288. Raimais (Taito, Arcade (PS2), 1988)

Raimais is a maze arcade game from Taito, released in 1988, well after maze games had dwindled in popularity. I don't think a genre being unpopular ever stopped Taito, who had just 2 years earlier released Arkanoid, an updated take on the breakout genre that was met with success, so I have to wonder if that inspired them to try and update the maze game for the late 80s.

Like Arkanoid, Raimais keeps the basic experience of running away from AI pursuers while collecting dots in a 2D, single-screen, orthogonal maze, but also adds a host of powerups to give the experience some legs and help you outpace the very fast AI:

- Barrier Shield: lets you bump into one enemy to destroy them

- Lasers: allow you to fire forward, but stop working once you down an enemy ship

- Speed Down: decreases the speed of the enemies (and is by far the most useful powerup)

Unlike many early Maze games, every level in Raimais features a different map, with some playful layouts seen in previous Bubble Bobble (the 7th level is an American flag, for example). There are also additions like grey dots that you have to pass over twice before they are cleared from the screen, oil slicks that remove control for a second, and enemies that disappear and then reappear elsewhere in the level.

Every 4 levels you get a little speech-synthesized cutscene; the loose plot following a pilot of a Tron-ish light cycle as she tried to rescue her brother. You lose no progress in Raimais when continuing, even after losing all lives and starting a new credit, which helps with the high difficulty but after about 8 levels, Raimais just felt too tedious. The real nail in the coffin is that the turning just does not feel as good as Pac-Man, so the basic gameplay wears on me.

3/5, an interesting addition to the maze game canon, but too rigid and difficult