Arkanoid – Eternal Battle

Genre: Arcade Brick Breaker

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local), 25 Competitive (Online), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Arkanoid is one of the oldest and most recognizable franchises in the Arcade Brick Breaker genre, second only to the genre’s originator, Breakout. The first game was released in arcades in 1986, and since then it has seen numerous ports and sequels. The first of these to release in the current generation is Arkanoid – Eternal Battle, which was released in 2022 on the PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

The presentation here is good, albeit nothing truly spectacular. The game uses 2D visuals, with a lot of nice effects thrown in as well, such as static “glitching” at some points. This is backed by a techno-style synthesized soundtrack that fits the game’s somewhat futuristic presentation quite well.

In a way, Arkanoid – Eternal Battle is almost a Compilation title, as it contains multiple game modes which each offer something distinctly different. From the main menu, in addition to the Help, Options, and Leaderboards selections, players have access to Neo, Versus, Retro, and Eternal Battle modes

Neo mode is a standard campaign mode. This game mode doesn’t do anything to really shake up the genre, but solo players looking for a more traditional experience in the genre that’s still new will want to choose this game mode.

Versus mode pits up to four local players (and/or bots) against one another with unlimited lives, with the goal of being the first one to clear your stage. I should note that this is the only multiplayer mode in this game that lets you choose your opponents.

Retro mode is a port of the original Arkanoid, played on a recreated arcade cabinet with arcadey sounds in the background.

Finally, Eternal Battle is a Battle Royale mode of sorts, that seems very reminiscent of games like Pac-Man 99 and Super Mario Bros. 35. In this game mode, you and 24 online opponents compete to try to get the highest score without getting eliminated as the weakest players are knocked off at regular intervals.

Overall, this is a pretty good selection of game modes. In each game mode, you control your paddle using the analog stick, with one button for in-game abilities and one to use special attack abilities in multiplayer games (where applicable). Players can also use ZL and ZR to slam their paddle to all the way the far left or far right, which is a nice touch. However, I really would have liked more control over your own paddle’s standard movement speed – designating buttons to speed up or slow down your paddle as some other entries in the genre do would have been nice.

There are other flaws as well here that sneak into each of the game modes. Versus mode does not allow you to disable attacks, and Retro mode does not allow you to change the display settings so you’re just looking at the game on-screen rather than having to see through a simulated CRT display. And while Eternal Battle is a great idea in theory, in practice the online lobbies are absolutely deserted, even though the game supports cross-play – expect to play this mode against a lot of bots.

In addition to these problems, all of the game modes here (except Retro) gradually speed up the ball at such a fast rate that it usually isn’t long before you can barely keep up, let alone strategize where you’re hitting the ball. Thankfully the only game mode that heavily punishes dying while this is in effect is the Neo mode, but this issue still makes for a lot of frustrating deaths that don’t exactly feel fair.

Overall, Arkanoid – Eternal Battle is still an enjoyable Arcade Brick Breaker, but it has multiple issues that keep it from being better than it is. A lack of options, an overly-harsh difficulty curve, and a deserted online community all detract from what could have been a solid entry in this series. Those who enjoy Arcade Brick Breakers may still want to give this a try, but it’s far from the best this genre has to offer on Nintendo Switch.

tl;dr – Arkanoid – Eternal Battle is an Arcade Brick Breaker with multiple game modes that all offer something unique and interesting, but this game suffers overall due to a lack of options, issues with its difficulty curve, and deserted online lobbies. This is still an enjoyable entry in the genre, but it definitely seems like it is a worse game than it could have been.

Grade: C+

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