Arkanoid Eternal Battle Review (Xbox Series S)

by Jim Smale · November 1, 2022

For our Arkanoid Eternal Battle Review, we play Eternal Battle, an iconic arcade game developed by TAITO Corporation in 1986. When the mother ship ARKANOID comes under attack, the small spacecraft VAUS manages to escape but ends up warped into another dimension. Wandering in an inter-dimensional labyrinth, VAUS must destroy blocks called “spacewalls” in order to defeat “DOH”, the creator of the maze responsible for ARKANOID’s destruction.

Arkanoid Eternal Battle Review Pros:

Decent graphics.
693.4MB download size.
1000 Gamerscore.
Brick breaker gameplay.
Four game modes – Eternal Battle (25-player online battle royale), Vs (2-4 local), Neo, and retro original 1986 version.
Controller sensitivity slider.
Help is the tutorial with images as to how to play and what power-ups mean.
Online leaderboards.
The original game is played on a small screen with an arcade cabinet wallpaper around it.
Eternal Battle will put Ai players in to make up the numbers.
The top four players left in Eternal battle then all face Doh at the same time in which you need to score from hits on him, the walls are invisible and he can shoot you.
Eliminations in Eternal Battle are every 20 seconds the lowest-scoring player is eliminated.
You lose points in Eternal Battle by losing the ball or not clearing the screen fast enough.
Has cross-play support.
Plays just like it always does.

Arkanoid Eternal Battle Review Cons:

No history of the game or the genre.
You cannot do any game or controller settings.
The original game is a small screen and you have no settings to change the screen size or anything.
The lack of any help as you play, especially against Doh is really bad.
New players will struggle to take in what power-ups do.
The skins unlocked in Eternal mode are for that game mode only. struggled to find any human players.
The eternal mode goes on far too long.
Unappealing unlocks and rewards.
Cannot turn off crossplay.

Arkanoid Eternal Battle:

Official website.

Developer: Pasta Games

Publisher: Microids

Store Links –

Xbox

8/10
Graphics - 8/10
7/10
Sound - 7/10
6/10
Accessibility - 6/10
6/10
Length - 6/10
6/10
Fun Factor - 6/10

6.6/10

Summary

Arkanoid is back and this time around it’s a battle royale! We’ve had successful Tetris, Bomberman, and even Mario battle royale so Arkanoid can surely compete. It doesn’t, not at all. First off they go for an eliminator-style game whereby every 20 seconds the last placed player will be eliminated. If you don’t clear the screen fast enough, you score by playing but lose points by losing the ball. Of course, this is all after you read the paragraph about what the mode is and then play it many times to figure out just what the fuck is going on. I started off thinking it could be a good alternative battle royale but it’s just not fun to play, the final four players get to do a live boss fight against Doh but even that is limited, they go with cheap gimmicks like distorting the screen or having opponent screens flash past yours. I wouldn’t say I like how long games go on and the random nature of the block puzzles means you can have a quick clear or a quick death. Retro gamers, they throw in the original game but it’s chucked in there with no love for the game or its history. Overall I just found this to be a bust and is more an insult to the name than anything else.