VARIOUS, 1990
■ The origin of this arcade conversion is convoluted, and at the centre of the chaos was sequel to the eight and 16-bit computers, probably on the back of its successful work on . For whatever reason, the deal with Taito elapsed (or fell through) and the legal wranglings were further intensified when MicroProse acquired Telecomsoft in 1989. It took an outside source – Ocean – to solve the mess, stepping in to purchase both the rights to the game and the existing work done by Graftgold, eventually releasing the game in 1990. It was worth the wait, as each version of is a multicoloured marvel, a cute and charming platformer that’s just as much fun as it was in the arcades. Special kudos goes to Andrew Braybrook’s Amiga version. On a computer that hadn’t always excelled at arcade conversions, the ace Graftgold coder produced a game that became the standard for platformers on the Amiga for many years to come.
