Drop Off


Drop Off is a Breakout clone by Data East. The game was published in 1990 for the PC Engine under the title Drop Rock Hora Hora, and subsequently saw a stateside release for the TurboGrafx-16 console as Drop Off.

Gameplay

The game is a Breakout clone, where the player moves a paddle back and forth in order to destroy objects. Each stage has a set of the same object. Unlike Breakout and other comparable games, the player in Drop Off does not automatically lose a life if the paddle touches the floor and the player is never required to hit the objects in order to clear the stage. Instead, the player must avoid the series of objects that are scrolling vertically downward to move on to next stage, and the gameplay is practically identical to Cluster Buster, an earlier title on the DECO Cassette System. The player has the option of switching the direction of their paddle from vertical to horizontal during the game and is free to move the paddle anywhere on the screen.
Drop Off contains 16 stages divided in 5 rounds.

Legacy

Drop Off was re-released on Nintendo's Virtual Console in North America on July 30, 2007 and in Japan on August 28, 2007. It was released for the first time ever in Europe by Nintendo on August 3, 2007 on the Virtual Console. The publisher was G-Mode which currently owns the rights to most of Data East's video games. The game was delisted from the Virtual Console in early March 2012.