GOTD 6/10/2016: Pooyan (PS2)
Back in 1982, Konami developed Pooyan for arcades. It was a vertical monitor cabinet about a mama pig out to save her piglets from a gang of balloon-loving hungry wolves. As the natural habitat for both species apparently exists solely between two huge trees, Mama hops into her pulley elevator pulled by some burly piggies, whips out her bow and arrow, and starts making some wolves regret climbing trees and using balloons as parachutes. It's practically National Geographic.
Being a single-screen action game, Pooyan focuses on simple gameplay driven by a scoring system. In the first type of stage, mama defends her babies in her elevator by moving up and down and firing arrows at the balloons that the wolves are using to base jump, sending them plummeting to the ground. Should a wolf make it to the ground, it will climb Mama's tree and bite at her as she maneuvers up and down. Falling wolves can also chuck rocks at mama, and a direct hit or a bite will cost her a life. In repeat versions of this screen, the boss wolf will drop fruit, which, while granting points to shoot, will block your arrows, and wolves become adept at blocking arrows. Fortunately, mama can grab a great big slab of meat at the top of the screen, which she can throw to kill more than one wolf/fruit at a time. This is your primary scoring opportunity, as chaining multiple wolves on one piece of meat gives you a hefty multiplier.
The secondary stage is similar, but this time features mama trying to save her piggies kidnapped in the first level while wolves ride balloons from the ground upward to the top of the tree, hoping to drop a boulder on mama's head and crush her elevator. If too many reach the top, it's curtains. In both stages, a pre-determined number of wolves must be grounded in order to win, but in the second screen, you must shoot down the boss wolf, who has a flashing balloon and is an adept blocker, so the meat is a great option there. Be warned, decoy balloons fly up as well, and balloons in this stage can take multiple hits before going down. Again, chaining multiple hits on one chunk of meat is your key to big scores.
After clearing each screen, you get to play a bonus level where you huck only meat logs at rising wolves or shoot arrows at falling fruit. This is again a chance to rack up big scores with accurate shooting and quality meat handling. After clearing or failing these stages, another, more difficult loop begins, rinse, repeat.
Pooyan's graphics are solid for their time, and the sound is pretty average. The gameplay is addictive and timeless, and it was popular enough to get an Atari 2600 port, a Famicom port, a slew of home computer versions, and appearances on PS1 and PS2 on discs. It's a game based more on positioning and timing than reflexes, and the risk of waiting for just the right second to hit as many wolves as possible with your meat is a fun kind of tension. While I generally prefer a game with an ending, sometimes it's a good time to sit back and rack up a good score, and it's been a hit in tournaments.
Played it? Have a favorite version?
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Originally Posted by CRTGAMER
