You can pick individual minigames from the menu, you can string together round robin tournaments, it’s all very easy to get going. There’s no “story mode”, per se, you just choose the number of minigames you want to play and, er, play them. The game select screen from Hyper Bishi Bashi For example, one minigame has you taking out a large totem pole by mashing the button that’s the same colour of the current bottommost segment of the pillar. A lot of attention is given to the PlayStation’s colourful face buttons – Triangle (green), Circle (red) and X (blue) replace the enormous buttons of the original coin-op releases. It’s akin to Namco’s Point Blank, in a sense, but without the lightgun element minigames are quickfire, with instructions given prior to each task, though they’re never especially complex. Well! It’s a series of truly madcap multiplayer minigame collections from Konami, comprising such joyous lunacy as competing to shake up a can of pop (only for it to blast into outer space), a rhythm-action challenge to incrementally enlarge your character’s afro until it dwarfs the entire screen, and sprint a bride down a church aisle to hurl a custard pie into her wedding congregation – who react with rapturous applause. Let’s talk about what Bishi Bashi Special actually is. To make things even more confusing, booting the game offers the choice of two titles – Super Bishi Bashi and Hyper Bishi Bashi, which are simply re-titlings of the included compilations ( Bishi Bashi Special and Bishi Bashi Special 2, respectively). So, the subject of today’s All Together Then – Bishi Bashi Special (PAL) is a compilation of two compilations.

These two releases are themselves compilations (heavy sigh) of the arcade games Bishi Bashi Champ, Super Bishi Bashi Champ and Handle Champ ( Bishi Bashi Special 1), and Hyper Bishi Bashi Champ and Gachaga Champ ( Bishi Bashi Special 2). Bishi Bashi Special is a Europe-only compilation for PlayStation 1 that comprises two Japanese compilations, 1998’s Bishi Bashi Special ’s Bishi Bashi Special 2. The retro compilation, like pop, will eat itself.

Hyper bishi bashi champ