261. Ben Bero Beh (Taito, Arcade (PS2), 1984)

Ben Bero Beh (for the first time, I was unable to translate this one) is a single screen arcade game where you control the titular dorky looking superhero Ben, as he fights fires making his way down an apartment building to rescue his girlfriend. So yes, it's essentially, literally turning the Donkey Kong formula upside down, though the gameplay is texturally different.

Movement is kind of tricky, as you can either stand or crouch while moving, though standing will make you move much faster and allow you to fire your water cannon. Progressing down stairs in Ben Bero Beh requires you to hold down the whole time Ben slowly trudges downward, and it never feels great. Your jump, like in Donkey Kong, is very low, but it serves its purpose allowing you to avoid collapsed ceilings. Jumping also moves you horizontally much faster than walking, so when the coast was clear (not very often), it felt great to hop like a madman across a floor.

The firefighting itself is not very lively, you basically just point your water at the fire and wait for about 3 seconds until it shrinks down to nothing, hoping it doesn't move towards you. I do like that you can slowly move while firing your water cannon, not a lot of games had movement & continuous firing in 1984.

The hazards that appear in each level seem to be randomly generated, so each life / playthrough feels decently different, and it gives you a feeling that this is a real fire, with smoke slowly filling the top floor as the level progresses, and the fire burning a chaotic path through the building. While Ben Bero Beh is a difficult game, every time I died, it felt like my fault for not paying attention to everything going on (though in my defense, there is a lot going on). While the first level is challenging enough to get through, the second and third really up the hazards. Once in the second level, a rain of a dozen tiny embers exploded from the center of the screen, and the only time I made it to the third level, burning meteors suddenly came down from the sky and killed me. It was pretty cool.

4/5, a tough early arcade firefighting platformer with great variety and randomness