When it comes to arcade games, there are a lot of genres that you can expect to find out of most titles. Space shooters, run ‘n gunners, beat-’em-ups, and fighting games are generally what you will find most often whenever you walk into an arcade somewhere, but of course, there are plenty of titles from the arcades that take a less common genre found there and try to experiment with it. One such genre would be the RPG, which you would generally never see fully within an arcade game. Given how RPGs typically are these big, open-ended games that will take many hours to fully complete, and wouldn’t typically work for a type of game that usually requires inserting money into it to keep going. That being said, there have been plenty of games that have taken the RPG genre and mixed it with other genres for arcade games, which have made some pretty solid titles, with one of the best examples that I have seen of this being with today’s game, Cadash.
I have heard about this game now for a little bit now, its name circulating around the internet, and I have heard that it was a pretty solid game, along with the ports of the game also being hot garbage. Of course, given how I apparently can’t change my habits, I then went for a long time without trying the game for myself to see if these claims were true, but now, I decided to finally give it a shot, and see if it really is that good. Thankfully, after I now have played through the game, I can say that I genuinely had a pretty great time with the game, and I would say that it is really good for what it is. Obviously, a lot of it is generic for an arcade title, and there definitely will be things here that some others would not get much out of, but for me, it was really refreshing to play a game like this, and I’m glad that I finally tried it out.
The story is literally every generic medieval plot ever, where the princess Sarasa is kidnapped by the evil Baarogue, and it is up to a team of your generic fantasy heroes to go on an epic journey to save her, which is fine for the type of game this is, but I wish there was at least some little difference in the story, the graphics are typical for a late 80s Taito arcade game, but it still looks good enough, and there was nothing off-putting about the presentation directly, the music is also typical for this kind of game, but there were some tracks in there that I did really like, such as the jingle you get for getting a quest item, the control is exactly what you would expect for this type of game, which works well enough, even if some stuff like talking to NPCs can be a little wonky at times, and the gameplay is about what you would expect when you look at screenshots for the game, but there is that little more implemented from the RPG genre in there to make it more unique and charming.
The game is primarily an action-adventure platformer, where you take control of one of four warriors, each falling under a class that you would typically find in an RPG, travel through the many different lands that are found in the land of Cadash, defeat many different monsters and enemies that will attempt to take you down through several different means, gather plenty of gold, upgrades, and health items that will help you out along the way, and defeat plenty of big bosses that will give you quite a challenge… at least, they would, if you don’t properly level yourself up and get plenty of equipment. So yeah, on the platforming side of things, it is pretty typical for an arcade game, so there is nothing to get excited about there. What is there to get you excited though, however, is how seamlessly this game mixes the platforming elements with RPG and adventure elements.
Everything surrounding the base gameplay works pretty much exactly like a traditional RPG would from around that time. You can travel through towns, talk with NPCs to learn more about the world, go to various shops to buy items, armor, and weapons, as well as Inns to fully heal yourself, you can receive status ailments like poison that you would need to heal with antidotes, and as you fight enemies, you will gain experience points and eventually level up, increasing your strength, health, and other stats the more levels you gain. In addition to this, the way you progress through the game also works like how an RPG would, where you will need to go out of your way to get certain items from certain places, and then need to backtrack to previous areas to use these items to proceed forward. Like with the platforming elements, these mechanics are very typical for an RPG, but once again, what makes these mechanics exciting and interesting is how they are very well blended into the platforming gameplay, making the game more fun as a result. What also helped this was how you do feel a gradual sense of progression throughout the game, with you feeling stronger the more you gain levels and when you buy more powerful gear.
Now, despite all of that sounding like a pretty good match, there are definitely some problems that do hold the game back. In terms of all of the minor issues, there is a bit of arcade syndrome to be found here, where the game will throw plenty of enemies at you at once to hopefully try to replicate difficulty, but thankfully, this time around, it really isn’t that big of a deal. There is a timer, which I feel isn’t really needed for a game like this, and there are several instances where you have to refight bosses that you have previously defeated, which is somewhat annoying, but again, you have gotten stronger ever since first encountering them, so it isn’t that big of an issue either. For all the major issues, first of all, the game can be repetitive, where for most of the sections of the game, you just have to go through, kill a bunch of enemies, fight a boss, and move on, with maybe a bit of shopping here or there to get better gear, which could turn some away, but thankfully for me, it didn’t really bother me too much. And finally, there are a LOT of grammar errors in this game. Seriously, I know this is a common thing that I have been noticing with Taito arcade games, but there are so many to be found here, usually with there being at least one per conversation. It does get laughs out of me, especially with how ridiculous some of them can be, but seriously, someone needed to proof-read this three times over to fix everything.
Overall, despite several issues that do hold the game down, I ended up having a really good time with Cadash, and I think it is one of the more unique arcade platformers out there, one that I would absolutely love to go back to at some point in the future while controlling another character. I would highly recommend it for those who like arcade platformers, as well as those who are fans of RPGs, as both groups would probably find something to like about this game when trying it out. It is a shame though that this never got any kind of follow-up of any kind. Then again, I’m sure if there was a follow-up, it would probably ruin what this game had already done, and we already have the ports of the game for that! Don’t need anything else.
Game #423
I have heard about this game now for a little bit now, its name circulating around the internet, and I have heard that it was a pretty solid game, along with the ports of the game also being hot garbage. Of course, given how I apparently can’t change my habits, I then went for a long time without trying the game for myself to see if these claims were true, but now, I decided to finally give it a shot, and see if it really is that good. Thankfully, after I now have played through the game, I can say that I genuinely had a pretty great time with the game, and I would say that it is really good for what it is. Obviously, a lot of it is generic for an arcade title, and there definitely will be things here that some others would not get much out of, but for me, it was really refreshing to play a game like this, and I’m glad that I finally tried it out.
The story is literally every generic medieval plot ever, where the princess Sarasa is kidnapped by the evil Baarogue, and it is up to a team of your generic fantasy heroes to go on an epic journey to save her, which is fine for the type of game this is, but I wish there was at least some little difference in the story, the graphics are typical for a late 80s Taito arcade game, but it still looks good enough, and there was nothing off-putting about the presentation directly, the music is also typical for this kind of game, but there were some tracks in there that I did really like, such as the jingle you get for getting a quest item, the control is exactly what you would expect for this type of game, which works well enough, even if some stuff like talking to NPCs can be a little wonky at times, and the gameplay is about what you would expect when you look at screenshots for the game, but there is that little more implemented from the RPG genre in there to make it more unique and charming.
The game is primarily an action-adventure platformer, where you take control of one of four warriors, each falling under a class that you would typically find in an RPG, travel through the many different lands that are found in the land of Cadash, defeat many different monsters and enemies that will attempt to take you down through several different means, gather plenty of gold, upgrades, and health items that will help you out along the way, and defeat plenty of big bosses that will give you quite a challenge… at least, they would, if you don’t properly level yourself up and get plenty of equipment. So yeah, on the platforming side of things, it is pretty typical for an arcade game, so there is nothing to get excited about there. What is there to get you excited though, however, is how seamlessly this game mixes the platforming elements with RPG and adventure elements.
Everything surrounding the base gameplay works pretty much exactly like a traditional RPG would from around that time. You can travel through towns, talk with NPCs to learn more about the world, go to various shops to buy items, armor, and weapons, as well as Inns to fully heal yourself, you can receive status ailments like poison that you would need to heal with antidotes, and as you fight enemies, you will gain experience points and eventually level up, increasing your strength, health, and other stats the more levels you gain. In addition to this, the way you progress through the game also works like how an RPG would, where you will need to go out of your way to get certain items from certain places, and then need to backtrack to previous areas to use these items to proceed forward. Like with the platforming elements, these mechanics are very typical for an RPG, but once again, what makes these mechanics exciting and interesting is how they are very well blended into the platforming gameplay, making the game more fun as a result. What also helped this was how you do feel a gradual sense of progression throughout the game, with you feeling stronger the more you gain levels and when you buy more powerful gear.
Now, despite all of that sounding like a pretty good match, there are definitely some problems that do hold the game back. In terms of all of the minor issues, there is a bit of arcade syndrome to be found here, where the game will throw plenty of enemies at you at once to hopefully try to replicate difficulty, but thankfully, this time around, it really isn’t that big of a deal. There is a timer, which I feel isn’t really needed for a game like this, and there are several instances where you have to refight bosses that you have previously defeated, which is somewhat annoying, but again, you have gotten stronger ever since first encountering them, so it isn’t that big of an issue either. For all the major issues, first of all, the game can be repetitive, where for most of the sections of the game, you just have to go through, kill a bunch of enemies, fight a boss, and move on, with maybe a bit of shopping here or there to get better gear, which could turn some away, but thankfully for me, it didn’t really bother me too much. And finally, there are a LOT of grammar errors in this game. Seriously, I know this is a common thing that I have been noticing with Taito arcade games, but there are so many to be found here, usually with there being at least one per conversation. It does get laughs out of me, especially with how ridiculous some of them can be, but seriously, someone needed to proof-read this three times over to fix everything.
Overall, despite several issues that do hold the game down, I ended up having a really good time with Cadash, and I think it is one of the more unique arcade platformers out there, one that I would absolutely love to go back to at some point in the future while controlling another character. I would highly recommend it for those who like arcade platformers, as well as those who are fans of RPGs, as both groups would probably find something to like about this game when trying it out. It is a shame though that this never got any kind of follow-up of any kind. Then again, I’m sure if there was a follow-up, it would probably ruin what this game had already done, and we already have the ports of the game for that! Don’t need anything else.
Game #423