crazy Balloon was released yesterday (June 26, 2005).
In recent(ish) years, Crazy Balloon has been released on 2007’s Taito Legends 2 compilation for PlayStation 2 and PC. An updated version of the game titled Crazy Balloon 2005 also appeared on on the Taito Legends Power-Up for PSP, also in 2007.
While Crazy Balloon never received official ports to 8-bit home computers, it did inspire clones of the game, which were released in 1983 under the titles Crazy Balloon (Commodore 64) and Crazy Balloons (ZX Spectrum).
