Pang series returns through Rising Star

Rising Star Games will resurrect popular arcade franchise Pang later this year.

Pang: Magical Michael for DS is due to arrive on September 17th, and marks the first entry in the series since 2000.

Pang debuted in 1989 with the original arcade game, also known as Buster Bros, and is developed by Mitchell Corporation.

The idea for Pang came from one of our first year game designers back in 1989,” Mitchell president Roy Ozaaki told MCV. "He initially created a game about splitting balloons, but only he and myself thought it could be fun.

We decided to continue anyway and completed the game for coin-op. Initially, it was not received well by distributors, but luckily it is not the distributors who decide but the cashbox. In Europe, (Germany, Italy and Spain especially), it got a big following, selling more thank any other game that year and winning the PCB Game of the Year from a German distributor. Pang sold more that year than Street Fighter, and was ported to various other formats shortly after.

Since then, we went on to create Super Pang, Pang 3 and Mighty Pang, all for coin-op and each more successful than its predecessor. I guess the reason for its success is that the game concept is easy to understand for non-gamers and challenging to gamers. Our data shows that many females like the game.

We decided to bring Pang back after receiving a lot of fan mail asking for a new Pang game. We asked Cubed3 to post a questionnaire and got very good feedback, which ultimately lead to Pang: Magical Michael.”

Rising Star’s product manager Yen Hau added: We will re-establish the IP with gamers. Pang has been out of the limelight for too long, and Magical Michael will reignite the fans’ passion.”