So I Tried... Arcade Mayhem Juanito

Each edition of So I Tried… I will try a game that I have never tried before. Will I find something new to love? Will I find something new to despise? I'll take a full hour, no matter how bad it gets or how badly I do, to see if this is the game for me. In this article, I’m looking at PC title, Arcade Mayhem Juanito

What I thought it was

Some kind of multi-genre mashup that builds a story around some classic arcade games. I can see that the kill screen from Pac-Man is represented and Space Invaders too. I didn’t look too much into this one before playing, I just liked the screenshots so from that I got the impression it’s an action adventure title, but I’m prepared to be proved to be way off with that if it turns out to be totally different!

What it actually is

Yup, I was way off. It’s essentially Pang! That’s even better though as I loved that game and the recent official release in the series, Pang Adventures, didn’t get me as excited as I hoped it would. If you don’t know Pang, it’s essentially a vertical shooter that sees you shoot at bouncing balls, which split into sequentially smaller balls until they are totally destroyed.

Whilst the core-gameplay owes a lot to Midway’s classic, Arcade Mayhem Juanito mixes things up a bit by including elements of other classic arcade titles. In my hour with the game I was staving off falling tetrominoes, dealing with a giant gorilla who totally wasn’t Donkey Kong and working my way around Arkanoid-stylebrick-breaking sections. 

Will I keep playing?

Absolutely. Arcade Mayhem Juanito is honestly more enjoyable then the game it takes its primary inspiration from and I absolutely loved it. If this was a review, we’d be looking at a very high score. It’s probably also a prime candidate for a Switch conversion although I can’t see any indication that it’s something the developer has planned. Maybe if I can convince enough people to play through this article though, I can hope? If you want to give me hope, or you just want some fun with a cool retro-inspired game, then you should grab a copy of this on Steam.