Elevator Action Returns

About Elevator Action Returns

Elevator Action Returns (1994) is Taito's arcade sequel to Elevator Action, swapping the spy for a three-member counter-terrorist squad with four-way scrolling, two-player co-op and lavish, gory 2D animation.

Elevator Action Returns in Depth

With an eight-way joystick and shoot and jump buttons, players must enter every red door in each stage before heading for the exit; miss one and they cannot pass a certain point. A health gauge replaces one-hit deaths, and the original's vertical scrolling gives way to four-way scrolling, with new moves and weapons, three characters and two-player co-op. Smashing bins, garbage, sandbags and crates uncovers items, and blue doors spin a roulette for health, special guns, sub-weapons or points. The default handgun has unlimited ammunition, while missile launchers and automatic weapons revert to it when empty. Melee kills score double, and pressing both buttons throws each character's explosive. As before, lifts can crush enemies above or below, oil drums explode into fire trails, and electric barriers later hurt everyone, with bonus points for enemies killed by the scenery. Lives are lost to the health gauge, the timer, falling more than two storeys or being crushed by a lift.

In the late 1990s, the counter-terrorist unit DEF takes on a terrorist group led by Red Suit. Kart Bradfield is the fastest and most agile, with a Glock and floor-clearing grenades; Edie Burret fires fastest, with a Beretta and incendiary grenades but the least health; and Jad the Taff, the strongest and slowest, carries a Desert Eagle and proximity sensor bombs and tackles enemies in his way.

Making Elevator Action Returns

Taito developed and published Elevator Action Returns for arcades, and Game Machine listed it as Japan's ninth most popular arcade game in its 1 May 1995 issue. Next Generation gave the arcade version three stars, saying it brought out "the impulsive, frenzied, shooting psychopath in you", and GameSpot's 1997 import review of the Saturn version gave it 5.2, calling it a "perfect rental" at best. Later opinion was much warmer: USgamer's Jeremy Parish called it "a game out of time" but "a lot of fun", Hardcore Gamer an "overlooked classic", and Retro Gamer's Darran Jones an "outstanding... fantastic sequel that totally blew away the original", praising its decaying, graffiti-covered buildings and "beautiful ballet of mayhem that would have made John Woo proud". IGN listed the arcade-perfect Saturn port among the best classic co-op games in 2005. It was included in Taito Legends 2 in 2006, though the PS2 and Xbox versions run at an upscaled resolution, and on the Taito Egret II Mini in 2022.