Rally Bike

Rally Bike[lower-alpha 1] is a racing arcade video game originally developed by Toaplan and published by Taito on May 1988.[2]

Rally Bike
Developer(s)Toaplan
Visco Corporation (NES)
SPS (X68000)
Publisher(s)Taito
NES
Sharp Corporation (X68000)
Composer(s)Osamu Ōta
Platform(s)Arcade, Nintendo Entertainment System, Sharp X68000
ReleaseArcade
  • WW: May 1988[1]
NES
  • JP: 15 June 1990
  • NA: September 1990
X68000
  • JP: 23 May 1991
Genre(s)Racing
Mode(s)

In Rally Bike, players compete against computer-controlled opponents on races across various locations in the United States. Initially released for the arcades, the title was later ported to other platforms by different third-party developers including the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sharp X68000, with each one featuring several changes and additions compared to the original version.

Rally Bike was met with mixed reception from video game magazines and dedicated outlets that reviewed the game when it launched in arcades and its ports. As of 2019, the rights to the title is owned by Tatsujin, a company founded in 2017 by former Toaplan member Masahiro Yuge and now-affiliate of Japanese arcade manufacturer exA-Arcadia alongside many other Toaplan IPs.

Gameplay
Arcade screenshot

Rally Bike is a top-down motorcycle road racing game where players observe from above and races across six increasingly difficult stages, along with two bonus stages, taking place in North America with the main objective of crossing the finish line by passing an established number of competitors before doing so.[3][4] Along the way, players must also dodge incoming obstacles scattered on the stages to avoid any accident, which causes a great reduction of fuel.[3][4]

Fuel is a major obstacle of the game as well, as players must refuel their bike by stopping at the filling station, however this will also cause competitors to take advantage, as they never run out of fuel and running out of it results in a game over unless more credits are inserted into the arcade machine to continue playing.[3][4]

On occasions, a helicopter will come and drop an item to the road during races, ranging from turbo (which can be increased a second time by picking up the turbo item again) to helper bikers that guards the players from crashing against rival racers.[3][4] In the NES version, a shop mechanic where players can buy new parts to improve their vehicle is introduced after completing each race.[4] The title uses a checkpoint system in which a single player will respawn at the beginning of the checkpoint they managed to reach before crashing.

Development and release

Rally Bike was released in arcades worldwide on May 1988 by Taito.[1] The soundtrack was composed by Osamu Ōta under the alias "Ree".[5][6][7] On 25 June 1989, an album containing music from the title and other Toaplan games was published exclusively in Japan by Datam Polystar.[6][7]

On 15 June 1990, a Nintendo Entertainment System port of Rally Bike developed by Visco Corporation was first released in Japan and later in North America by Romstar on September of the same year.[8] The NES version does not keep the same stages and backgrounds, likely due to hardware limitations. On 23 May 1991, The title later received a faithful conversion to the Sharp X68000 by SPS and only published in Japan by Sharp Corporation, although it contains several minor differences when compared to the original version such as the modified aspect ratio, missing animations, among other changes.[9][10]

Reception and legacy

In Japan, Game Machine listed Rally Bike on their July 1, 1988 issue as being the second most-popular arcade game at the time.[16] The game received mixed response from critics since its release in arcades.[14] Commodore User criticized the controls but praised the graphics.[17] Both Robin Hogg and Cameron Pound from The Games Machine commended the presentation, visuals and gameplay but noted the design in later levels to be one of the game's negative points.[18] Andy Smith of ACE regarded the title as "challenging stuff that's bound to appeal to driving and racing fans".[19][20] Anthony Baize of AllGame deemed it to be a difficult but enjoyable experience.[11]

Other ports of Rally Bike were met with mixed reception from reviewers.[12] Fan reception was also mixed: readers of Famimaga voted to give the Nintendo Entertainment System version a 15.75 out of 30 score in a poll.[21] However, the X68000 version proved to be relatively popular among the X68000 userbase.[22]

In more recent years, the rights to the game and many other IPs from Toaplan are now owned by Tatsujin, a company named after Truxton's Japanese title that was founded in 2017 by former Toaplan employee Masahiro Yuge, who are now affiliated with arcade manufacturer exA-Arcadia.[23][24][25][26][27]

Notes
  1. Also known as Dash Rascal (Japanese: ダッシュ野郎, Hepburn: Dash Yarō) in Japan.

References
  1. Akagi, Masumi (13 October 2006). タイトー (Taito); 東亜プラン (Toa Plan); Taito America; R. アーケードTVゲームリスト 国内•海外編 (1971-2005) (in Japanese) (1st ed.). Amusement News Agency. pp. 43, 50, 137, 162. ISBN 978-4990251215.
  2. "東亜プラン". Gamest (in Japanese). No. 49. Shinseisha. September 1990. (Translation by Shmuplations. Archived 2019-11-07 at the Wayback Machine).
  3. "ダッシュ野郎" (in Japanese). Shooting Star. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  4. Rally Bike instruction booklet (Nintendo Entertainment System, US)
  5. Abeto, Kobatsu (September 1989). "東亜プランインタビュー". PSG (in Japanese). Vol. 10. FSG. (Translation by Shmuplations. Archived 2017-05-31 at the Wayback Machine).
  6. "H24X-10005 | TATSUJIN ~TOA PLAN GAME MUSIC SCENE ONE~". vgmdb.net. VGMdb. Archived from the original on 8 May 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  7. Kotowski, Don (1 August 2012). "Truxton -Toaplan Game Music Scene-". vgmonline.net. Video Game Music Online. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  8. "FAMICOM Soft > 1990" (in Japanese). GAME Data Room. Archived from the original on 27 August 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  9. "The Softouch - Software Information: ダッシュ野郎". Oh!X (in Japanese). No. 110. SoftBank Creative. June 1991. p. 28.
  10. Matsubara, Keigo (2019). "X680x0ソフトリスト963タイトル" (in Japanese). Video Game Search. Archived from the original on 15 April 2017. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  11. Baize, Anthony (1998). "Rally Bike (Arcade) - Review". AllGame. All Media Network. Archived from the original on 16 November 2014. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  12. "ダッシュ野郎 (ファミコン) - ファミ通.com". Famitsu (in Japanese). ASCII. 1990. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  13. Zenji, Nishikawa (August 1991). "The Softouch - Game Review - ダッシュ野郎". Oh!X (in Japanese). No. 112. SoftBank Creative. p. 37.
  14. Lenhardt, Heinrich (April 1989). "Automatenspiele - Rally Bike". Power Play (in German). No. 13. Future Verlag. p. 67.
  15. "Gaming World - ダッシュ野郎". Technopolis (in Japanese). No. 97. Tokuma Shoten. July 1991. p. 25.
  16. "Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 - テーブル型TVゲーム機 (Table Videos)". Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 335. Amusement Press, Inc. 1 July 1988. p. 21.
  17. "Arcade: Rally Bike - Taito (2 x 10p)". Commodore User. No. 59. EMAP. August 1988. p. 98.
  18. Hogg, Robin; Pound, Cameron (August 1988). "Confrontation: Coin-Op - Rally Bike". The Games Machine. No. 9. Newsfield Publications. p. 81.
  19. Smith, Andy (September 1988). "Arcades: Trike Force! - Extended Play... -- Rally Bike". ACE. No. 12. EMAP. p. 27.
  20. Smith, Andy (June 1989). "Arcade Ace: Extended Play... - Rally Bike". ACE. No. 21. EMAP. p. 23.
  21. "Famicom ROM Cassette All Catalog '91 全787本 5月10日号特別付録 - ダッシュ野郎". Famimaga (in Japanese). Vol. 7 no. 9. Tokuma Shoten. 10 May 1991. p. 276.
  22. "The Softouch - Software Information: なんとフアランクスがあのパロに!". Oh!X (in Japanese). No. 113. SoftBank Creative. September 1991. p. 29.
  23. "ライセンス事業" (in Japanese). TATSUJIN Co., Ltd. 2019. Archived from the original on 25 December 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  24. Bravo, Roberto (12 September 2018). "Nueva compañía "Tatsujin" asegura tener gran parte de las IPs de la extinta Toaplan" (in Spanish). Gamercafe. Archived from the original on 21 October 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  25. "Tatsujin". exA-Arcadia. 2019. Archived from the original on 21 October 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  26. Bravo, Roberto (25 January 2019). "Tatsujin, los dueños de Toaplan, anuncian que están trabajando para exA-Arcadia" (in Spanish). Gamercafe. Archived from the original on 21 October 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  27. "［JAEPO2019］TATSUJINやナツメアタリの参入が発表されたexA-Arcadia。出展コーナーの模様を紹介". 4Gamer.net (in Japanese). Aetas Inc. 26 January 2019. Archived from the original on 21 October 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
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