Arkanoid

Arkanoid is a 1986 Puzzle Game by Taito. It is very similar to Breakout, with the addition of powerups, enemies, multi-hit and indestructible blocks, distinct levels, and a boss at the end. These elements were quickly adopted by similar games.

Several sequels were made, such as Arkanoid: Revenge Of Doh, Arkanoid: Doh It Again, Arkanoid Returns, and Arkanoid DS.

Also, oddly, the Vaus is a DLC character in Elevator Action Deluxe.

""THE TIME AND ERA OF THIS STORY IS UNKNOWN. AFTER THE MOTHERSHIP "ARKANOID" WAS DESTROYED, A SPACECRAFT "VAUS" SCRAMBLED AWAY FROM IT. BUT ONLY TO BE TRAPPED IN SPACE WARPED BY SOMEONE........""
 * And Your Reward Is Clothes: Your reward for finishing each of the 7 main clear mode trees for the first time in the DS version is another skin for the Vaus.
 * Attract Mode: The NES version has a bug where you can continue from this and skip ahead several levels.
 * Bragging Rights Reward: Every unlockable in the DS version is purely cosmetic, including those requiring 100% completion to access.
 * Breaking Out: The Trope Codifier.
 * Eenie Meenie Miny Moai: Doh.
 * Engrish: The opening and ending.
 * Escape Pod: Vaus
 * Excuse Plot: You're a spaceship trying to escape from DIMENSION-CONTROLLING FORT DOH, by destroying blocks with a bouncing ball. Right.


 * Fun with Acronyms: The iPod Touch version finally gives DOH a meaning. It's an acronym for the Arkanoid's crew's term for the thing on account of its control of the fabric of time-space, "Dominator of Hours".
 * Generation Ship: The manual for the game's NES port explains that the Arkanoid holds the refugees from a devastated planet.
 * The Goomba: In the games that have enemies, everything except the teleporting panels that randomly move your ball to somewhere else in the level. They go down in one hit, and touching the Vaus kills them not you: Their purpose is not to inflict direct harm, only to throw your ball off trajectory. On the other hand, bosses do kill you with their attacks.
 * Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball
 * Luck-Based Mission: Playing the mid-Nineties Macintosh version on a black and white monitor? The odds were against you finding the right spot to beat Doh. True to an extent in all versions, because unless your grasp of geometry is at PhD level, you won't be able to precisely predict the trajectory of or aim the ball correctly every time.
 * Mutually Exclusive Powerups: The only way to stop some of them becoming Game Breakers - a combination of the Mega Ball and the Disruption, for example, would end any level in seconds.
 * Nintendo Hard: Missions involving mostly gold bricks tend to be this. An entire mass of them with only a few, or even a single, destructable brick is a common sight in later levels.
 * One Hundred Percent Completion: The DS version has this.
 * Poison Mushroom: The Reduce Power-Up, which would shrink the Vaus. For expert players, this could be Cursed with Awesome, since you'd get doubled points as long as it's active, and extra lives are available at certain point plateaus. However, for less expert players, and any player who sees one rolling down right where the ball is about to fall, it clearly is detrimental.
 * Power-Up Letdown: The Twin powerup, as of Arkanoid II: The Revenge of DoH. The Vaus would split into two smaller copies that would move together. It only barely increased the surface area of the Vaus, was distinctly smaller than both the Extend powerup or the Image powerup (the latter was longest, but only active while in motion), and there was a gap between the two Vaus units that the ball could fall through, costing a life.
 * The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Uranoid in the DS version.
 * A Winner Is You: The Commodore 64 version uses the standard Game Over screen in place of the ending.
 * Word Puree Title