Replicart

Overview

An upgraded version of the Arcade and mobile phone game Snake developed by Dual, published by Sony for the MSX 2 and later published again by Taito for the Famicom Disk System and PC-88. Replicart takes the basic Snake formula and transforms it, similarly to how other simple Arcade games (like Breakout to Arkanoid) were receiving contemporary make-overs for home console versions that expanded the basic concept and added plenty of extra features. In Replicart, as in Snake, the goal is to move a robotic snake in the four cardinal directions around a single screen level and collect items that will increase the snake's size. Once the snake is long enough the exit will appear and the player will be able to progress to the next level. Each level has a different smattering of obstacles that the player must avoid, which also includes any other part of the snake itself. Though originally released on the MSX 2 home computer by Sony, it was later ported by Taito to the PC-88 and Famicom Disk System. The FDS version saw the biggest differences from the original, as every ten stages includes a boss that the player's snake must chase around and shoot down before they are able to proceed. It also reduces the number of levels from 300 (in the MSX and PC-88 versions) to 100.