Lupin III is an arcade game developed by Taito that was released in 1980. It was the first Lupin III game.
Gameplay[]
The player has to guide Lupin (who does not resemble the thief) in a maze. The goal is to steal the money bags from the top of the screen towards the bottom while avoiding guards and guard dogs. After collecting the money bags, Lupin's movement speed deceases on how many bags that he collects. There is a move where the player can move out of the way however this deduces your score.
After the end of every stage, a cutscene where Lupin in a classic car travels towards the park and meets Fujiko. After completing three stages, she falls in love with Lupin. In the International version, Fujiko declares her love to Lupin after completing the fourth stage.
Ports[]
The game was ported to the Japanese home computer Fujitsu FM-7 by CPU Software, it is unknown whether they got the license from Taito to port the game however it was renamed to Lupin the 3. Due to the differences in hardware the graphics became simplified; Lupin became a club, the guards became a m character, the bags became a $ symbol that turn into a 0 when collected. Lupin can now only carry two bags instead of multiple times that slows down the character.
While the game also features cutscenes, they are different than the arcade original. There is an opening where a van goes into a bank and the cutscene of Lupin going into the building was changed to the title. The game over screen was changed from Lupin getting arrested and taken to a police van to Lupin gets shot by a guard.
The controls for the port are:
- 2 - Down
- 4 - Left
- 6 - Right
- 8 - Up
There was also a port on the Sharp MZ-80K developed by Teruo Matsuura and released in March 1981, this appeared in I/O and ran on BASIC.[1]
The original arcade version will be featured on the Taito Egret II Mini.[2]
Notes[]
- There are two versions of the game known to exist: The first version was only released in Japan and only had the characters in yellow. The second version was released internationally with various improvements such as music, characters were in different colors, a stage clear jingle and messages when a player completes a stage. There is also a toggle to choose from the Japanese title and an English title on the title screen. In MAME, Set 1 is Japan while Set 2 is International. According to Japanese Wikipedia, there were a further two revisions both that were modified from Space Invaders with one having the characters in purple and both have different sound however this is yet to be verified or dumped.
- A cocktail version was made called T.T Lupin III.
- Judging by the graphics of Lupin, the classic car and Fujiko, this was likely to be an original game that got the Lupin license added late in development. The graphics of Lupin also are different between gameplay, visiting Fujiko and the game over screen where the latter resembles Arsène Lupin. Only the opening cutscene breaking into the building resembles the series.
- It was the first licensed game to be released and developed in Japan and also the second licensed game after 280-ZZZAP. While there was also a game called Dora-chan since the Doraemon character was not licensed, the game had to be recalled.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ http://we-love-mz.sakura.ne.jp/wiki/?I%2FO%B7%C7%BA%DC%A5%BD%A5%D5%A5%C8 We Love MZ - List of Games from I/O Magazine (Japanese)
- ↑ https://taito.co.jp/egret2mini/title TITLE ─収録タイトル─ | EGRETⅡ mini | 株式会社タイトー