MASSIVE ISLAND DESTRUCTION
It's destruction on an unprecedented scale.
Islands and continents are collapsing with all life on them, with no end in sight.
Except vanishing into the ocean.
The terrifying cause?
A man with a jackhammer, fighting hordes of monsters.
Yeah, Dig Dug is back. After its debut on Arcade Archives: Dig Dug, Hamster and Namco brings the sequel to the line up: Arcade Archives Dig Dug II.
As part of the "Namco Month" that will be this April, Hamster released Dig Dug II as the starting title. Namco is gonna fall upon us like a swarm of MQ-101's from the Arsenal Bird (as if they didn't do that already). But right now let's talk about the game.
Redefining the concept of "Extreme Measures".
38 Year old and older gamers are already familiarized with Dig Dug's mechanics; the deeper Dig Dug and either Pooka or Fygar are under the ground when you blow them to death, the greater the score will be. Dig Dug II retains the pump killing mechanic, but in a minor role since there's no underground levels like before. With the classic rules off and with Pooka and Fygar still on the loose, Dig Dug now takes extreme measures and decides to exterminate them throughout a different way of destruction: Destruction within the context of continental crust. Yeah, the new mechanic here is using your Air pump/Jackhammer to create fissures on the surface of the island using the marks on the ground as reference. After fully tracing the diving fault on the surface, that fragment of the island will sink into the ocean, reducing the player's movement space, but what's more important, anything within the collapsing surface will be killed, and if there's two or more enemies trapped you'll be getting larger bonus points such as 4,000 points or higher. The best strategy in this game is trying to confine the largest number of monsters possible within the area to break, this is where the air pump function comes in handy. Like in the first Dig Dug, you can stun your enemies by inflating them and even pass through them unharmed. Stunning them is the key for create a chain score. But be careful 'cos the surface collapse can also take Dig Dug down if you're careless.
Pop or Drown? It's your choice, Mr. Pooka.
Despite the sense of experimentation with a new sequel, it was unsuccessful and lacked the popularity of the first game, and that might be the reason why the game wasn't released overseas by Atari who released the first game and that shade was carried on terms of home ports since the game wasn't ported to consoles as much as the original Dig Dug. Only the NES and the X68000 were the only consoles which got a port, being the X68000 the most arcade-accurate back then. It might be a failure, but not as much as let's say Pac & Pal. Despite being a failure, it was later ported to the PSP as part of Namco Museum Battle Collection and Namco Museum DS on the Nintendo DS. The Wii got a port of this game twice in the Wii Virtual Console and as part of Namco Museum Megamix. In a twist of fate, it had one more console release as part of Hamster's Arcade Archives thanks to that double-edged favoritism towards Namco. I said double-edged because they gave us things we don't asked like Pac & Pal and Navarone, and sometimes they surprised us with Assault, Metal Hawk and Phelios. Dig Dug II is in stalemate on that perspective. Is not a bad game at all, but still no one asked for it. As an Arcade Archives port, the game features the original mode, based on the original Japanese ROM and the alternative Hi-Score and Caravan modes with the respective amount of 6 trophies for your PlayStation account.
Graphically, it manages to create islands with a simple 3D-ish feel (notice the ground below the grass surface) rather than being fully vertical like Pac-Man or completely horizontal like Mappy. The character cast remains the same: Pooka and Fygar and of course, our hero, Dig Dug ("Can't you just call him Taizo Hori?" Sorry, this is Pre-Mr. Driller era, his name is Dig Dug. Live with it), who finally has a flesh colored face, looking more human and less than a Smurf. However, while the artwork depicts him with white arms and blue gloves, his arms are completely blue, making it look a little bit "Bomberman-ish" but its still an improvement over the first game.
The audio on the other side loses its charm. While in the first game, the music was "generated" by Dig Dug when he was on movement and paused when he stops giving the game a comical pun like an old cartoon. In Dig Dug II the music plays regardless if you're moving or not and it sounds like a variation of the music from the first game while the level clear tune is based on the original game's "game start" theme.
DIG DUG'ED CURIOSITIES II
- The premise of sinking islands was later used on Dig Dug: Digging Strike.
- The game was reimagined as the Online PC game Dig Dug Island.
- For some reason, Bandai added the subtitle "Trouble in Paradise" to the NES port of the game, just like they did with Galaga: Demons of Death and Xevious: The Avenger.
- It was never specified what's Dig Dug/Taizo's job really is. The Game Boy manual of Dig Dug said he was a gardener which irrigated the soil of the player's garden, while the Atari manuals and packages said he was in pursuit of vegetables.
- On Dig Dug: Digging Strike the game clearly confims that Taizo is an exterminator. A messenger of death if you want to call him like that.
- Looks like sequel failure runs in the Hori/Masuyo family: Dig Dug II didn't get the same popularity as its predecessor, Bakutotsu Kijutei: Baraduke II was considered inferior to Baraduke, and Mr. Driller A is the commercial failure of the Mr. Driller series.
- The Arcade Archives manual refers the protagonist as both "Digdug" and "Dig Dug".
- In the United Galaxy Space Force's timeline, Dig Dug II takes place on the year 2383.
THEY DIG DUG'D UP: THE DIG DUG-UGSF INCONSISTENCIES
- Some of Dig Dug and Mr. Driller profile data clashes with their place within the UGSF. According to Mr. Driller's in-game lore, it is said that Taizo and his family are Asian and one of the things he like is Egypt, Since the UGSF takes place on Ace Combat's Strangereal Earth these become huge contradictions since Egypt and Asia doesn't exist there, unless we can say he could be Anean (North Asia-like continent), Verusan (Strangereal's Afro-Eurasia) or Usean (Strangereal's Australia with Japanese "Erusean" language) and loves Sotoa which are basically the Asia and Africa of that alternate world.
- Another inconsistency can be found on Mr. Driller II, Anna Hottenmeyer's nationality is German, which also clashes since there's no Germany on Strangereal, and the closest thing to Germany is the Principality of Belka on the Osean continent.
- During the intro cutscene of Dig Dug: Digging Strike the TV news show a map of the real world rather than Strangereal.
- In the game Mr. Driller's DrillLand there's an India themed stage.
- The lone exception of these inconsistencies is the plotline from the back of the NES port of Dig Dug II where they said Dig Dug was taking a vacation on an unnamed Caribbean island. ¿The reasons? That storyline was written in 1989, 10 years before both UGSF and Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere were conceived and the in-game universe thought that Dig Dug lived in the same Earth as us.
No big deal.
Just killing Pookas by destroying the ground they're walking.
Arcade Archives: Dig Dug II might be an obscure experimental sequel that tries to pull something different and failed in the exection, but its still a part of Dig Dug and arcade history. I can only recommend this unless you're huge Dig Dug/Mr. Driller fans or if you want a simple trophy boost.
¿What surprises will Namco bring to us the following weeks? We don't know yet, but we can only hope for the best as long as they move from the 80's and make the incursion into the 90's.
UPDATE: Hamster revealed Cosmo Gang: The Video as the next week's release. So, this means good news for shmuppers.
It's between "Neutral" and "Meh" in the Lea Scale.